
Ask HN: How good of a hacker do you have to be to be a technical co-founder? - gautamnarula
Starting a startup is always daunting. But, as someone who will one day be a the technical co-founder of one, it&#x27;s hard not to feel daunted by the enormity of the technical task that will be in front of me. Algorithms, database design, version control, deployment environments, design patterns, etc. The list goes on and on. And this isn&#x27;t even touching on the non-technical aspects of a startup.<p>Is there any way of knowing if I should spend time shoring up my programming&#x2F;algorithm skills versus trying to launch right away? How do I know I&#x27;m a good enough hacker to start a startup?  Are there any good rule-of-thumb metrics for figuring this out, or is this case where you don&#x27;t know until you actually try?
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tptacek
There's no such thing as a "technical co-founder". There are founders and
there are employees. Usually but not always, one or more of the founders is
capable of building the first salable version of the product. A hoary cliche
among startups is the company that has matured to the point where its dev team
removes commit privs from the founders, which should give you an idea of what
the bar is here.

Algorithms, database design, version control, and deployment are all important
things (design patterns much less so), but they don't matter a whit compared
to building something that someone will pay money for.

Stop procrastinating and get to work.

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briandear
Read the Lean Startup. Then build something. Who cares if you don't have the
answers to problems you don't yet have? Startups are businesses first. If you
make a product people want, even if it's badly engineered, that's a much
better situation than being an expert hacker with an awesomely engineered
product that nobody wants. If you have traction, you can hire people better
than you to fill in the gaps.

Besides, nobody gives a shit about algorithms. ;)

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scheff
As a long time programmer, I've learnt the mantra "somebody has already solved
this, let's go find their solution." That applies to pretty much any technical
or non-technical issue that you need to solve. So much of what we need to know
is written up somewhere on the internet, leaving us to focus on the 1% of the
problem that we alone can solve, and differentiates our value proposition from
all the other alternatives.

My short answer would be "know enough to be dangerous, and surround yourself
with smarter people".

Recommended reading - [http://www.sacred-
texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr10.htm](http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr10.htm)

Start from 'Henry Ford was called "an ignorant pacifist."'

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tmetzner
Lots of good feedback already, but one thing I'll add is that you'll also need
to be a hell of a recruiter, which can eventually also take a bit of the
pressure off (assuming you're surrounding yourself with people smarter/better
than you)

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subrat_rout
Actually I am in the same position you are in. I think the best way to tackle
this problem is to see if you can come up with a minimum viable product(MVP as
they say) to validate your idea. You can do it either by developing yourself
or hiring a programmer(Of course you have spend some money on it). If you see
the product idea works and you have some traction, then you can always raise a
bit of seed funding and hire some coders to do the development work.

But I think product/software design is only half of the battle. The other half
is to find customers, convincing them to try your product and ultimately make
them to pay for it.

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TheHydroImpulse
From my experience and from many successful technical founders, or co-
founders, you're either not qualified or just qualified for it. Even if you're
advanced in specific areas of programming/computing, being a technical co-
founder means doing everything related to the product (I'm guessing it's
software). Deployment, database, web app, version control, services, server
ops, etc... is a lot of stuff to learn and become proficient with it.

Don't be worried about the sheer overhead of skills or knowledge required.
Startups is all about learning, maybe just as much as executing.

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arkad
Yep, I totally agree. From my (a technical co-founder) point of view - the
JFDI approach is a master factor here. If you don't know how to do something -
that's good! Take the second step and get to know how you can do it, then
double check how to do it right and the just do it. Plus: take the
responsibility for what you've done.

~~~
tommaxwell
Before I started building my first web app in Rails, I didn't even know how to
write Rails! I had only previously been a front-end developer, but I can say I
learned a TON. Am I a Ruby on Rails guru? Nope, but I know how to traverse the
stack with the knowledge I do have and get as much done as possible.

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1123581321
I think the easiest way to figure it out is to try and make your software in
your spare time. If you can make progress every day, you'll be fine. An
objective measurement of your ability only becomes critical if you quit your
job to work on your startup fulltime and have a hard deadline. Don't put
yourself in that position.

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sejje
You're good enough, no need to sure-up.

Anyone who even has "design patterns" as a blip on his radar can crank out all
the code required for _most_ startups' MVP. It will take you longer than it
would take someone else, and that's okay. It won't always be pretty, and
that's okay, too.

Good luck!

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meerita
Better to launch and see if people wants the product than being wasting effort
for nothing. As it is stated on the Lean Startup book, any non-validated fact
is a waster of time.

The best hackers i've meet there were, "doers".

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readme
>How do I know I'm a good enough hacker to start a startup?

You try it and see.

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beachstartup
nobody is qualified to be a co-founder unless they've done it before.

it's a test that you pass by doing.

