I don't know how you can find a good hacker, because there is no way for you to judge one. That aside, your best bet is to offer a lot of equity in the startup. More than half of the company. Your biggest selling point is that you will take care of all the stuff that annoys hackers - designing UI screens, marketing, face time with real users. If your idea is good, you offer more than 50% equity, and take care of the non technical work, you are providing a pretty good deal.
What you have to remember is that, as a non-hacker, you should feel lucky to be in the game at all. There are only two things startups REALLY need - money and hackers. If you don't bring one of those items, it's hard to make a case for being the major stakeholder.
I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
21–30 of 104 posts
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#22This is a bit like saying "I have a great idea for a painting. Will you paint it for me, and then give me half the money you get from selling it?"
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#23Get an NDA with anyone you work with. "Ideas are easy, execution is hard" is a cop-out excuse by people who don't have any patentable worthwhile ideas of their own!
ideas aren't patentable
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#24Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#25Plan out exactly what you want for the web app on paper, and be as precise and consistent as possible.
Then pick a language and set up a development environment. (A difficult step to get past, but you might be able to get someone to help you do this for free)
Then start reading tutorials and doing practice examples.
Once you have a feel for how to get a basic app up and running, go back to the specs you wrote earlier and identify some subset that you want to implement.
Begin implementing your idea until you get stuck. When you get stuck, research the language tools you need to get unstuck. If you find yourself hopelessly lost, either pick a different subset of your app to work on, or go back to reading textbooks, tutorials, and forums until you better understand the concepts.
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#26Get an NDA with anyone you work with. "Ideas are easy, execution is hard" is a cop-out excuse by people who don't have any patentable worthwhile ideas of their own!
ideas aren't patentable
In the theoretical law where statute is obeyed and Supreme Court precedents are followed, you're absolutely right. For the actual law that happens to you when you go to court, you should consult a lawyer.
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#27It might turn out it's not such a great idea at the current time after all because as a non-programmer you think too vaguely and declaratively. This isn't anything personal about you, it's just human nature.
Writing code forces you to think precisely and consider practicalities that are otherwise hidden from you as a user.
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#28The fact that you don't know programming is no big deal. Being a programmer for over 12 years and looking forward to my next startup, what I can tell you is that ideas do matter.
Consider this.The same amount of time that Google spend building a billion dollar startup is what a two bit outfit spends generating a million dollars.
Or another that goes belly up.
In other words ideas and execution equally matter. Maybe execution is a little more important. That's why Oracle dominates database software although initially there were multiple database startups (same idea).
A recent survey of forbes billionaires confirmed this. Many of them picked ideas over execution others picked execution.It all depends on the situation.
In any case, you can try building a prototype by using freelance sites such as guru.com or elance and then see what response you get from your target customers.
I think it is important to get feedback from would be paying customers. If it is positive then go for it.
-Augustus
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#29If you're not planning on paying, and want to create a team, you'd better learn how to program. I was in your same position several months ago. I tried looking for programmers, and those that I found were turned off by the fact that I had no programming knowledge/experience. So, I got fed up and decided to learn how to program. I started with Python, dabbled in some SQL, and am currently trying to refine my Django sk…
Are there books you suggest i read, or tutorials to start with?
Even though getting started with PHP and MySQL is easy, please avoid the temptation as it will brain-damage you in ways that will take a long time to recover from.
Re: I have a great idea for a webapp, but hardly any programming knowledge. What should i do?
#30Well, you should find someone to execute on it. A good first step would be posting it somewhere where hackers are known to roam so that you can get feedback and find potential partners. Like here, for example.
It's hard, because you don't want to just let you plan out there in the open and have someone take it right out from under you.
Very few good ideas are actually stolen. Why is yours potentially one of the exceptions?