Awesome Mohamed! Start small, and use the free resources - try the Learn the Hard Way series. Python is a great language to start with, JavaScript is a little more difficult but you can do more things. Attend meetups too, they'll inspire you and it's nice to be able to speak to people in real life about this stuff.
Tell HN: Hello
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Re: Tell HN: Hello
#172Hi Mohamed, Good luck for your journey. It would be really exciting to know more about your journey, I hope you will have time to maintain blog or post more here :) Again, if you need any tech help, feel free to ping me at @naveensky (twitter) or email in my profile :) ATB
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#173I urge you to read this article before you decide to take the entrepreneurial plunge http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#174I urge you to read this article before you decide to take the entrepreneurial plunge http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...
This is very interesting. I don't have the pedigree mentioned in the article that, according to the article, leads one to Startup success. So, should I just give up or keep going?
"By learning to code, my desire is to get to a stage where: a. I can converse with tech people who have been at this their whole live, b. gain the proficiency to build the mvp, c. become a team member with attributable skill set when company is formed, etc. Hiring someone is inevitable down the line, but I need to create the map for him/her to paint first."
Ignore that asinine article. Don't judge your success based on whether you started a startup or not. Base it on what you wrote above: Learning to code, having technical conversations, and being a better person than you ever thought possible.
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#175MS Access - Learn it first! Why? The first few reasons that come to mind: 1) To quote a friend of mine, “If a 50 year old boilermaker can work it out, then anyone can.” 2) MS Access will more than likely be installed on your computer at work. 3) Almost all "startup" type programs will need databasing of some sort. 4) It has macros and modules (VBA - Visual Basic for Applications) 5) As you start to learn Visual Basic…
This is terrible advice! Please learn JavaScript, HTML and CSS first! I know that in some places front end is considered not as important as backend - it can be simpler but learning the basics here will allow you to create prototypes for your ideas. Best of luck - let us know how you are doing in 6 months :-)
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#176"My name is Mohamed, and I am a jail guard!" G'day, Mohamed don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job. You are much, much more than that. You work (and survive) in a Jail? That now makes you 10x better than most nerds on HN in understanding and handling people. Scan HN and the general press and you can see how badly Startups and their users are hurt by this and you'll realise this is a desirable skill.…
> That now makes you 10x better than most nerds on HN in understanding and handling people At the risk of making your point for you, as one of the "nerds on HN" I would just like to tell you to take your sweeping statements and fuck off. Or have you forgotten you're a member of this site as well, nerd.
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#177Hey Mohamed. I am interested in how someone who is not an engineer/investor/etc even came to hear about Hacker News?
This is not in any way meant to sound snarky, but I don't live under a rock. Hacker News will come to you or you will go to it when you question the trajectory of your life.
All the best to you.
[1] "If Mohammed will not go to the mountain, the mountain must come to..."
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#178This is an awesome post & I'm excited to see the support from HN. I like how you're giving yourself a solid goal and plenty of time to achieve it. Quick question - you mention that you'd like to build an MVP yourself, do you know what product you'd like to build or what market you're interested in serving?
I've just started learning the core web dev fundamentals - HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT. I am also taking a Ruby course on Udemy, and as mentioned, starting The Firehose Project in September. Two ideas so far: a. idea from my job (jail) b. ESL idea I always had even before starting the career as a jail guard.
Things change so fast, so I will see what happens when one of these ideas makes contact with customers.
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#179My daughter and I were in the same position around 18 months ago. Neither of us knew any coding, but we wanted to do a startup. I have an mba and another professional degree and wanted to do a startup, so in theory, I could have tried to find a tech cofounder, but in the end, felt I would be in a better position if I learnt to code. As usual, paul graham says it better than I can, "anyone reasonably smart can probabl…
You are amazing. Thank you for the advice. I'm mainly paying (loan..ughh) for structure really. Work is hectic sometimes, and I need that approach of having defined schedule I can commit to, or else, I am everywhere. I have read most if not all of the essays and free open sources from YC startup school. I was actually watching this - http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ - last night when I wrote my first comment. My pr…
Re: Tell HN: Hello
#180My daughter and I were in the same position around 18 months ago. Neither of us knew any coding, but we wanted to do a startup. I have an mba and another professional degree and wanted to do a startup, so in theory, I could have tried to find a tech cofounder, but in the end, felt I would be in a better position if I learnt to code. As usual, paul graham says it better than I can, "anyone reasonably smart can probabl…