

Ask HN: What one tech skillset should non-dev founders learn in 2012? - missrobot

Ruby/Rails? Python? CSS? HTML? Assumption is you can only focus your time on learning one thing.
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david927
Don't learn any of that! Non-technical founders shouldn't focus on becoming
semi-hacks. That won't really help anyone.

There are many technical founders, like me, who have interesting technology
and a unique viewpoint, but who can't package it and proposition it to the
right people.

That's what you can bring to the table:

\- Figure out who might be avid users and target them.

\- Figure out which facets of the technology shine most brightly and get the
focus on that.

There are many, many things you can do to add infinite value, but learning
Rails is not one of them.

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gharbad
If you want to learn anything on a technical level, learn about big-O bounds
on runtimes. This will give you an understanding of why some things can't
realistically be done by machines. You don't need to hack things together, but
you should be able to talk coherently with your tech founders about issues.

~~~
tsm
I find an exchange like the following hard to imagine:

Technical Cofounder: We can't realistically do <foo> because it'd have to
process a huge amount of data and it'd take way too long.

Ignorant Non-technical Cofounder: I don't believe you! You're just a dumb
programmer.

Enlightened Non-technical Cofounder: Oh, you're right. I can see that it's
O(n^2).

My advice, for what it's worth, is to find a technical cofounder you trust,
and then give him the benefit of the doubt on any features he says are
unimplementable.

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codeonfire
Learn the actual principals and practices behind engineering before forcing
the company to adopt your vision of it. Learn how not to hire non-devs or fake
devs to dev manager positions.

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MSexton
I would want someone who could explain (in non-technical terms) what all those
are, and why I would categorize them into four groups.

~~~
kerryfalk
That's actually not a bad answer, I think. Along with david927's comment this
could be setting someone down the right path.

I think it's a good answer because understanding what they are and how they
relate to each other through the stack is good knowledge to have. They're the
building blocks of everything that gets done. Not understanding that, at
minimum, is no different than having a CFO of a manufacturing company that has
no idea what SolidWorks is or why things need to be welded together (or even
what a weld is!).

I wouldn't guide people away from learning to code, unless they didn't really
want to do it. Unless you really, really want to learn, don't. You'll waste
your time and the result won't be nearly as good as spending time on something
that would be more useful.

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sagacity
I second all who recommend not going the hard-tech way.

Instead, (if the business is web-based,) I'd suggest SEO.

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gamechangr
Ruby on Rails (which includes principles of CSS/HTML).

It is a realistic target for noobs.

