
Don't Learn to Code - rrhoover
http://ryanhoover.me/post/67471168540/dont-learn-to-code
======
ivankirigin
Congrats Ryan! I've been asked a lot recently about how to get into growth. My
immediate reaction is to say "build something you want and try to make it
grow". But that takes an incredible amount of time and has a lot of risk,
especially if you don't know how to code.

A better recommendation is to build, say, a landing page for your idea. Drive
some traffic with ads or whatever. Harvest intent from those people, and talk
to them as potential customers. Iterate and optimize this process, and you'll
be practicing "growth hacking" with more agility than most companies.

There isn't a line of code involved at the start, but there are about a dozen
skills needed: creating & optimizing a PPC campaign, crafting a clear
marketing message, using tools like unbounce or optimizely to iterate
messaging, doing customer development interviews, etc.

Only when you know you have meaningful interest do you start to build.

They don't really teach this at university, so I'm really excited to see
Tradecraft take off.

~~~
rrhoover
Good thoughts, Ivan. I wrote this relevant article, Pain = Validation, a while
ago: [http://ryanhoover.me/post/54951607013/pain-
validation](http://ryanhoover.me/post/54951607013/pain-validation)

Also, today's Startup Edition is on the very topic of how to validate a
startup idea - [http://t.co/E2D4IdODhe](http://t.co/E2D4IdODhe)

~~~
ivankirigin
Yeah, I noticed the Startup Edition theme after writing this comment. How
timely!

------
gverri
IMHO to be a good product developer, you not only have to learn how to code.
But how to design, how to handle people, how to grow, how to sell. And if you
also want to be the CEO you'll have to learn a lot more.

It's one of the most demanding jobs you could ever have. You have to think
about the product as a whole, in the present and the future. And if you don't
know what's happening under the hoods, if you don't know how to speak to
programmers, or don't know what's possible within the current state of
technology, you'll never be a complete product developer.

At least that's what I want for my career.

------
ilaksh
I'm a programmer who is very interested to learn about how to gain traction.
To be honest, I am skeptical about how complex that domain of skills and
knowledge could really be. Note that I did not say hard, I said complex.

My belief at the moment is that gaining traction is mainly a matter of
creating or selecting/evolving the right idea and then largely comes down to
social network effects. Basically, I look at startup traction as being largely
a popularity contest and about who or what is lucky enough to become trendy.

~~~
mishachellam
I think traction is about understanding underlying human psychology / user
intent. At the end of it all, it is still humans who are using these products
(for now at least :)

Someone who deeply understands customer interviews and needs-finding will do a
better job of scoping the right product to build, and someone who understands
what drives human behavior will do better at distributing the product.

~~~
rrhoover
+1 for Misha's response.

Yes, luck and timing are a big part of startups but there are processes and
ways of thinking that you can learn to increase chances of success.

~~~
ilaksh
What sort of process or way of thinking would that be? I mean without giving
away the whole store, (since I think consulting on that is your business)
maybe there is a comment you can make that would give me ideas for things to
google.

------
mos2
This is a great article and you can read countless examples the importance of
sales and marketing for tech focused startups or small web based businesses. I
agree 100% with most of what is being said. Also very cool to create a
bootcamp focused on the other end of the business.

The irony of the title, Don't Learn to Code is realized in CTA of
tradecrafted.com. Under Business & Social, point 3 is "Basic Programming"

Maybe this should be renamed to: Don't Learn to Code, [much, yet, etc.]

I just point this out because there are varying degrees of what people mean by
learning to code. I don't believe that learning to code is bad for anyone,
just as I don't believe that math, reading, writing, literature and the arts
are either.

Are there any self directed guides to traction or learning this stuff outside
of attending a bootcamp?

~~~
rklusas
Exactly. Everybody should learn the fundamentals of code/programming, but that
doesn't mean everybody should learn to check-in production level code --
that's not a code allocation of resources.

RE content, there is a TON of material out there, it's just poorly organized.

------
elp1stolero
I think Kickstarter has helped greatly in the area of traction (obviously, it
doesn't apply to all situations). If you can successfully communicate an idea
- and there is demand for it - you can marshal support.

~~~
MarketerGraham
Kickstarter is a good platform for collecting money for ideas that aren't real
yet but most of the people I've talked to say that just being on the platform
is not enough. You need to apply your own traction tactics to the campaign.

------
pconner
Jeff Atwood in 2012: [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-
learn-t...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-
code.html)

