
Getting into the tech scene when you have no skills - kevin_morrill
http://josephwalla.com/getting-into-the-tech-scene-when-you-have-no-skills
======
ryen
I think the first thing people should ask themselves is: Why are you trying to
get into this scene without any skills?

In the last 10 years Silicon Valley and startups in general have attracted a
mush of people who bring little or no value to the table. I'm not talking
about business/product types or MBAs that might at least have some experience
and maybe some contacts and financial know-how. No, its the kind of people who
for no other reason are thrilled by the celebrity-esque world of high-flying
startups that might come with free lunch/dinner/beer, parties, and items found
in The Social Network.

People should learn some product and marketing skills at larger, non-startup
companies first before taking sweat equity or low/no pay at a startup. Also
make contacts at meetups and learn the finance side of things. THEN you will
have less of a problem "Getting into the tech scene", skills in hand.

~~~
freework
These people are called "startup groupies" and they are a huge problem in
Silicon Valley, because that place is infested with them. I thought it funny
too that "learn to program" (which the entire article should have been written
about) was only given three sentences at the very end of the article.

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obstacle1
I don't mean to be a dick but this is completely devoid of content. It boils
down to IF you don't have technical skills, THEN develop them OR meet people
who don't care that you don't have technical skills that will hire you.

Further I fail to see how someone wanting into tech would be better reading a
bunch of PG essays than actually, y'know, learning to code. Unless I'm not
taking the title seriously enough, and the goal is only to get into the tech
SCENE (as in social), not a technical job.

~~~
pdenya
Seemed to me like the goal was to land a non technical job in the tech scene.
So for people who don't want to learn to code, here's a quick start guide for
getting the skills you need to get into BD, QA, etc at a tech startup.

~~~
obstacle1
Right. But out of curiosity... If you want a non-technical job, why must it be
in the tech scene? And if you want a job in tech, why aren't you willing to
learn the requisite skills. Paradox, I say.

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edraferi
If you don't have skills, can you bring experience? Many start-ups try to
disrupt existing industries. If you understand how an industry works and why
it's vulnerable to disruption, you can join forces with technical people to
become that disruption.

You should still learn to code though :-)

~~~
hayksaakian
This is the only valid answer I see other than getting skills.

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32bitkid
"Do work for free" is the worst suggestion I've heard in a long time. Your
time is valuable; it should be to you and it should be to the person you are
working for. Even if you aren't getting a monetary remuneration for your
services there should be some kind of compensation, and you should be clear –
at least in your head – what it is. Never – ever –work for free. It may seem
like a good idea but its not.

~~~
pdenya
> The problem with having no skills or track record is that it's not worth
> paying you

Required experience for paid work is a fact of life. If you don't have the
skills to work for pay in a certain area you work for free. You can do that by
putting in the time on your own side projects or you can accomplish it some
other way. Like doing free work in exchange for experience.

~~~
32bitkid
That's not for free. Doing work for free means "I will do this for you and get
_nothing_ in return." All I'm saying is don't run around willy-nilly doing
work for free, thinking that will somehow magically lead to success; be
cognizant of what you will actually get in return. And I'm not saying that
money is the only type of payment, not at all.

~~~
duggan
Frankly, I think you are deliberately misinterpreting the spirit of the
suggestion. Your interpretation reduces the original point to absurdity: "do
something for no reward."

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callmeed
I have to give the author credit–I like his approach much better than poseurs
who drop into the scene and start running workshops or being mentors, all
while never having actually built anything or attempted a startup.

~~~
jknightco
Ugh, a 'friend' of mine is doing this. No skills, never worked at a startup.
He's put up three landing pages over the course of the past 6 months and now
blogs about his experiences 'starting' 3 companies. Its incredibly obnoxious.

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eksith
Adam Savage of the Mythbusters once gave a talk on problem solving and how he
went about acquiring the skills he has :

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhAt-7i36G8>

While the talk was about a different industry, the lessons are still
applicable to tech and pretty much most other fields.

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banachtarski
My gut answer to the title of this post was "acquire skills." I don't know
that this really deserved a post all on its own.

Personally, I really disliked the "crash conferences" part.

~~~
rms
One could update the "crash conferences" advice to "volunteer at conferences".
Being behind the desk giving out badges is a powerful place to be in terms of
developing connections or fitting into a scene.

------
barce
A list of people who got into the tech scene without tech skills:

1\. Julia Allison - she tried to cheat her way into a fundraiser and despite
that ended up on the cover of WiReD: [http://gawker.com/284123/an-east-coast-
hustler-tries-to-chea...](http://gawker.com/284123/an-east-coast-hustler-
tries-to-cheat-a-fundraiser)

2\. Nick Starr - my cousin who is a cop is still interested in talking to you
for laptops that were stolen that you are selling.

3\. Hermione Way - I honestly wanted to work for you as a coder because you
had entrée into all these "cool" parties, but despite _now_ having an app that
gets 100,000 photo uploads a day (Via.Me) I'm still not cool enough to work
for you? WTF?

There isn't a scene to get into. Instead there is a long standing list of
problems that have existed since the beginning of computer science. Read Knuth
or something similar if you don't know which these are. Either you are on
board for solving those problems or your real interests lie elsewhere. Decide
which you are.

------
FailMore
I don't think this article gets it quite right.

I think non-technical people that do best stumble into the tech scene - rather
than want to get in. By this I mean if you want to make it anywhere -
especially in a world where you have none of the technical skills needed to
actually build anything - you have to LOVE it. And that love comes from a deep
and not-too-well-understood place within us. The kind of place which is not
very easy to access with the cognitive part of your brain that lets you create
the sentence 'I want to get into the tech scene now - but I know nothing -
what steps can I take?'.

I am (sadly) non-technical (for now (but learning!)) - an Economics graduate
who was on the path to investment-bankdem - but I couldn't help myself but be
part of the tech scene. Some old colleagues from a hedge fund I interned at
wanted to start a community for motorcyclists and, as I was young and more
tech savie than them, they asked if I wanted to help out. It was (and still
is) SO much fun thinking about how someone could use things - have an
enjoyable experience, gain value, and try to find a way for us to extract a
little value too. That is such a beautifully complex challenge to think
through.

Our budget for the build was £25,000 - which is how much I thought it cost to
build a website - so my plans for my own ideas had to go on hold - as I didn't
have that kind of cash. Then a friend told me he got a website built in
Romania for £2,000 - I can afford that!!! I designed my first website in
microsoft word - from top to bottom - and sent my files over to Romania,
greatly confusing the web agency who had never received 30 microsoft word
files as the basis to build off. I was learning Spanish in Spain at the time
and happened to meet an awesome German graphic designer. He took me through my
designs and showed me why they sucked, and he told me about a program called
InDesign. I came back to England and learnt that.

Since then I've won prizes for tech entrepreneurship, worked in a company that
existed to build other tech companies, built a team of 6 around one of my core
ideas, and learnt a little front end code myself. I would love to say - the
rest is history - but now I am learning how to execute on ideas. Something
which I have not yet done well enough.

But the point is I couldn't help any of this. And I think if you have to force
yourself to read PG, or it is a 'I want a job', not a 'I want to build what's
in my head!' mentality that makes you write your first piece of code - then
maybe the tech world is not the place you really want to be.

------
Zenst
Well one strength you have already would be in user testing as your mind is
infetted by the `how would a computer do this best` approach towards
interfacing with users.

You could start by looking and reviewing and spotting bugs in many programs
out there, will help build a resume and also at the same time perk your
interest into what tech scene angle you wish to start heading down. Be it
codeing, design, testing, support, managing, selling, testing, providing. That
is without even looking at the market area's within those feilds which could
be anything from games, web, plant, automation, planes trains and automobiles,
or washing machine spin cycle control systems. Many area's within area's. Tech
is such a large feild and this is just the basic computing stuff. Designing
new solar panels, specialist clothing, you see what I mean, such an open
subject.

Two things I would advise keeping in mind. What are you good at and what do
you like. It is a fine balance and to do the things you like you might not
earn as much and work all hours bluring the lines between hobby and work. You
could focus on what you are good at and treat it as work, have more time and
money to focus on those hobbies and pet projects and get better quality time
doing them how you enjoy them. It is extremly rare to fully combine the two,
even then it will not be all the time. You can spend a long time chasing that
end-goal and end up becoming disenjanted with what you enjoy. So a fine
balance is advisable and by all means learn your own balance. Being mindful of
that will help you be more objective and happier in the long run. Dreams can
become nightmares, don't spoil the dream. So tread slowly, but firmly and you
will know what you are good at and what your are not, so even if you descide
to go another direction all together. You would of learned good foundations
for any path forward.

So my suggestion in short - levridge your skill you have now and that is you
are the perfect user, so testing/QA would be a great start and one you can
define. You will then know which area of tech you wish to focus upon, though
will gain the eye for detail early on which is handy in all walks of life.

------
naner
Step #1 for how to get into the tech scene is read a boatload of nontechnical
articles?

~~~
mikeg8
I still think this point is valid because there is a lot more to the tech
"scene" than just technical advice. reading about VCs, startups etc will still
help you understand the system as a whole and can help you find better places
to start learning more.

~~~
potatolicious
At the end of the day that's still massively putting the cart before the
horse. At the core of it startups are about building products - if you have
nothing to contribute to _any_ part of the product building process (whether
dev, design, bizdev, marketing, etc), you are literally of no use to anyone
whatsoever.

------
seivan
It's easy, just tell them you're into "UX".

------
31reasons
I think if you have no skills the best way to get into startup is to get rich
first and become an angel investor! I believe there are more high probability
ways to get rich than starting a startup.

------
shazzdeeds
I agree everybody should know the basics of HTML/CSS to become what I call
"semi-technical", even if you're not attempting a startup. You might find you
have an artistic flare for digital design, and suddenly become that much more
marketable.

That being said, why would you want to found a startup if not to build
something cool and get people interested in it? If that's not your natural
passion, it's no coincidence you don't already have skills a technical company
would find valuable.

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DamnYuppie
Since when was having skill a prerequisite to being in IT? I have interviewed,
and sadly worked with, way too many people who had no clue how to do their
job.

~~~
n00b101
This. Just get a job in IT at any large corporation. You will fit right in.

------
auctiontheory
The OP mentions hustle - probably the most important skill of all. One good
way to get into the startup scene is to actually start something, yourself.

------
mehrzad
I've always been wary of the online programming sites like codecademy and the
like, because when I did Rails for Zombies I realized it never shows you how
to set up an actual Rails application nor how Git and Heroku work. Are all the
tutorials similar in that they baby you?

~~~
kaoD
Yes they are.

I had a couple friends who wanted to learn JavaScript and went to
CodeAcademy's course[1] only to find it was more like Programming 101. Not a
single mention of what is a closure, how you can modularize your code, how
prototypes actually work, etc.

[1] <http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript>

~~~
mattmanser
That's because for 99% of javascript written today in the Real World you still
need not know a single thing about those things.

You simply can't cater for every ability level in a single course.

~~~
kaoD
I don't agree.

Modules and closures are needed in any serious JS development out there.
Believe me. I worked in a codebase where they thought they "still need not
know a single thing about those things" and boy was that a mess.

No wonder JS devs are considered crappy coders with that kind of mindset.

~~~
mattmanser
Most sites are not one page apps. Their js is silo'd per page.

You misinterpret my personal skill level, I don't believe you as I've worked
on more than one codebase of both kinds. Most javascript today is still
employed as the _scripting_ language it was originally introduced for. It does
very little apart from open a lightbox or get something via ajax or something
trivial like that.

There is a tiny % of javascript coders like us that use it to write programs
and an even tinier percentage that use coffeescript. It is worth keeping that
in mind at all times when discussing coding.

You don't have to be an architect in order to make a wall.

I also spent time running courses for non-coders in basic coding in a previous
job to allow them to _slightly_ customize their own product. Going in with
advanced and abstract concepts like closures is a sure fire way to frustrate a
student, not enlighten them.

~~~
kaoD
> You misinterpret my personal skill level

What made you think that? My point is not that you suck as a developer.

Even when building tiny apps global variables are EVIL and they will
eventually make you shoot yourself in the foot. Closures and modules are basic
concepts in JavaScript because, well, the language is inherently flawed and
you have to work around it.

> You don't have to be an architect in order to make a wall.

But you shouldn't bind bricks with gum either. If you do and the wall
collapses, who's to blame? Would you teach bricklayers to bind with gum
because using cement is hard for beginners?

This is not an architectural issue. This is about basic skills.

> Going in with advanced and abstract concepts like closures is a sure fire
> way to frustrate a student, not enlighten them.

I agree there, but my simile about the bricklayers and the gum stands. Sure,
you'll frustrate beginners, but what about a last chapter about _advanced
techniques_ or at least mentioning it? Specially since closures are a core
concept in JS.

Avoiding the issue will never turn beginners into advanced beginners/competent
coders. Lack of information in key areas does more damage than excessive
information because it creates a false sense of security that eventually leads
to sore feet :)

------
abeh
I would categorize user testing under 'Design Skills' (UX Design), as well as
CSS and HTML (Web Design). Design might be a third type of role, that is
neither technical, nor business.

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return0
Surprised they didn't add "start dating startup people" to the list. After
all, technology is all about learning to be a good groupie.

------
hildolfr
No technical skills? Read hacker news.

Brilliant.

~~~
shoopy
Circular reference. You'll follow links until you die.

------
nishithfrrole
I would add understanding of social media too. It has become a must since past
few years to have a substantial online presence. Personal branding is
something that will take you a long way ahead. You can crash parties only once
in a while, but in social media space, you can have real-time one-on-one
interactions with almost anybody anytime!

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hugbox
No skills? No problem.

If you flunk the interview, try challenging the interviewer to a dance-off. If
you win, the job is yours!

