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Why You Don't Need A Programmer

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Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#21

Post by jordanb »

tomjen3 wrote: post #16
amishforkfight wrote: post #4

Why do the technical people always seem to get the short end of the stick? I have people approaching me on a monthly basis with their 'great idea' and 'all I need is someone to code it', and compensation varies from 'money when it gets big' all the way up to a very enticing 20% equity. After working on a few of these I now ask for cash up front, no equity. I have plenty of my own ideas and not enough time to work on…

Heck as far as I can see I can't see the value of the business person at all, except for whatever connections he has. Now I am biased, but why would one go into a partnership with a business person in the first place.

Yeah. I think a business founder looking for free tech work has already failed the first test as a businessman: He hasn't been able to raise the $40k-$80k in seed funding needed to build an MVP.

If he can't convince a guy who doles out capital for a living to give him a tiny bit of it, why should he expect a programmer to front him that value in highly skilled labor?

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#22

Post by Jabbles »

lukeholder wrote: post #2

This puts into words very clearly my feelings and experience. I have a friend (very smart) who graduated top of class MBA. He has a 'co-founder' with him working on their idea who is also an MBA. They are looking for a coder, and offered %5-%10 stake in the company for virtually building the whole app and everything with no salary. Completely warped view of an app/online service startup. Of course they would have eve…

Is that the going rate for a job that has a high likelihood of not existing in a year's time?

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#23

Post by SatvikBeri »

_3u10 wrote: post #11

If someone hires me to write something for them I write that for them, if they ask me for advice I give them advice. I don't get into arguments about how their idea won't work, or call them 'stupid', I charge them my rate for the work they ask me to do and I thank them when they pay me. You think the guys at the general store in 1849 told the gold prospectors that they were stupid and would lose their money? Or do yo…

That's not the point of the post. The OP is saying that a lot of would-be entrepreneurs are vastly underestimating the amount of work involved in creating the actual software, and that the would-be entrepreneurs need a technical cofounder rather than an employed programmer.

To use your analogy, this would be more like the store owners telling the prospectors, correctly, that they would also need to find legal help to protect any land they found, security to keep them from getting mugged, etc.

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#25

Post by Katelyn »

I don't mean to discredit the content of this post, but is anyone else tired of this argument circling around HN like a windmill? (Why you need a technical X to launch your idea). If the title of this post were (perhaps more appropriately) titled "Why you need a Technical co-Founder," I don't think this would have gotten any eyeballs.

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#26

Post by georgemcbay »

DanBC wrote: post #17
tomjen3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck as far as I can see I can't see the value of the business person at all, except for whatever connections he has. Now I am biased, but why would one go into a partnership with a business person in the first place.

> Now I am biased, but why would one go into a partnership with a business person in the first place. Because they know the bureaucracy and can get on with handling the paperwork and legal admin while you get on and do the actual work?

If they do actually know how to handle the business end, then they are in fact valuable, but that is assuming much.

A lot of the "business-side" cofounders you run into in the real world are just glorified "idea men", willing to "generously" cut you in on 5% if you just code up their "Facebook, but for Cats" site they've been thinking about for the past year.

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#27

Post by etherael »

SatvikBeri wrote: post #23
_3u10 wrote: post #11

If someone hires me to write something for them I write that for them, if they ask me for advice I give them advice. I don't get into arguments about how their idea won't work, or call them 'stupid', I charge them my rate for the work they ask me to do and I thank them when they pay me. You think the guys at the general store in 1849 told the gold prospectors that they were stupid and would lose their money? Or do yo…

That's not the point of the post. The OP is saying that a lot of would-be entrepreneurs are vastly underestimating the amount of work involved in creating the actual software, and that the would-be entrepreneurs need a technical cofounder rather than an employed programmer. To use your analogy, this would be more like the store owners telling the prospectors, correctly, that they would also need to find legal help to…

I think OP's point to this is that doing that would not be a good business move. I don't believe that in the canonical scenario simply telling the party in question that things are much more complicated than they can possibly imagine and expecting them to accept that is realistic.

I have been a part of projects where first day in discussing the basics of the project the entrepreneur in question has the design "95% complete" which then after the first four hours fluctuates somewhere between 0-20% complete. And all these numbers may as well be randomly chosen for how much of a relation to reality they have at any rate.

Sell them the picks and tents, let them figure it out themselves. When they come back to you with their problems and ask for advice they will finally actually be listening to reason without thinking that their individual case is an exception to the rules and you're just trying to drain their precious equity.

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#28

Post by bomatson »

tomjen3 wrote: post #16
amishforkfight wrote: post #4

Why do the technical people always seem to get the short end of the stick? I have people approaching me on a monthly basis with their 'great idea' and 'all I need is someone to code it', and compensation varies from 'money when it gets big' all the way up to a very enticing 20% equity. After working on a few of these I now ask for cash up front, no equity. I have plenty of my own ideas and not enough time to work on…

Heck as far as I can see I can't see the value of the business person at all, except for whatever connections he has. Now I am biased, but why would one go into a partnership with a business person in the first place.

Aside from connections, any partner who can help you get to market faster with $ from real customers is going to be worth it.

Obviously there's a lot of BS "biz" folks. A good barometer is if they have taken the time to learn the skills needed to get their own ideas to market (coding, design, w/e)

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#29

Post by vecter »

Katelyn wrote: post #25

I don't mean to discredit the content of this post, but is anyone else tired of this argument circling around HN like a windmill? (Why you need a technical X to launch your idea). If the title of this post were (perhaps more appropriately) titled "Why you need a Technical co-Founder," I don't think this would have gotten any eyeballs.

When I first clicked this article, I thought it was going to be linkbait. I was surprised to find that he concisely and accurately expressed what I'd been unable to for the past few years: that non-technical founders shouldn't look for "programmers", they should look for "technical cofounders". This is after reading many articles on HN stating the exact same point, just less to the point. I'm slightly embarrassed because people sometimes come to me asking for a "programmer" reference, but I've never able to concisely tell them what why their question was wrong to begin with. The way he phrases the problem captures almost all of the talking points, and it's the phrase I'm going to use going forward.

Re: Why You Don't Need A Programmer

#30

Post by [deleted] »

Katelyn wrote: post #25

I don't mean to discredit the content of this post, but is anyone else tired of this argument circling around HN like a windmill? (Why you need a technical X to launch your idea). If the title of this post were (perhaps more appropriately) titled "Why you need a Technical co-Founder," I don't think this would have gotten any eyeballs.

[deleted]
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