Are you a nice to have or a must have? | Hacker News Reader

Are you a nice to have or a must have?

yannickoswald.com

44 pointsdom_fr10 comments

Tell me if this doesn't make sense: In the jobs I've had, if you stick around long enough, I always see an arc, from the heady growth days where I inevitably get hired, where there is lots of enthusiasm and investment, and you get to do cool stuff and not worry about money. To the belt tightening and demanding results and "welcome to the real world". Personally, I think there is an upside in staying on the leading edge of this, and going where there is optimism and investment. (A second interesting area I know little about would be coming in as a fixed after things go bad).

So all that to say, being a nice-to-have, if you can consistently find places where you are nice to have, might still be better than being essential somewhere. And so likewise with products, potentially, better to be a shiny object than a commodity, if you can remain shiny

Makes total sense to me. I was a 'must have' at my previous job, I was the only developer left who understood all the phone systems that were the backbone of our department (we built software supporting a health payer call center).

They never laid me off despite several layoff rounds, and I got to just inherit more and more responsibilities and stress while my salary and title was frozen, and they kept taking away more and more benefits to save money. Eventually when my personal life got a little less chaotic, I finally bounced for a significant raise (about 60% increase) at a company that's was growing fast and there was lots of enthusiasm and investment.

Boss's boss tried desperately to convince me to stay, but I was done and his corporate bosses didn't give him enough budget to let him match the raise I got, let alone the 100%+ raise it would have taken me to stay in the place I was sick of even longer.

Now a couple years later and things are starting to slow down a bit at my current job, they're starting to raise alarm bells about upcoming recessions, probably prepping people for a layoff but not yet. So it may be time to try to find a place that's still growing (although that might be a bit harder right now, seems like most places are currently axing people... maybe time to switch to A.I. since that's got a lot of excitement (and trepidation) behind its advances recently?

It does make sense. Except economic cycles are almost never local especially with globalization. So timing could be an issue.

I've seen so many otherwise very smart founders who drink their own kool-aid and baselessly convince themselves that not only they are a must-have, but the world is completely doomed without them. What complicates this is, you can't reason with them (seen as attack on their ego), and these questions usually come up when it's too early for robust sales numbers, because if you have robust sales, then who cares? you already found your fit and don't need to read articles like this.

Larry page had a better way of framing the same idea: "the toothbrush test". He'd ask "Is this something you will use once or twice a day, and does it make your life better?"

> you simply have to check if people keep buying even with budgets down

Truth. So easy to confuse vitamins with painkillers especially early in product discovery/development. But cash is the ultimate validation.

Ironically vitamin supplements are unnecessary for most people who take them, whereas some minimum level of intake is essential. So the quantity of the thing matters. Excess amounts are nice to have, while a basic minimum is essential.

That's a good point. I think the article highlights an important constraint, which is limited budget. Given a choice between painkiller and vitamin, in a downturn, I think most spend will go to painkillers, but some will remain for (essential) vitamins.

Are there must haves? Would there be a particularly big deal if the earth exploded tomorrow and nobody survived?

Every must have is a nice to have predicated on something else existing and functioning.

This is needlessly pedantic. The point is that people need their wifi, their phone/data, food housing and utilities, that sort of thing. Companies like netflix, uber, etc. are all niceties that people will stop paying for when money gets tight because they're not necessary. The fact that the earth could explode and the universe wouldn't end because my house stopped getting water doesn't mean that I don't need that water, not in any useful sense of the word at least

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