Pseudo repost, just because I think it is worth saying:
Our company started as one engineer. Second employee was a "business guy" - who stuck his foot in the door and kind of hired himself. Two years later, we are roughly twenty employees large (half contractors) and seven digits of revenue, largely thanks to employee #2. :) Engineers can sometimes be quick to dismiss the value of other roles (I know I have), but without the aforementioned employee, we would have no where near our current revenue (he locks down the contracts and ensures good revenue from them, two things no one else in our company is good at).
Engineers can sometimes be quick to dismiss the value of other roles
Very true and unfortunately an attitude which I've seen hold many good engineers back from career growth. Enlightenment comes when you are able to recognize that the non-technical roles are also trade crafts where the clever hacks involve constructing valuable relationships and managing perceptions, essential in every business.
Our business guy introduced himself at a meetup and said he would get us distribution deals on Wii, Xbox, Playstation, Steam. He had meetings set up with all major players within two weeks. He had equity in our company the next week. We had distribution deals a few months after that.
I don't know how that guy did it, but just do stuff.
If the programmer mentions that you're lacking in SEO, show up the next day with a plan to boost SEO rankings. Even better, show up tomorrow and show what you did to boost SEO rankings.
The easiest way to hire yourself is to just start doing stuff that is highly valuable.
The slightly less easy way is to impress somebody every time you open your mouth, and be there when they need somebody.
One way is to start showing business results, before getting hired. Go get sales for the product, figure out a way to reach potential customers and talk to them about the product.
Our company started as one engineer. Second employee was a "business guy" - who stuck his foot in the door and kind of hired himself. Two years later, we are roughly twenty employees large (half contractors) and seven digits of revenue, largely thanks to employee #2. :) Engineers can sometimes be quick to dismiss the value of other roles (I know I have), but without the aforementioned employee, we would have no where near our current revenue (he locks down the contracts and ensures good revenue from them, two things no one else in our company is good at).