Musings On Jack Of All Trades, Entrepreneurs, and Position Players

Andy has a post over at his blog which highlights how an entrepreneur distinguishes himself from MBAs and venture capitalists, the latter two types of people characterized as those that frequently suffer from a "Jack of All Trades [Master of None] Syndrome". The entrepreneur cited in Andy’s blog writes (brackets added by me for clarity):

The reality is that VCs suffer from the same problem that most MBA graduates face: “Jack of All Trades” Syndrome. Put simply, they know a little about a lot but lack real depth when it comes to a particular field. Starting a successful company [as an entrepreneur] involves solving a critical problem for a targeted group of customers. To be able to do that, you have to understand the customer extremely well, and be an expert in their interests, needs and problems.

I don’t disagree with the need as an entrepreneur to be focused on the specific problems of targeted customers. What actually struck me as a little funny though was (my perhaps incorrect) perception of a distinction between Jack of All Trades-types and entrepreneurs.

In some ways, many entrepreneurs benefit from having some Jack of All Trades skills. If one is an engineer or software developer, having some innate sales skills or knowledge of the sales process can be invaluable in testing out ideas in the field early on. Having some knowledge about finance is beneficial too, especially if looking for angel or venture money and trying to understand their concerns at a deeper level. Knowledge of marketing also helps in a bootstrap environment as one tries to figure out how to develop that magical, self-referencing customer ecosystem. Having knowledge about how other businesses are run is also very valuable.

To digress a bit, a couple of months ago a venture partner indicated that my Jack of All Trades appetite was that of a classic entrepreneur. As context, his firm was about to draw a second round of institutional money (so the firm was little bit beyond startup), and he was contemplating having me run business development. An interesting question that came up was what was my appetite was for being a position player (a person that can fill a specific role exclusively, e.g., VP of Business Development, VP of Marketing, VP of Sales). In essence, this person was saying that Jack of All Trades-types were fine for early ventures, but as the company moved out of startup mode that it needed specialists.

All said, I believe that many entrepreneurs can benefit by being a Jack of Some Trades and a master of something. Note that the utility player in the baseball world is practically extinct (but then so is the 80s Rock Drummer). And while I made a case for utility players in entrepreneurial settings, there is a strong case for the utility-types being replaced by position players down the road as a venture gets more mature. Don’t overvalue or overdiscount the Jack.