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Dear Programmer, I have an idea

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Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#91

Post by SamuelMulder »

funkwyrm wrote: post #81

I have been through this a lot with a music/art interactive platform I've been working on for the past year and a half or so. My gut take on this is that programmers have the same problem musicians have; although they may be in demand, they overestimate their ability to evaluate potential enterprises. (great players have about as much trouble evaluating whether a band is worth joining as A&R people did picking winner…

Your biggest problem is probably that Objective C developers are in extremely high demand. They can make a lot of money, or if they have an interest in start-ups the barrier for entry is so low to get in the app store that they probably don't see a need to partner. Everyone has a dozen ideas for cool apps.

It sounds like you have a pretty compelling pitch, but you are pitching to a very small market with tons of competition.

Good luck!

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#92

Post by grecy »

its_so_on wrote: post #41

there's another route. break down what you want to do and you can basically get it done for free. For example: -------------- Requirements. 1. requisition an Amazon EC2 instance for me. No other steps. -------------- then a tech guy on IRC will do it for $5. Next, you want to get someone to do the following. I need a programmer to put a plain rails installation on my amazon ec2 instance. -------------- Requirements.…

> I guess you have to have some technical understanding of what's happening behind the scenes to pull this off though.

I think this is the major problem. If you have enough technical understanding to explain the problem in that much detail, you likely have enough technical understanding to do it yourself. Most of those steps you can do yourself faster than you can write out the detailed requirements for it.

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#93

Post by shuw »

its_so_on wrote: post #41

there's another route. break down what you want to do and you can basically get it done for free. For example: -------------- Requirements. 1. requisition an Amazon EC2 instance for me. No other steps. -------------- then a tech guy on IRC will do it for $5. Next, you want to get someone to do the following. I need a programmer to put a plain rails installation on my amazon ec2 instance. -------------- Requirements.…

sure, this will work if what your doing can be generated essentially off templates.

this will start breaking down when you start building components which are inter-related. every incremental change now requires understanding of the ball of spaghetti that exists.

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#94

Post by njr123 »

saurik wrote: post #56
padobson wrote: post #30

I'm always looking for a co-founder, whether I'm the geek or the suit. When a suit approaches me to be the geek for their idea, I usually give them some simple technical task to do - like setup a Tumblr or a Twitter account for the idea. Then I'll often ask for something businessy - form a C-corp for the idea or file a provisional patent. Finally, before I even consider opening my laptop to code their idea, I want so…

(Note: I am a programmer.) Being "the suit" isn't just "I have an idea", and assuming the suit must be capable of doing something technical undermines the interesting complexity that that kind of knowledge entails. Instead, imagine someone who has found a "market opportunity" (not "an idea": everyone has ideas, and assuming programmers somehow don't have enough of their own to work on is part of what makes these kind…

I love working with the sort of people you describe, but they are pretty rare, and they don't send out emails like this. I've worked with people like the OPs emailer (not because I got such an email, just because I needed a job), and its pretty much the equivalent of this:

"Hey I heard you are an experienced removalist, and I am moving house at the weekend, so maybe you could help me out? I won't be helping, or lifting anything, but I will be giving lots of advice about the best way to do things. Even though I have never moved house before, I believe my advice is valuable because I have watched a lot of episodes of Holmes on Homes"

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#95

Post by ryanmolden »

cstejerean wrote: post #77
carbocation wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire post was a satirical response to the GP comment. It was meant to show how, depending on your point of view, the same logic can be applied to either the tech or the business side and maybe even "look good" but seem unreasonable to those on the other side of the table. Not saying I am in full agreement, but it's pretty clearly the purpose of the parent comment.

I had a feeling that might be the case when I started reading about the 500 people in one day bit. The second half however, about assessing whether the future technical co-founder can actually build a prototype over a weekend, seems like reasonable advice. Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency, and if you are about to get into a venture with someone you don't know well, I think it makes sense…

>Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency

I would actually phrase it differently: programmers quite often overestimate their competency. I am not sure if it is unique to programmers or just an instance of the general inability to objectively analyze ourselves, but I do notice that the vast majority of programmers I have met (myself included :)) have a tendency to consider ourselves a smidge more capable than we actually may be from a purely objective standpoint. Then again the stretching is what grows great developers, so that overestimation that spurs you into attempting things just outside your current grasp is probably a net positive.

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#96

Post by [deleted] »

daemon13 wrote: post #44

I am surprised [may be even amazed] that these kind of articles are making it to the HN's front page on a regular basis. There are tons of people with muddy wishful thinking that can not execute even if you put the gun to their heads. This statement covers both commercial and technical side. If these people approach you, say no... unless they can offer money for your efforts. Only the minority have required knowledge…

[deleted]

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#97

Post by philhippus »

j45 wrote: post #71
its_so_on wrote: post #41

there's another route. break down what you want to do and you can basically get it done for free. For example: -------------- Requirements. 1. requisition an Amazon EC2 instance for me. No other steps. -------------- then a tech guy on IRC will do it for $5. Next, you want to get someone to do the following. I need a programmer to put a plain rails installation on my amazon ec2 instance. -------------- Requirements.…

This is a neat way of doing this, thanks for sharing! I'm going to try this out if I get the chance, any irc network in particular you found effective?

Sounds like something you could do through Odesk for about the same cost and probably more conveniently than IRC.

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#98

Post by rprasad »

VSerge wrote: post #58

I'm a non-tech founder (second startup) and I've had a hard time finding a tech co-founder. So I worked with programmers who are partners on the project, ie they get paid much less than they would in a normal gig, but they get their price cut "risk" paid several times down the road if it works. And since it's always a big if, I think this is the most genuine form of risk and revenue sharing short of being real co-fou…

That was not a rant. That was a cogent example of the usefulness of a non-tech founder.

It also sounds like you don't need a tech founder, now or in the future. You've proven adept at navigating the CTO-type skills already; you can skip ahead to hiring and managing tech employees without substantially diluting your equity on a CTO who provides little additional value.

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#99

Post by huhtenberg »

padobson wrote: post #30

I'm always looking for a co-founder, whether I'm the geek or the suit. When a suit approaches me to be the geek for their idea, I usually give them some simple technical task to do - like setup a Tumblr or a Twitter account for the idea. Then I'll often ask for something businessy - form a C-corp for the idea or file a provisional patent. Finally, before I even consider opening my laptop to code their idea, I want so…

No offense, but how many exits have you had to date?

Re: Dear Programmer, I have an idea

#100

Post by louhong »

I'll throw in my 2 cents as typical HN 'suit'. For background, I do have a technical co-founder and am working on something currently and we've been working together over a year and are on our second project.

First, I think the OP's response was perfectly acceptable. Its important as a technical co-founder to determine quickly what the "suit" can bring to the table although I do think he left out some valuable skills like marketing, user adoption, team building. He did include 'industry experience' which is critical. (edit: I also recall my co-founder then asking me situational questions like how I would market x app, who would use it, pricing, etc to see if I've thought through the process)

Second, one aspect that I see missing often is chemistry. Over the last few years I've attempted multiple projects with several different people and I can't stress how important chemistry is with your co-founder and/or team. I actually really enjoy hanging out with my co-founder and consider him a friend and we regularly hang out (with each other's families) and that kind of trust carries over to our work. Trust is something you can't quantify so for those in search of co-founders, don't just look at credentials but look at the person too.

My last thought is that although you're a 'suit' like I am, you need to make an effort. There is a general curve that says in the idea phase the majority of the workload is done by the technical co-founder. While true, I do my best to try and offset that. It gives me no joy to sit on my ass while my buddy is coding to 3am every night. How would it make you feel if you're busting your ass pitching, getting customers, and doing cust dev while they are at happy hour? So to respond to this I do my best. I've picked up basic design skills (PS/AI/FW), I've gotten his help to install ruby and learn basic HTML/CSS so I can make easy changes. I alternate every few days from doing something design centric, customer oriented (get feedback/lead gen), to thinking about our product direction.

So my take aways are: ask questions, figure out if you can work together, and make sure everyone is willing to put in the work to make it happen.

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