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If you have an idea and you learn how to implement it you might find yourself a single founder/creator.
You know what they say about those, right?
"What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best." -- Paul Graham, 18 mistakes, 2006.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people are good at what they're good at, so it makes no sense for them to learn something they have little interest or skill in. The typical request from a non-tech guy is not in implementing a hard engineering problem like database management or search query structure, but in putting together what is typically a glorified e-commerce site or social site (digg etc).
Just happened to read Forbes write up on Reed Hastings (Netflix) as their CEO of the year. Turns out he has an M.S. C.S. from Stanford. Jobs did some programming and soldering logic boards. Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter with Paul Allen. Zuckerberg was in Harvard C.S., I believe, and wrote the first implementation of Facebook himself. Bezos has a B.S. in C.S. and Electrical Engineering. Larry, Sergey, Jerry Yang all…
That said, if we're talking "founders," Steve Wozniak was built right in, and he's the computer guru we're looking for. Just giving the computational credit where it's due, on this one.
Firstly, programming is hard. It's not the sort of thing you pick up in a few weeks. Hell, there are people who manage to make it through a CS degree and several years in industry without actually knowing what they're doing. What makes you think it's a valuable use of your time to do something mediocre that other people have spent much of their lives learning to do well?
Secondly, good programming doesn't make a good business. It's as important (I would even say more important) to have a solid revenue model. Who are your customers? Why are they buying? How can you get more? These are questions many programmers wouldn't want to touch with a barge pole. Don't waste that symbiosis.
To me, the real message is that ideas aren't worth shit. Implementation is king. It seems like a lot of people (angry ex-startup programmers?) confuse real business people (who can contribute a lot to a team in sales & biz dev) with useless "ideas guys". If you're one of those then, y'know, stop it. You should go learn an actual skill (programming or otherwise) that will allow you to contribute to the idea's realisation.
(I should clarify, though, that I think anyone working in software should learn about programming. But encouraging business guys to write their own code is like encouraging programmers to draw their own art.)
I see a lot of "just learn to program" around here, and I think it's all a bit glib and far from reality. Firstly, programming is hard . It's not the sort of thing you pick up in a few weeks. Hell, there are people who manage to make it through a CS degree and several years in industry without actually knowing what they're doing. What makes you think it's a valuable use of your time to do something mediocre that othe…
Much like business guys can't tell good coders from bad without knowing about programming (100% agreement there), it's just as important for programmers to know about business (sales cycles, product dev, customer service, etc.)
Naaa. If you have an idea and you learn how to implement it you might find yourself a single founder/creator. You know what they say about those, right? "What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best." -- Paul…
Put another way - its like speaking a language in a foreign country - the effort and practice is quite meaningful to those who live there.
It seems that to avoid becoming a single founder we have to have the ability to reach out and speak the language of those we want to join us.
Cheerio yohs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just happened to read Forbes write up on Reed Hastings (Netflix) as their CEO of the year. Turns out he has an M.S. C.S. from Stanford. Jobs did some programming and soldering logic boards. Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter with Paul Allen. Zuckerberg was in Harvard C.S., I believe, and wrote the first implementation of Facebook himself. Bezos has a B.S. in C.S. and Electrical Engineering. Larry, Sergey, Jerry Yang all…
Well, Apple could be a counterpoint if we're just talking about current CEOs. Steve Jobs has never been revered for his electronics skills, and it seems he kind of snuck in the back door in early jobs at Atari and HP. His specialty was always sales, whether selling Apple computers or selling himself. That said, if we're talking "founders," Steve Wozniak was built right in, and he's the computer guru we're looking for…
This is a good post. I'd take it one step farther. To say the idea is nothing without the execution still (kind of) suggests that they are different things. I think that where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I wouldn't quite claim that ideas aren't worth much. I know a few academics, and they are rightly careful about sharing their ideas before they get far enough with the implementation (lab work, p…
> where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I strongly disagree with that. Although ideas and execution (i.e. software) are both "nothing more" than information, they don't have much in common. Also, ideas are refined as well as changed during execution - that is, our perception of the big picture changes as we get more information about the details. > Give two programmers the same "idea", and you'll end…
I think that is nearly true from the customer's perspective. They (most likely) don't have any information about the idea and only know what they interact with in the form of the execution.
The trouble with thinking "I have magic beans, I just need water!" is that you don't understand water. You don't know good water from bad. You don't really know how much water to use and when. You can't watch the beans grow and adjust your watering schedule because you think it's all about the beans. You don't get water. That's my problem with "I just need a programmer" entrepreneurs. I can work out how to get paid,…
More like regular beans and magic water.
The ones who end up being successful understand that they need to learn just as much about the process of software development and usability as we need to learn about their vertical. They understand that a good product is a result of give and take with your developers and analysts.
The ones who fail are the type A alpha dogs who just want you to do whatever they say because they are paying you a crap load of money per hour. They generally have the right mindset for an entrepreneur, they are trying to solve a problem they have. A couple of common problems are:
1) Everyone in their vertical may have this problem, but they assume everyone does business the same way that they do and follows the same process. They weigh down their system with too many requirements and business rules. As a result, they bury the one or two useful nuggets and end up with a product that is only suited to them.
2) They want to make some monolithic end to end solution right out the gate. They want to jump straight to being a WalMart sized franchise when they need to start as a mom and pop corner store (aka a MVP).