31–40 of 86 posts
Simon@LabSlice
LEARN IT YOURSELF. IT'S NOT HARD. I am a developer that hangs out in startup circles and I get approached several times a week by "idea / business people" if I'm interested in joining a venture as a technical co-founder. My answer so far has always been no. It's very hard to convince someone that your idea is golden. Even if you do find a co-founder, it's even harder to instill your ideology and passion into them. Yo…
If you are a non-techie founder, then yes, you probably can do it, but you should not. There have got to be a zillion other things that you should be doing -- raising funding, talking to potential users, researching the space, finding employees, finding office space, and yes, finding a tech co-founder. I've been a tech co-founder a few times. If you can't convince me -- someone who wants to be working for a successfu…
Couldn't find a co-founder so I decided to learn. Took me some weeks but now, after a few months, I'm comfortably with coding and improving where I can. Still need to improve my javascript skills.
Still lots to learn but at least I can put out a decent app in a few weeks time.
Should have done it years ago but I guess it's not too late to learn...
While it's true there have been people that have been good on both sides of the fence: coding and selling (Bill Gates)
Some people are just not technical people, and are not meant to code because they're just more cut out to sell, market or pitch ideas to people.
One of my good friends is a person who is comfortable socializing with clients, and is a very persuasive salesman, but he is not a coder; never was and never will be.
LEARN IT YOURSELF. IT'S NOT HARD. I am a developer that hangs out in startup circles and I get approached several times a week by "idea / business people" if I'm interested in joining a venture as a technical co-founder. My answer so far has always been no. It's very hard to convince someone that your idea is golden. Even if you do find a co-founder, it's even harder to instill your ideology and passion into them. Yo…
Coding takes an immense about of focus, mental energy, and perseverance. You have to love solving problems. Sure, you can teach yourself basic if/else statements. But there's a threshold when coding becomes extremely difficult, especially when it comes to complex algorithms and mathematics.
If you have a startup idea and you don't know how to code, learning how to code enough to implement the idea all on your own is probably not cost-effective from a time standpoint and you're more likely to end up with a mess of non-functioning code than anything else. That being said, at least to me, knowing even a layman's amount about programming will gain major points with the potential technical co-founders you do…
Really, I don't want to discourage anyone from learning, but suggesting that you can learn enough to launch a startup is kind of like deciding that you can do web design because you've used Word. Some people will be able to pick it up in a month, and some will never learn to write decent code.
There's a reason people pay me to sit and stab buttons on a keyboard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a non-techie founder, then yes, you probably can do it, but you should not. There have got to be a zillion other things that you should be doing -- raising funding, talking to potential users, researching the space, finding employees, finding office space, and yes, finding a tech co-founder. I've been a tech co-founder a few times. If you can't convince me -- someone who wants to be working for a successfu…
For a web startup, why would you look for an office and employees before having a product?
Do things in whatever order you'd like, but I have a hard time believing that time spent learning to program, starting from zero, is an effective use of an entrepreneur's time.
Yet it's unlikely you're going to master a given language within a few months, so there may still be room to seek out someone who has had experience with it for a long time.
tl;dr Learn how to code, but there's still a time to work with longstanding hackers.
Just did that! Couldn't find a co-founder so I decided to learn. Took me some weeks but now, after a few months, I'm comfortably with coding and improving where I can. Still need to improve my javascript skills. Still lots to learn but at least I can put out a decent app in a few weeks time. Should have done it years ago but I guess it's not too late to learn...
Just a couple of hints: don't store your users passwords, don't trust inputs from your users and enjoy yourself.