
Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself - codybrown
http://ror.kateray.net/post/1312957018/the-internet-teaches-you-ruby-on-rails
======
replicatorblog
As a "non-technical" person who has had success finding "technical" people to
work with, instead of trying to learn to code:

1\. Become a domain expert - know the problem you are trying to solve inside
and out. Know the market size, sales cycles, etc. Make connections in the
industry.

2\. Find Customers - Bring an idea, along with a 14,000 name mailing list that
you generated via blogging on the subject.

3\. Bring a design - Actually mock up a set of flows for an MVP. Show it to 20
people, and iterate on their feedback. Find out what is important so when you
do start building you build traction right away.

All of these are things that a good "Business Guy" should be able to do and
will ultimately be responsible for when they do find a cofounder. Sure, pick
up a little RoR or JS, but you aren't going to become a startup quality dev in
6-12 months (or likely more). However, in that same time you could do all of
the above many times over.

~~~
scottkrager
I agree. For the last year I've been beating myself up because I can't code,
and have tried teaching myself for years...something just doesn't click for
me.

But, I have HUGE respect for devs. I honestly am amazed at the stuff my staff
developer can do. At a certain point I just had to give and say, "Well, I just
need to make sure I can attract good developers and treat them like the
wizards that they are".

As a "non-technical" person myself, I hate when some frat-boy has a
pizza/movie delivery service "idea" and is just looking for someone to build
the website. Ughh. I never want to be that business guy.

I think that's why I love Hacker News. It gives me an insight into a world I
really respect, and I want to understand as much as I can....without actually
hacking.

~~~
jayliew
Specific to you, I think you just added value to yourself even though you
failed at trying to code because the act of trying to learn how to code itself
made you discover that it's not as easy as it looks for just anybody, and thus
make you appreciate your technical team better.

Not understanding what it takes makes it harder for non-technical people to
appreciate talent. You could use your failure here as your selling point.

Of course, now non-technical "frat-boys" here are going to wave the "I tried
and I failed" flag, but know that it's not hard for technical people to find
out if you really tried or not.

~~~
scottkrager
Yes, even though I've failed to catch on each time I've tried, I keep picking
up more and more of the concepts/lingo.

I do all the mockups and am orchestrating the product development, but the
more I learn about programming the more I learn that a single extra box on my
"mockup" can mean hours and hours on the backend.

It's so easy to do a mockup and say, "this is how it will work"...turning that
into an actual application is where the magic is.

~~~
jayliew
I've heard non-programming web designers say, "I've designed this app. Now all
I need is to have it coded up" (as though the back-end is merely icing on cake
and that the heavy lifting is already done).

disclaimer: I'm mostly a back-end person, and I appreciate how difficult it is
to not have sense of design, and I don't take good design work for granted.

------
nhashem
If you have a startup idea and you don't know how to code, learning how to
code enough to implement the idea all on your own is probably not cost-
effective from a time standpoint and you're more likely to end up with a mess
of non-functioning code than anything else.

That being said, at least to me, knowing even a layman's amount about
programming will gain _major_ points with the potential technical co-founders
you do meet.

I get approached by friends/acquaintances on a weekly basis with some startup
idea. And I mostly think, "So basically you're suggesting I spend 10 hours a
week of my free time for six months to build Facebook For Cats, while you make
some half-assed attempt to do some marketing or whatever, and if there are any
technical issues I can't even discuss them with you because it'll go over your
head, and if there are any tedious technical issues you can't even help with
those." It's pretty much a non-starter right there.

But knowing even a little bit about programming could go a long way. It means
your idea is probably a little bit better than "Facebook For Cats," because
maybe in programming you learned about some company's API and how to leverage
it. It means I can split up work and give you some of the easier programming
tasks and feel like we're putting in close to the same effort. And it means I
can tell you things like, "the service doesn't always return well-formed XML
so we should find a validator and then run it on the response before we insert
it into the database," and you'll know what I'm talking about.

It all starts with the product, and the product usually means code, and having
one and a half heads coding will usually be more productive than just one.
Learn enough to be that half a head and you'll go far.

~~~
acangiano
"Facebook For Cats does sound like a great idea. You should implement it, and
we'll split the profits 50-50. I know lots of people who love cats, and I can
really reach out to them (I own a cat myself)."

~~~
naithemilkman
sorry, catster beat you to it!

~~~
cabalamat
And catbook.

------
pavel_lishin
Stop looking for a qualified medical professional to treat your illness, just
pick up a couple of books!

Really, I don't want to discourage anyone from learning, but suggesting that
you can learn enough to launch a startup is kind of like deciding that you can
do web design because you've used Word. Some people will be able to pick it up
in a month, and some will never learn to write decent code.

There's a reason people pay me to sit and stab buttons on a keyboard.

~~~
codybrown
As a qualified professional, who would you rather have a meeting with?

a.) Someone who says they have a 'killer' startup idea but no technical
ability to execute it.

b.) Someone who has an idea and has already executed a working prototype of
that idea for you to check out.

~~~
okaramian
Are either of these individuals particularly skilled on the
marketing/monetization side?

If so I would take the one that can handle that side better.

~~~
okaramian
Why the downvote?

------
TalSafran
LEARN IT YOURSELF. IT'S NOT HARD.

I am a developer that hangs out in startup circles and I get approached
several times a week by "idea / business people" if I'm interested in joining
a venture as a technical co-founder. My answer so far has always been no.

It's very hard to convince someone that your idea is golden. Even if you do
find a co-founder, it's even harder to instill your ideology and passion into
them. You should be founding projects with people you know already, not
strangers. You don't want an employee -- you want a missionary.

Many non-technical people seem to think that developers lack creativity and
need their guidance. What gave them this illusion? The majority of great web
products came from people who could write a prototype. Do that and you'll
attract attention from developers who will want to join your project.

Writing a prototype is not rocket science, and if you'll try it, you'll also
see that programming is very fun and rewarding. Kate Ray hits the nail on the
head -- all you need is regular old hard work. I started programming when I
was 12 and it's not because I'm Doogie Howser. I just wanted to learn it, so I
did.

~~~
rue
> _IT'S NOT HARD._

YES IT IS.

~~~
TalSafran
heh. Maybe I should reiterate, this time with only a caps :)

LEARNING to program, with the goal of building a prototype or MVP to attract
interest (investors, better devs) is not hard.

Programming WELL, as in solving large technical problems, is obviously hard.
But how many founders stay on as technical leads?

Not many.

I saw Dennis Crowley (of Foursquare) speak a few weeks ago. He and Naveen
built the prototype and as soon as they generated some interest, they hired
Harry to be the dev lead so he could "fix up their crappy code."

The code for your prototype is allowed to be crappy. It probably SHOULD.

~~~
rue
Sure, many non-technical founders can pick up enough to put together some kind
of a prototype. Some will not be able to, simply lacking the disposition. No
harm trying if it does not detract from other necessary tasks.

------
Ixiaus
There is a larger issue lurking here. Becoming an excellent developer isn't an
over-night process. Tutorials will only hold your hand for so long before you
get into the woods with concepts that are over your head (unless you have a
math, systems, or compsci/engineering education); learning to _program_ and
not just _code_ is a lifelong endeavor - you gotta love it for it, not just
because you gotta do it to try building a startup.

The larger issue? The technical illiteracy of the general population. Knowing
how to point and click (and nothing else) has brought user's expectations down
to a point where they think some piece of functionality that takes them three
seconds to interact with is a one hour unit of "coding" when in fact, it's
more like days worth of thinking, typing, writing unit tests, and debugging.

My cofounder ATM _is_ handling all of the business, marketing, and customer
interaction. She only won my allegiance though because she is _technically
literate_ \- not to the point of my expertise (otherwise she would be doing it
herself) but she _does_ understand that those 40 hours I just spent last week
on writing unit tests is worth it instead of breathing down my neck about
"let's launch it in a week, this has gotta be ready to make money once it
launches, users are expecting it in a week, you just spent a whole week coding
and I don't see any changes or updates...".

Kudos to KateRay for taking the reigns; I sincerely hope she/he finds as much
joy in programming as I have and do. I also know that in the future, she/he
will be more technically literate for a _serious_ programmer to actually be
interested in working with her/him.

My only con about this post, as hinted at above, is that it makes out what we
[programmers] do to be: "yay I've read the RoR book now I can program!"

~~~
kateray
*she. appreciate the kudos

------
andrewjshults
Vin (of Yipit) has a similar blog post
([http://viniciusvacanti.com/2010/09/cant-find-a-technical-
co-...](http://viniciusvacanti.com/2010/09/cant-find-a-technical-co-founder-
do-it-yourself/)) but from the perspective of someone who actually just got
down into it and wrote the entire site. While not uniquely a NYC problem, it
was refreshing to be out in the Bay Area and not be at startup events hearing
MBAs pitch "it's like Facebook, but for dogs!"

I tell everyone that asks me about finding a technical co-founder to just
learn the basics of databases and a web language (PHP, Ruby + Rails, Python +
Django). Either 1) you'll actually learn enough to make your MVP or 2) you'll
learn enough to figure out what your product really is and what to look for in
a technical co-founder. If you don't have any clue what your technology
portion is going to look like, you aren't very attractive to technical co-
founders and those that are interested probably aren't the best fit.

~~~
bobf
I don't live in the Bay Area, but I attended Startup School and was actually
surprised by the opposite - I met many, many more non-technical people than I
would have initially expected.

------
MrFlibble
There is a good reason to find a talented technical co-founder. Just saying,
"Learn to code yourself" is in some ways akin to saying, "Don't hire a lawyer,
just go to law school."

Sure, a "can do" attitude is great, and coding is very learnable, however we
are talking about Founders starting a business for profit here, where time is
actually of the essence in many cases. A linguistic example is how one can
learn survival French in a mere 3 months, but true fluency takes years.

I think it is important to realize there are people who are amazing at doing
exactly the things you need done, and though you could learn to do it fairly
well yourself in a short enough time, why re-invent the wheel? This holds
especially true when a seasoned hacker has much more than just recently
learned skills but also has a mental roadmap of pitfalls and work-arounds from
their years of experience. No amount of study replaces years of "muscle
memory" from projects that have both succeeded and failed.

------
danilocampos
I'm nuts about user experience. I wanted to create software from a UX
perspective but I didn't have a job where I could bully people around to make
things for me. I also didn't have any friends who were programmers. Basically,
no one was going to do it for me and I didn't have cash to hire anyone.

So, about five years ago, I learned how to program.

And the really fun thing I discovered is that I enjoy programming about as
much as I enjoy creating user experience. The passions become entwined in way
that's meaningful and fun.

No matter how far you take it, understanding programming is going to pay off
if you want work in the software business, startup or not. You'll often be
able to participate in the problem solving process alongside your technical
colleagues, understand when you're being bullshitted, and maybe even prototype
things to prove your arguments.

And maybe you'll think it's fun. As long as you're comfortable taking a few
years to get there, this is great advice.

------
InclinedPlane
If you have a technical company, certainly become as familiar with that
technology as possible. However, recognize that it takes a lot of talent and
experience to become a great developer, and if you don't have it already you
are unlikely to be able to magic that up on your own just by doing a few
tutorials. The best way to acquire that skillset is to buy it, with money or
equity or both.

Edit: note that attaining a reasonable level of skill in technical matters
will pay huge dividends, especially in hiring. There are currently no
objective measures for determining developer skill. The better your
technological chops are the better you will be at determining the skill of
potential employees / co-founders. Making sure your startup is populated by
the most skilled engineers can make all the difference between success and
failure.

------
kenjackson
Why look for a technical co-founder? Why not just hire somebody to do the
technical work? Is it the upfront salary which is the issue?

~~~
imack
Employees care about their companies they way teachers feel about their
students, they care about their success and are generally enthusiastic but
that particular interaction doesn't define them and it's possible to be just
as happy somewhere else.

Founders care about their companies the way parents care about their kids.

I've seen this asymmetry cause some issues where founders don't get why their
employees aren't as enveloped in the company as they are. A respectable salary
and less than a percent of the stock doesn't get the same commitment as a
founder does.

~~~
bobf
A more concise way of saying it might be that for founders it is _a way of
life_ , for employees it is _a job_.

------
tibbon
I think its great when the 'non-technical' co-founder even knows their way
around coding a little bit. Otherwise I find you have to explain every single
thing to them and they don't have a solid grasp of the problem.

Getting to know your way around a language like Ruby isn't all that hard.

As a technical person, I run into people all day long that have 'big ideas'
which are often mashups of existing sites, "Its like Facebook for FOO", and
will never find a technical co-founder because they don't have any idea what
the scope of the real problem is, or how to distill it down to something
small, useful and graceful. Lots of ideas, but having an idea of
implementation is great too.

~~~
bobf
Equally important, a technical co-founder must be able to explain complex
technical issues in a way "regular people" can understand them. This is
dramatically more difficult than it seems. In general, I think one of the true
signs of well-rounded intelligence is being able to distill a complex idea
into a readily understandable one. Think of pg, Salman Khan (Khan Academy),
etc.

------
aycangulez
I don't want to discourage anyone, but you are practically distracting
yourself from building a product by learning how to program. Getting really
good at something takes many years of practice, and the program you write will
likely be full of problems you are ill-equipped to fix.

~~~
faramarz
I agree with this, but I think putting in the effort to learn the language or
the infrastructure enough to be able to manage a contractor or distinguish
between crap code and good code will not only serve you well in the tech
startup world but also win you accolades from your team/peers.

I strongly believe being really good at one thing means you shouldn't try to
multi-task or wear too many hats. That's counter-productive and recipe for
moderate work quality. At the same time, the early days of the startup are the
most fragile times. The business guy who speaks engineering or visa-versa will
have a huge competitive advantage.

------
aprogrammer
I hate to be a naysayer, but this often-expressed sentiment (by pg himself no
less, if memory serves) seems somewhat absurd. Perhaps I am a slow learner,
but it took me roughly 6-10 years of writing software, learning programming
languages, studying CS fundamentals, learning about libraries, APIs, network
protocols, character encodings, security and too many other things to
enumerate until I really felt comfortable in my ability as a programmer. The
first programs I ever wrote were awful; I looked at them again for the first
time in years a while back and was shocked at how bad they were. Even after
picking up a programming language or two and learning just enough other stuff
to be dangerous, my code was still crap, albeit better crap. It wasn't until
years later that I was regularly producing what I now consider to be "good
code."

The spirit of this post is admirable, but rather than producing more
successful startups it will likely only spur the unqualified but ambitious to
create nasty spaghetti-coded PHP monstrosities with gaping security holes,
which will only serve to make the public at large less trusting of web apps
and startups in general. Steve Huffman was a Real Programmer when he wrote the
first version Reddit; heck, he even used Common Lisp! ... and he also stored
user passwords in plain text. Imagine what those with even less knowledge and
skill are capable of doing.

In closing, the people here are either: a) much smarter than I am and much
faster learners; b) trying to falsely give others the impression of (a); c)
too optimistic; d) or don't remember how bad a programmer they were when they
first started.

------
kloncks
Even if you can't fully learn to code, having a non-technical founder who
understands the basics of programming is an amazing advantage.

------
charlief
How about try to code for yourself, but learn where your strengths lie. If you
hate coding, and really can't stand it with tons of navigation through way too
many odd details and abstractions, just draw the line. It is a classic case of
weighing the pros and cons.

Being aware of the basics is a huge advantage, but after some serious time
invested, don't ignore that coding really may not be for you. It is going to
take you forever to get up to speed. You may waste a lot of time and it may
become a big mess. It is more beneficial to find a technical co-founder, code
less, search more. You also may find that you're a born coder, and it is an
extremely valuable to continue going at it, keep coding.

------
frederickcook
I went to the same meetup, and also found it interesting how many questions
about non-technical co-founders there were. I'll share my story about meeting
my "technical co-founder".

I studied Engineering Mechanics for 6 and a half years, so I'm not exactly
non-technical, but when I finished and was trying to start a company, it had
been probably 6 years since I'd taken any serious programming (or taken a
programming class), and I knew nothing about web technologies. When I
originally met my now co-founder, he had an up-and-running website generating
revenue that he had started building at 16, and developed entirely on his own,
from scratch. (He stored all user data in a plaintext file until he learned
about databases.)

When I first approached him about starting a company, he gave me the same line
he still gives many others who ask him to join about being very busy with his
own projects. So, I went home and started myself. I remember coming across a
page on Wikipedia about "relational databases" and thinking "yes, this is what
I'll need." So, I downloaded some MySQL software and put together some
database architecture, then made some storyboards in PowerPoint, and came back
to him a week later. He was a little impressed, but still said he didn't
really have time to work on this.

So, I went home and bought a ROR tutorial book and built the Pragmatic
Programmer Bookstore model, then changed some colors and page titles and went
back a week later and met with the co-founder again. This time, a little more
impressed, he agreed to help me put together a really basic MVP that I could
use to pitch investors.

In the meantime, I had met with a local group of angel investors, and was
accepted to pitch, at an "angel live-fire" session at an Entrepreneurship
Summit in town. So, seeing as this thing was going to be presented to a group
of potential investors, we both had a bit more motivation to work kinda hard
on it.

Through this time, we became really good friends, and he finally became
convinced that I'm not just some random non-technical person trying to start a
company, that I'm really willing to do what it takes. So, a month later when
we were accepted to a seed program and took investment, my co-founder deferred
an internship at MS to the Fall in order to spend the summer on the startup
with me, then turned it down completely when Fall came around and things were
going really well. I've also learned a ton about development from him, and
we've put together an MVP really fast that we're rolling out in a few days.

The point of this story is that if I had accepted his "no" and not tried to do
it myself, he wouldn't have joined me, and if he hadn't joined me, we wouldn't
have had a demo to show investors, and we probably wouldn't have a startup
right now. So, "Learn to Code Yourself" doesn't mean just found a company
yourself, it means that you do whatever you have to do to start a company, and
if people see that you are that hell-bent on making progress every day,
they'll be more likely to want to join you.

~~~
barrydahlberg
Great story, it really matches up with the first point in PG's latest essay,
determination. I don't want to work for a "business" person doing a project on
the side. I want to work with someone who has this kind of infectious energy
and will get it done.

------
r0s
Jeeze, I'm doing my best here, C is hard!

I will say no single effort has been more enlightening to me regarding
computer science than trying to understand C. I highly recommend it to anyone
with any programming experience.

~~~
revoltingx
Don't tell me you're learning C first? Good luck!

~~~
r0s
After PHP and JS, which are a great introduction in my opinion.

------
bobf
In the startup world, the biggest benefit to being able to do _some_ level of
technical work seems to be being able to more quickly attract a truly high
quality technical co-founder. If you just have an idea and promise equity,
you'll have a tough time attracting top talent. If you have an an idea,
promise equity, and are willing to pay a ~market salary, you might do okay -
but the idea better be really great since your money will run out.

If you have a prototype/demo and some level of traction, you can much more
easily attract better technical talent.

~~~
pbourke
As a programmer, I would be more interested in working with a non-technical
founder who has these skills:

    
    
      - domain experience
      - a good network in the target market / sales leads
      - ability to manage customer relationships and close sales
      - good communicator
      - familiarity with software development process, even if as an outsider
    

This set of skills would balance well with mine. I don't really care about
working with highly technical founders as the second or third person at the
company - that's my role. I want to work with someone who can sell and make
sure that the product gets in front of customers.

The caveat here is that my interests lie in business systems, not in doing the
next Facebook/Twitter/4sq clone.

------
brandnewlow
People always bring up Jobs and Woz in these discussions. IRS a useful
example, but not as an example of fate or extraordinary luck. It's a great
example of one of the most common, reliable ways to find a technical
cofounder. Jobs immersed himsel in his local tech scene, where he met Woz and
started working on stuff with him. Rather than mythologized or fetishizes the
pairing, is it so strange to think Jobs might have checked everyone out,
ascertained that Woz was the best guy there, and then chose him as his guy?
Sure they became friends and all, but I think it's important to realize Jobs
made a deliberate choice when he started hanging out with Woz. He wasn't
groaning about not being able to find a dev, he went and met them all, spotted
the best guy, and started a company with him.

Jobs chose Woz. If you can't find good people and get them on board with your
plan, no web app or meetup will save you. Go out. Meet people. Choose the best
guy whose company you enjoy and make friends.

------
rokhayakebe
Better than learning how to code, learn how to build your app. That is a bit
different. If you learn how to code you will hit a wall once you start reading
about encapsulation, recursion, trees, data structures etc (all of which I
have yet to mess with).. Instead write down what your application needs to do
at different levels and learn how to do each one.

------
bond
Just did that!

Couldn't find a co-founder so I decided to learn. Took me some weeks but now,
after a few months, I'm comfortably with coding and improving where I can.
Still need to improve my javascript skills.

Still lots to learn but at least I can put out a decent app in a few weeks
time.

Should have done it years ago but I guess it's not too late to learn...

~~~
tomjen3
If you learned to program in "some weeks" you are a genius.

Just a couple of hints: don't store your users passwords, don't trust inputs
from your users and enjoy yourself.

~~~
bond
I had a CS background but didn't do any coding for about 17years so the basics
were already here...

Thanks for your tips.

------
christonog
I've said it before and I'll say it again. As a non-technical person trying to
become technical (as an intellectual exercise as well as work on my own
stuff), the simplest, yet hardest, thing to understand is "something easy"
really isn't.

You think you got a minimal feature set for your project? Think again. Cut it
in half.

I have a travel site as my personal project, and I still don't have the
ability to select the dates for when you're traveling. Sounds crazy, but it's
something that not many of my users have asked for... yet. It probably helps
that the main focus isn't about selecting dates you want to travel, however.

------
akozak
I can see though how someone would think that finding a technical co-founder
through sheer charisma is an easier route than learning to code. But usually
that's probably mostly ego.

------
ojbyrne
Stop looking for a Business Co-Founder, Learn to Sell Yourself.

------
matthewharden
I think it's important to learn how to hack, if only simply to be able to
fundamentally "follow along." I'm a big "idea" guy; and, most of my ideas have
often been internet based. Being a lawyer, it never occurred to me to learn
how to hack. This last week I started teaching myself at Google Code
University. If you're halfway intelligent, it comes pretty quickly,
particularly if you work through the practice problems.

------
starkness
It seems that there's some kind of happy medium to be struck here. If you want
to learn how to code, great, and it's something good to know if you want to
work on a startup regardless.

Yet it's unlikely you're going to master a given language within a few months,
so there may still be room to seek out someone who has had experience with it
for a long time.

tl;dr Learn how to code, but there's still a time to work with longstanding
hackers.

------
jscore
Disagree 100%.

While it's true there have been people that have been good on both sides of
the fence: coding and selling (Bill Gates)

Some people are just not technical people, and are not meant to code because
they're just more cut out to sell, market or pitch ideas to people.

One of my good friends is a person who is comfortable socializing with
clients, and is a very persuasive salesman, but he is not a coder; never was
and never will be.

------
daviday
puts 'What do you need to build your startup?' reply = gets.chomp while reply
== 'a technical co-founder' puts 'learn to code yourself, bitch' end

That's kinda what I was hearing lurking around HN for the past 6 months. I've
never written a line of code in my life but 3 weeks ago I stopped looking
aimlessly for someone with skills, and I'm back to the drawing board learning
Ruby. Of course, I'll almost surely still need a technical co-founder in 6-10
months. But I'll be in a better position to see if he's good and I'll
understand what he's doing. Also, I'm meeting lots of programmers this way. If
all I get out of these 2/3h per day is a great co-founder, it'll be very well
worth it.

As a noob, I find the stuff suggested on the post a tad intimidating. It was
good for me that my first contact with ruby was the very soft
<http://tryruby.org/> and the second one was Chris Pine's book
<http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=00>

------
jiganti
This totally depends on the person's situation. If you have an idea and can
help the project financially, you are likely better off getting a technical
cofounder. But if you just have a supposedly great idea and nothing else to
bring to the table, either the idea has to be unbelievably good, or you need
to start learning how to code yourself.

------
adw
It's about empathy.

Works both ways, too. If you don't know enough finance to understand a
cashflow model or enough about writing to appreciate how to craft a pitch (or
put together an effective landing page - whichever matters for your business),
then you aren't a founder, you're an employee with a fancy title.

This is a high bar, but foundin' ain't easy.

------
LabSlice
Would you tell a techie that they can teach themselves to be a business guru
for a startup? Each person has their own skills and should use those as best
as they can, and work with someone complimentary to assist with the stuff they
just aren't good at doing.

Simon@LabSlice

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naithemilkman
I've been thinking about this for a long time too. One of the questions Im
sure other people in a similar boat would ask is: which programming language?

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matthewharden
Many of the languages can ultimately produce the same result. If you look at
Google, facebook, and twitter, they all use different languages.

One that kept popping up often in my search was "Python." Consensus was that
it was pretty user friendly. Plus, the guys at Dropbox built their application
with it...if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. I say, just
pick one and get started.

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terra_t
stop looking for a non-technical co-founder, learn to sell yourself ;-)

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revoltingx
Personally, I find no use in people with just ideas. Not even if they have
drafted their site down to the T.

This is because I'm at an advantage. I can easily learn and do whatever it is
they know and do. Things such as marketing, refining the UI, feature ideas,
user interaction, etc. These are things that are MUCH easier to do and learn
than programming.

I would not start a company with anyone who wasn't an EXCEPTIONAL programmer.
No, a weekend programmer will not do. Honestly, you'd have either provide
funds, or something of extremely high value for you to receive equal ownership
of any company I spend my valuable time and work on.

The only time I would recommend you spend your time learning how to program is
if your roadmap includes hiring programmers better than you to improve or redo
the code. You'd have to build the prototype yourself, get funds, hire good
programmers and take off from there.

Other than that, I wouldn't automatically join your project, even with a
prototype.

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rfrey
A rewrite:

"Personally, I find no use in people with simple technical skills. Not even if
they can program a time machine into a Commodore 64."

"This is because I'm at an advantage. I can easily learn or hire whatever
technical skills they have. Things such as coding, databases, server
architectures are trade skills and basically a commodity. These mechanical
skills are MUCH easier to do or find than imagining a valuable product,
finding a market and customers, selling the product, and building a business."

Etc, etc. Undervaluing the contributions of other fields such as sales or
marketing is the mark of someone with little real-world battle scars,
regardless of the direction of the contempt vector.

Unless this was satire, in which case Bravo.

~~~
revoltingx
Sorry to burst your bubble, but ideas people are generally useless.

I'm not 'undervaluing' the skill I'm simply weighing them and engineers win.

'the mark of someone with little real-world battle scars....'

The opposite is more true with engineers, we hate it when we are shown
products by people without the 'battle' scars to properly gauge the value of a
project.

Like I said, I can more easily learn those lessons than they can learn to
program.

I, as a 'technical' person find absolutely no value on someone who doesn't
understand the deep technical implications of any project. As a team we'll
learn the marketing. In the end, we can outmaneuver any silly person with just
ideas that delegates them.

BTW, this is my opinion. Not to say it won't work, that's just how we
'technical' people see ideas people.

