Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, July 1, 2007:
Friends and Family
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Today my wife was noting with me how our friends and family are really wearing on her (us). Not that we don’t all get along, we do. We get along very well in fact. What’s wearing on her is how nobody knows what the heck we do for a living.
I must admit that I expected it to be a challenge to explain to people, but it’s been far worse than I anticipated. I think if we just ran a website they could maybe get that. Say, if we sold socks online. I could show them the URL and explain how we get orders and ship socks out and that would register. It would be close enough to a normal retail store that they’d get it.
Maybe even if we sold table planning software or bingo card software they’d get that. They’ve had need of these things themselves and they could download it and play around with it. At family get togethers I could gather everyone around and show it to them and get the questions over in one swoop.
It seems though that help desk software, which is downloadable but web based doesn’t resonate as well. Not to mention that it’s primary function is to run a service desk which none of them have every worked at or even thought about. I don’t blame them, but it can be frustrating from our perspective.
It’s not an obvious problem, it’s actually very subtle. For instance, no body ever believes we’re making good money. It just doesn’t seem possible that there’s a market for this thing. So when we buy things (for instance, we’re buying a new house) we’re often greeted with questioning looks, as if to ask if we can really afford such things.
I don’t blame them, heck half the time I don’t believe it myself. It’s all so virtual, with bytes going one way and money coming the other. It doesn’t seem real to me so it must be impossible to believe for them.
There also tends to be a lot of helpful advice, like get a nice suite and go down to the business district and knock on doors. Things like that. That’s how business always has been done, so it’s impossible for those not living in our little digital world to believe that we do pretty much no advertising and no local business. For the last tax quarter I collected $100 in NY sales tax. Not much, because our customers are around the globe.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspects are when we talk about working. For instance, my wife was discussing how hard we’ve been working on the new release to a friend of hers this week. How we’ve been testing and spent all day on the computer. It actually is extremely draining and yet there’s always silence on the other end of the phone. Almost a disbelief that such things could be considered actual work. That’s also often accompanied by a lack of anything to say in return, since the amazement at it even being work sucks any other thoughts out of their mind.
It may sound like I’m ranting, but I’m really not. I just find it interesting how different a world we live in from everyone around us. It’s yet another of the stresses and challenges of starting a web based business.
Discussion
I hear you brother.
Created by Andrey Butov on 07.01.2007 9:46 pm
I know how you feel, this is one of the reasons I enjoy going to the conferences so much, you can talk to people who really understand what you do.
Created by Tony Edgecombe on 07.02.2007 4:13 am
WARNING: SMALL RANT AHEAD....PROCEED WITH CAUTION....
At least your wife understands what you do. When I did network consulting and built custom workstations my wife could see what I did and she was ok, now that I'm a developer, she dosen't get it.
After a long day, I'll tell her that I'm exhausted, she always chuckles and says, "Why? All you've done is sat in an air-conditioned office and 'played' on the computer all day. How hard can that be?".
Thats the general response from the rest of my friends and family.
I admit that programmers do often have it better than average-joe ditch-digger. But a little respect please?
GEESH!
Created by Roger Farley on 07.02.2007 11:24 am
>Maybe even if we sold table planning software or bingo card software they’d get that.
Only people who have had to do a table plan understand why it would require software. ;0)
I think most friends and family understand what I do - or are they just nodding out of politeness? Either way they have been uniformly supportive, which is a big help.
Created by andybrice on 07.02.2007 1:48 pm
My wife works in the company Roger so hopefully she has some idea what's going on 
It actually is a wicked advantage to have a S.O. who's tech savvy.
My F&F are very supportive, no problems there. I just wish they knew what I did for a living!
Created by Ian on 07.02.2007 2:08 pm
Great pst about your unusual work life. I find similar issues, but it has gotten better, as working remotely on a virtual project (like programming or web design) over the Internet are more and more common.
Still, it is hard for some folks to fathom working in any non-standard way.
My challenge is usually explaining MakaluMedia's distributed structure to clients, family and friends. I work in the US, we have a group in Germany and a group in Spain, the sysadmin is in Ireland, one of the engineers lives outside of Paris. On top of that, many of our clients are from Europe, and now Africa and Mexico to. Its a global company.
The remotness and international nature of our company is often hard for people to get their heads around.
Created by Mike Rohde on 07.03.2007 9:22 am
I have the same problems with my job and the same problems with my wife I go well with telling I do IT Consulting in the Internet area (don't dive deeper ).
On the downside I have to answer lots of "simple" questions about driving homepages for our friends. Actually it's complicated to do work that's not defined by a word and maybe that's why it's also complicated to explain.
Created by Rainer on 07.06.2007 3:05 am
"My challenge is usually explaining MakaluMedia's distributed structure to clients, family and friends. I work in the US, we have a group in Germany and a group in Spain, the sysadmin is in Ireland, one of the engineers lives outside of Paris. On top of that, many of our clients are from Europe, and now Africa and Mexico to. Its a global company."
I have the same problem. I'm in Central CA. My developers are in Baltimore, Santa Barbara and New Zealand. People just don't think of you as a real business unless you have an office full of employees someplace. I really do think that my working from home has had a negative impact on my professional credibility. It shouldn't, but it probably has.
""Why? All you've done is sat in an air-conditioned office and 'played' on the computer all day. How hard can that be?"."
Ooooh. A couple of people in my family learned the hard way not to call what I do "playing on the computer".
In one regard, I have the opposite problem from Ian. Family and friends don't seem to think that what I do is actually work, which is similar to Ian's plight. But at the same time, although I earn good money, they seem to think I make much WAY money than I really do. It's funny. As in, funny strange.
The old way of working is no longer the ONLY way of working. But many people don't seem to have caught on.
Created by Christopher Hawkins on 07.10.2007 2:26 am
Ah, good to see you haven't completely abandoned the interwebs Christopher
I do also get the way too much money thing from some of my F&F. Normally they like to call me the next Bill Gates, which I always find amusing because it would be impossible to turn this niche product into a Microsoft like company or anything even close to that scale. They seem to think that if you have a software company that magically and automatically you'll make a load of money.
Created by Ian on 07.10.2007 9:16 am
"get a nice suite and go down to the business district and knock on doors"
Yes, I get that too, singularly the most useless bit of "advice" there is!
Created by ISV Owner on 07.10.2007 5:00 pm