
Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups - admp
http://dangrover.com/2012/05/30/whistling-into-a-tape-recorder-what-the-east-coast-doesnt-get-about-startups/
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krschultz
Is it just me or does the non-technical co-founder really get killed by most
blogs?

I have been approached a couple of times by friends with 'ideas', they just
need a programmer to build it for them. I respectfully declined each time and
remain friends with these people.

None of them ever got anywhere with their ideas. They never quit their day
jobs, they never read the right blogs and books (even if I suggested, and in
some cases bought copies of the books for them), they never raised funding,
they never talked to customers, and they never found another programmer. They
had absolutely no idea where to even begin on the business side of things,
much less the engineering side.

I think programmers get all hot and bothered by the idea of a 'non-technical'
co-founder undervaluing their contribution and so we all love these posts. But
really, most of the people saying they are 'looking for a technical co-
founder' aren't just lacking the ability to code. They are lacking the ability
to do a startup.

Calling them 'non-technical co-founders' really is giving them a free pass.
Most aren't ready to be co-founders, technical or not.

It also really belittles a good business cofounder (lets not term it around
what they can't do, but what they can do). A good business cofounder goes out
and talks to customers, has a handle on the market, probably has a contact
list full of potential partners or employees, can pitch, do some PR, and
hopefully secure some funding. That is very valuable to a young startup, and
most of the people with an idea and no coder aren't up to that level.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
>Most aren't ready to be co-founders, technical or not.

I think this is the crux of the matter. Most people aren't ready to be co-
founders.

~~~
rickdangerous1
The only way you can get ready to do a start up is to do a startup?????

~~~
briandear
No. But if you immerse yourself in the language, the business and the culture
of startups, you can learn enough to give it a shot. There's more to startups
that 'tech' -- basic business skills are seemingly underrated by so-called
technical people. The question should never be 'can we build it', but 'can we
sell it'. A startup is a business, designed to make money. Building something
with no business plan can be cool and useful, but a project doesn't become a
startup until the project turns into a product -- which is something that
makes money.

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api
I ran into a toxic mentality on the East Coast where there was a class
division between "thinkers/leaders" and "doers," and doing automatically
placed a person into a lower class. The idea was that execution is for little
people and ideas and "leadership" are for big people.

I met a bunch of over-stuffed narcissistic and ineffectual big people who
could sell like crazy and drum up endless interest by way of their ivy league
social networks but would then fall flat on their faces when it came to
executing on anything.

~~~
MartinCron
I left a job a few years ago the moment that I realized that the people who
were allowed to have ideas and the people who were allowed to implement ideas
were always going to be, by deliberate design, different sets of people.

~~~
gaius
As an aside, that is also why it is dangerous for a company to create an
"innovation" or similar department.

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jsherry
This piece very easily could have been titled "Whistling Into a Tap Recorder"
and had sent the same message (and a worthy message at that). After all,
neither New York not the East Coast are mentioned until 90% through the
article. But then again that title likely wouldn't have gotten as many upvotes
on HN b/c apparently everybody likes a rivalry.

~~~
mikemarotti
Absolutely, that title is just baiting. We're in the internet era now - when
can we get over the east vs west or valley vs nyc rivalries? There are bad
apples and fools in suits everyone in the world.

~~~
dangrover
You're totally right -- did not need to drag that in as prominently. Revised
the title.

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boredguy8
[edit: content removed as the site is back up]

HNed, it appears.

Google's Cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://dangrover.com/2012/05/30/whistling-
into-a-tape-recorder-what-the-east-coast-doesnt-get-about-
startups/&hl=en&biw=1311&bih=783&prmd=imvns&strip=1)

~~~
3am
It's perpetually annoying that people make this an East Coast/West Coast thing
(as if "East Coast" can even be generalized about... I'm sure Atlanta has a
much in common with NYC as Mountain View has with Eugene). It's very small
sample set of people to make any kind of good judgement, and seems to just be
catering to stereotypes.

~~~
benblodgett
Yeah I am also constantly annoyed by this, I work out of a coworking space in
the lower east side with tons of technical geniuses. It doesn't matter where
you live, but who you associate with in that area.

~~~
dangrover
What co-working space is it? Can I check it out? :D

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fleitz
I don't have a problem working with non-technical people who are 'looking for
a technical co-founder', usually they identify as 'business guys'.

Just like 90% of coders can't write fizzbuzz, 90% of biz guys can't close a
deal. The issue is not the 90%, it's finding the 10%.

The east coast has no monopoly on useless people.

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rsingel
I love that this showed up the same day as the post about how Alexis Ohanian
built reddit.

For those that don't know, Alexis doesn't code.

And he and Steve are from the East Coast.

But who am I to bash another good round of technical vs. non-technical Hacker
News flaming?

~~~
GFKjunior
Well Steve is a programmer, and from the udacity classes he teaches he seems
like a damn good one.

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MBlume
I realize this is mostly irrelevant, but can anyone confirm/deny the Elfman
claim?

(It occurs to me that you'd have to be a _fantastic_ whistler to manage some
of, say, the spiderman score. Also, I'm pretty sure the guy _invents_
percussion in his basement.)

~~~
planetguy
I'd imagine it's an exaggeration of some aspect of his real creative process.
I wouldn't be surprised if he does whistle into a tape recorder while watching
a rough cut of the film, I'd just be surprised if that's _all_ he does.

Actually it seems like a damn good way to write music for a film. First you
figure out the basic themes at _leitmotifs_ that you want to use. Then you
watch the film a few times and whistle or hum _basically_ how you want the
music to go, so that you can match the music to the moment on a second-by-
second basis. Hand over the tape to an assistant and let them worry about
turning this vague musical shape into the outline of a complete score; once
you've got the score you can worry about the details.

~~~
smd80
It's not in the slightest bit true about Danny Elfman -- in fact, it's farther
from the truth in his case than any other film composer I can think of. With
the amount of synth and guitar that Danny performs himself, he actually has up
to half his _tracks laid down_ by the time the cue is getting approved by the
director. Not only is he not outsourcing the composing, he's not even
outsourcing the performance except where he needs to. And he's certainly not
fiddling around with a tape recorder when he has a $100k+ Pro Tools rig in his
studio.

All film composers have different processes, and it's true that few of them
take on the details of notation, and all of them have teams that they work
with. But you're absolutely right that that's a good thing, because that's how
film music works: Turnover is extremely short (sometimes as little as a couple
weeks to write an hour of music), notes on the page are _not_ the product, and
specialization allows the process to move forward and the job to get done.

This blog post irks me in part because it's an unkind rumor, and in part
because it's a completely inept metaphor.

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edwardcapriolo
This might be like the third blog I have read about the east coast 'doesn't
get' or 'can't do' startups. The last article said the east coast could not
make a facebook. Check your facts. Facebook started on the east coast.

Anyway onto this article. How can you call yourself humble when your saying
someone else 'doesn't get it' or 'cant do it' That does not sound humble to
me. Other then that there is no substance to your argument.

Here is my prospective:

On the west coast, your startup fails, go work at another startup, get a real
job at a profitable company, that fails, sleep outside in a tent.

On the east coast your startup fails, get a real job at a profitable company,
or freeze to death.

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blhack
Um.

Boston Dynamics? DEKA!?

Yeah, maybe the east coast doesn't have social networks for cats, or iPhone
apps for taking pictures of your food, but to say that they "don't get"
startups is stupid linkbait.

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mattupstate
Very off-putting link title. Location has nothing to do with it.

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rockmeamedee
I think the recent, cool web stuff has made programming look easier, even
though it isn't. Maybe we're closer to to the tech, maybe we can expect more
from software. We don't really appreciate any of these 'simple' web services
that solve a lot of hard problems (eg, scale). Twitter is only 140 characters,
but it's definitely not simple. That way it seems to outsiders like the hard
part is coming up with the idea, instead of the execution.

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StavrosK
"Techné"? Where do people get these? This isn't French, it's "Techne". As in
"τέχνη". Or did we start accenting random létters now?

~~~
rockmeamedee
I dunno, it's on Wikipedia: "Techne, or techné, is a Greek term..."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techne>

~~~
StavrosK
That's wrong, that accent has no place there. If anything, it would be téchne,
because that's where the stress is. Techné just makes no sense. I think I'll
change it.

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jjune
I am a non-technical founder, grandma, wife of a starving artist. All I can
say is, ya gotta start somewhere. It's been gruesome, and awesome. Promoting
local sustainable commerce. Free online neighborhood Storefronts.
Http://ourtownzip.com.

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mck-
too much traffic?

~~~
dangrover
Trying to get the server back up. Geeez.

~~~
its_so_on
interested in the numbers

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robwgibbons
I realize OP already altered the title, but I just want to reiterate that this
is a universal problem and has zero to do with East vs West

