
Ask HN: Can I join a startup- advice for a non-coder?   - olegious
Here’s my dilemma: I’m new to the tech industry and dream to work on an idea from its early stages. I’m not a coder (although I can understand code) but have great people skills- I communicate well, can make friends easily, have no problems networking, I can manage people, organize projects, have many business ideas (yeah, I know ideas are nothing without execution, but it’s still good to have them), have good marketing skills and a excellent business sense and can do a great job of selling products/ideas that I’m passionate about.  While I know enough Java, PHP, SQL to be dangerous, I don’t really have a desire (or maybe ability?) to be a hotshot coder.<p>My educational background is an MS in IT, a conversion degree focused on project management, web development, DB management and similar subjects, with a BS in Finance and a year of law school.  In February I got my first tech job, as a QA for a 100 person company- I chose a QA position for several reasons: 1. it was what was available and student loan payments were due and 2. It is a good way to see a tech company from many sides (I interact with devs, product and marketing on a daily basis).  I’m doing well- learning quickly, receiving excellent reviews and taking on more and more responsibilities.<p>My strategy is focused on learning more about the industry while networking and launching my own non-tech business to get some entrepreneurial experience and hands on practice.  I’ve been building a base of contacts by attending various Meetup events as well as co-organizing and hosting ad publisher’s meetup (meetup.com/sfadpub).  I’m working with some friends to launch a t-shirt company; we’re about 2 months from going “live.”  The hope is to build enough knowledge and contacts to be able to take advantage of an opportunity when one comes up.<p>Is there more that I should be doing?  Should I bite the bullet and focus on improving my coding abilities (at the expense of my networking activities and the time I spend learning about marketing, business development and other areas that are my strengths)?  Do ideas/companies in the very early stages even need someone like me?<p>Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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BTBurke
This site tilts heavily towards the devs, but there are definitely skills that
you can develop to make yourself valuable for a startup without being a
technical guy. #1 -- pick an industry you are passionate about and network,
get a job in a major company in the space, learn the ins/outs of the industry,
etc. Then you can either start your own biz or you'll be a valuable resource
for a tech company looking to break in and needs domain knowledge and
contacts.

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il
I'm in a similar position. I know enough about coding to hack together basic
scripts and manage a tech project, but my main interests and skills lie in
marketing and business stuff.

If I were you, I would focus completely on marketing/sales. If you can
demonstrate that you know how to drive traffic and convert it into customers,
that can be an incredibly valuable asset to an early stage startup.

I've landed several lucrative consulting gigs working for cool startups who
had lots of brilliant coders but had no idea how to get customers. Startups,
especially those with only tech cofounders usually have no shortage of
engineering talent, especially if the application they are building is
relatively simple. But they have a huge shortage of marketing/bizdev talent,
and that's where you come in.

Email me (email in profile) if you want to talk more, there are a lot of
opportunities out there for people like you and me if you know where to look.

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dmor
I definitely suggest you attend Startup Weekend, because you can use it to try
on different roles without fully committing to a startup. The fact that you
can understand code and technical issues, without being a developer yourself,
positions you really well in my opinion. If you want to be really early,
consider being founder. If not, a role like community manager (1st marketing
person often) could be a great fit for you... that usually includes customer
service, sales, marketing, and a lot of the non-technical jobs rolled into
one. You can decide where to focus later.

I've done it 2x now (Pelago, Twilio) and it's possible. Like everyone in the
startup, you mostly have to be crazy dedicated to working hard/smart as
needed, and build amazing trust with your team.

~~~
olegious
Thanks for pointing me to Startup Weekend, sounds like a great event-it seems
the SF Bay Area weekend was in August- how often do they hold these weekends?

~~~
garrettgillas
I've done two now (Redmond & Portland) and I would highly recommend going to
one if your just starting to get involved in startups. I learned an incredible
amount at my first one.

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garrettgillas
I would say try to go with sales if you can. I'm one of those developers that
believes that non-technical people don't belong anywhere near management in
tech companies. This means that I'm biased, but definitely not alone in this
belief. Also, by technical people, I mean people that are regularly actively
involved in the development of the code.

Hoverer, if you feel that you have a decent "network" in the local tech
community, I would also advise just asking people you trust there for advice.
They would know you better than anyone here and could give you more
personalized, in-depth feedback.

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iuguy
Ignore anyone telling you you're not going to be able to offer something
unless you can code. Think about the type of business opportunity you want to
get involved with and use your networking skills to get you there.

For example, I'm co-owner of a consulting firm that provides b2b services. The
right person with the right connections in the right industries for us is
infinitely more valuable than a coder. Had you popped up on day one with those
qualities, you'd be in on the sales side.

You look like you may be well geared up to program/project management. That's
not a day 0 job but certainly something that some people might want in order
to move from minimum viable product to something more filled out. There was an
excellent article here yesterday about scaling (sorry, can't find the link),
maybe that's something you could look at being 'that guy' that helps take a
company from 2 to 20.

~~~
olegious
is this the article you're referring to?
[http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2010/09/data-
synerg...](http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2010/09/data-synergy-
scaling-information-companies.html)

~~~
iuguy
No it isn't, sorry - but interesting find anyway!

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thinkcomp
It sounds like you could do well in sales (software companies typically only
have two substantial departments: engineering and sales), or if you come up
with a good enough idea, you could probably run your own startup.

Feel free to send me an e-mail (see my profile) if you'd like to talk more.

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onwardly
It sounds like you want to get in early on a startup, and if you're not a
developer the only guaranteed way is to be a founder.

If you can handle the risks, being a founder coincidentally also has benefit
of increased responsibility, greater control, and more equity. Nice bonuses in
my opinion.

Learn by doing!

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lachyg
Hey man,

So I'd consider myself having a very similar skillset. Same sorts of
interests, etc. What I basically do, is learn a few things to keep me going
with money (I launched iPadCaseFinder.com, sold that 2 months later for $x,xxx
-- and I've done this with a few different products).

I'm basically just using that to fund my ideas, like you, I have a lot of
ideas. Find a designer, find a programmer, map it all out, get your informal
marketing plan done. Talk to people, get them fired up, have a basecamp going
to track everything.

You can be a single founder, you can get something so great, that techies WANT
too be a part of.

But hey, maybe not the path you want to take ;-)

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JeffL
Sure. I know I certainly need someone like you for my start up to help launch
version 2 when it's finished. I admit, I've been too passive in searching out
the right person because I fear it's too easy to get someone who isn't good.
While I think I can tell pretty well who is a good programmer, I really have
no confidence in determining if someone is a good marketing/bizdev guy.

~~~
il
Haha, let's interview each other's candidates. I can easily determine whether
someone is talented at marketing or just BSing but I have trouble identifying
the truly excellent programmers vs talentless hacks who are just regurgitating
what they learned in intro CS.

By the way, cool startup. Get in touch if you have any questions about
marketing it, I used to do pretty decent volume promoting a browser-based
space MMO.

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dh
I would focus on the marketing and project management side and use your other
skills to help you. While coders/developers are very valuable to tech startups
there is just a valuable position in project and product management which
requires a blend of skills. The ability to talk to developers, do some basic
marketing and design and then manage a product from start to finish.

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ronzensci
IMHO you don't need to actually do coding to build a great web-app anymore.
These days with the kind of tools and frameworks (springsource.com,
jquery.com) and CMSs (refinerycms.com, drupal.org, firerift.com) can allow you
to build a fairly powerful web app in next to no time. Couple this with the
advent of Google App Engine and other cloud based app servers, the whole pain
of setting up a linux server and configuring an app server on it is gone.

Already, you don't need any operational skills any more to host a production
grade web-app (think load balancing, failover, etc).

The key I have realized is to depend less and less on outside technical help
and more and more on yourself and your own technical tinkering abilities.

Once you've deployed your first app and have managed to get at least a few
repeat users you will be surprised how many developers will be ready to help
you further.

Just dive in with the implementation.. you will be surprised how much can be
executed in a day by just doing it.

~~~
DrJokepu
I disagree with that. We got really good tools today but writing software is
still quite hard, not because of the imperfections of our tools but because
the essence of software development is hard. If you're not good (yet) at
coding, chances are that you will run into an insurmountable problem before
you can release an initial version, unless your web app is doing something
really trivial, in the technical sense.

~~~
ronzensci
great software is not (merely) built by writing code but by having a rock-
solid ten-group co-founding team. But unless you'll were together in
university, chances are a team would come together by looking at what each one
has already done and not what each one has talked about. Not all
insurmountable problems need to be solved by the founders - they can get a
specialist on contract for that.

Since the OP can read and understand code, I still feel that is sufficient to
get the first app out of the door.

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summero
Check out this article: <http://spencerfry.com/whats-a-non-programmer-to-do>

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hackerbe
I feel like you know this is the right game plan already.

I'm in a similar situation and look forward to the HN responses.

Good luck!

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tehaaron
I am actually in a very similar position and would love to hear what the HN
community thinks.

