Ask HN: Many Ideas but No "Hacking" Skills

I see many people posting here asking about ideas. Also, I see many new startups that are ONLY geared toward TechCrunch RSS subscribers.

I'm in the other end of the spectrum, after graduating w/ BSEE I been working in "real world" for couple of years. I see many simple apps that would would greatly benefit users in my industry and many other "real world" ideas.

So, I been trying to learn programming to build these apps (simple commenting/ratings). I been learning PHP/MySQL (mostly from w3schools) but in 6 months I went from a beginner to low-intermediate. I simply gave up because it takes me weeks to write something, that an expert can in hours.

What should I do:

1) keep on learning and do it by myself (not very reasonable)?

2) Hire contractors? (how do i begin? how much to pay?)

3) Apply to YC? (how realistic is it, if i only bring ideas and real world experience)

4) Any of you guys want to partner up? (How would we breakup ownership?)

I think learning how to program is the way forward for several reasons.

- If nothing else you'll learn more about how it works, what can and can't be done, etc.

- It'll make you a better manager

- It shows that you have commitment.

But basically it's simply about looking at one problem at a time, seeing how you might solve it, and then moving on to the next one. It seems as if you've chosen to try and grok programming, and have made some progress, but not quite enough. That's good. If you're doing something you're doing more than most people. Now you can move on and try to find a partner or contractor, and they'll be able to see that you've actually tried. you're not just a dreamer with a million dollar idea. That'll give you some credibility.

I just wrote a blogpost about this that might be of interest to you: http://www.maximise.dk/blog/2009/08/dreamers-and-doers.html

And hey, don't give up :-)

This seems the eternal problem for anyone wanting to break the ice and get onto the hacker wagon. I've been isolated for years trying to build up my hacker credentials, until I eventually gave up. What coding I could learn was taken from books, hacked around shoddy equipment and bounced off the wall for a few weeks, before finally getting some feedback from irc or various forums. The problem was never having a mentor, someone who could say "you know what, you suck at C, why not try something with a more robust framework" or "you're right struts is a piece of shit, but industry like these things".... unfortunately I've found that this type of thing is less than forth coming. I thought I would have found something at uni, but I didn't have the time to take part in what little I could find, so focused on things I could get support for. Now, I've returned to me hometown and isolation is very much more oppressive than I remember and I'm a little ashamed of not making more from the opportunities afforded in the city.

I don't know what to say, I love online learning, and really try to make the most of open source communities and irc, but I've always found it a bit... "Glass Bead Games"?

1. You should pick up a MVC framework (Rails, is what I'd recommend). After learning something like that you can pump out your "ideas" fairly quickly as compared to simple PHP + MySQL. I'd say it's easier too, to learn from scratch, but maybe that's just me.

2. Most hackers don't respect those founders that don't throw down code. Your best bet is to be ready to get dirty and throw down.

Crawl, walk, run. Everything takes time. Bonus points for reaching out for help; it's an important step that a lot of people don't take advantage of.

It's easy to see some of the cool apps and want to jump from Hello World to a production system, but programming, to me, has always been about incremental improvement and refinement. If you're having problems with more complex parts, try doing some research into what other people have contributed to the problem domain. Also, things like Yahoo pipes and other tools can help take some of the boilerplate burden off.

If you want it, keep at it. You'll learn a lot, probably make some new friends, and the community will be better for it. Best of luck.