Ask HN: Non-coding, single founders? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Non-coding, single founders?

32 pointstechless48 comments

I have a number of startup ideas. The thing is: I don't code. (I hope to eventually, but currently only know some html.) At the same time, I'm rather independent - and I don't have any coder friends.

I'm thinking I might outsource the coding for one or two of my ideas. I could do the site, marketing, market research, etc. myself.

Is this feasible? Do any of you work like this?

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I think, (being in the echo chamber that is YC) we forget the number of successful businesses that have been created, since time immemorial by people that _cannot_ code.

Whilst I agree that you probably couldn't solve a hugely technical problem without a strong technical team, A _HUGE_ number of recent well known, "startup wins", have been from business model innovations.

I am by no means successful, but I am working on it. I have outsourced some development, and in the development of some ideas, taught myself to be a pretty sufficient programmer, just roll with it.

Your lack of technical ability is just one constraint of many that you will face, constraints are good, they shape your decisions.

And of course the benefit is that getting out their, with your hacked, outsourced, barely-holding together prototype, selling your ass off is going to go _along_ way in impressing those people with complimentary skill-sets that you might want to partner with.

Shit, if your a good entrepreneur, you will work it out as you go, learning, hiring and partnering with whoever you need.

As Mark Suster says, JFDI

And good luck

Your comment is a little silly when you don't cite any examples of companies that weren't founded by technical people. Digg would have been a good one.

And also, no one on HN argues that a business guy shouldn't start a business, they argue that a business guy shouldn't start a tech business. Anyone can found a laundromat.

I am a single founder of my startup and don't know coding (except HTML and some CSS.)

>I have a number of startup ideas.

Thats a bad thing to have - "a number of ideas". You need to focus on just one idea at a time. Get it at a stage where you can either sell it - or hire someone to run on its own - before you venture on to the 2nd idea.

>and I don't have any coder friends.

That is also a bad thing. Because you need coder friends to help you:

i. Hire coders (a non-coder should never interview a coder. You will rarely ask the right questions.)

ii. Make sure the coders are not shoddy in their work.

You don't need coder friends who can become co-founders in your startup. But you do need coder friends who can help you out from time to time - in an unofficial capacity.

Networking helps. Go to hacking events and barcamps and just be friendly and helpful. And grow your circle of coder friends.

>I'm thinking I might outsource the coding

Thats do-able. A few things to remember:

i. Hire 2 coders if you can afford. So that each coder can keep the other one accountable - and go through his work.

ii. Keep in mind that most things will take more time than your coders estimated time line. But getting impatient doesn't help.

iii. Never hire the cheapest coder you can get.

I disagree with _every_ response so far, which boil down to either a) hire a coder or b) learn to code.

Most businesses that get programmed up are bad. Nobody cares about them and they fail. That's okay if you are a solo hacker because the loss is minimal compared to the learning you get. From your situation, it's a terrible deal (you either sank lots of time or money to get there).

I recommend you dive into customer development (start by reading Steve Blank's 4 Steps book). You can get through all of discovery and part of validation without writing a single line of code (that takes you through "steps" 1 & 2 - most startups never get to step 3, which is profitably scaling the customer base).

Odds are good that your ideas are bad ("bad" as in "grounded in something good, but currently severely flawed"). You can discover many of those holes for free, by talking to your future customers and industry experts.

The best part is that you'll get to the point (without any code) of having a business you can say with some confidence will generate money if it can just get built. And you'll have the evidence (from future customers) in hand to prove it. That makes recruiting great hackers (or raising seed money and hiring them) so much easier.

Good comments ... but shouldn't he have someone technical on tap to make sure what he's proposing is feasible?

For that matter, while I haven't read Blank's book (but have lived its opposite), won't you have more credibility when you step outside the office if what you're saying is grounded in technical reality?

Potentially feasible, but I don't know that anything good will come of it. Speaking as a coder, I definitely think of the code as the heart of a project, and outsourcing it never even occurred as an option to me, personally. What you're describing, site, marketing, research, etc are all important, but they all seem ancillary to the project itself. Have you considered working as a consultant or freelancer doing these things? I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you do what you're suggesting with your ideas, I don't know that they'd really be YOUR projects anymore, I think they'd end up being something you played a supporting role making. If you're ok with that, go for it, but I don't think I could ever be happy executing a good idea that way. I'd have to make it my own.

I believe it's not feasible. How are you going to recompense the coder doing the "outsourced" work? How do you know you're getting value for money? How do you assess their work? How do you negotiate changes? How do you specify what you want?

You need a founder who can code. That can be you if you choose to work hard at it, but it's generally assumed to be better to have a co-founder.

Give yourself 6 months without any other goal but to learn everything you can about computer science, ad hoc, with a project in mind. I say this because it's demotivating and dis-empowering to be a position of no power, especially when you don't have a lot of cash parked. If you're a smart entrepreneur, I think you'll figure it out, and then you won't be a slave anymore. This may be overkill, but if you're passionate about what's possible in technology, you definitely won't regret building something yourself and giving it all you got.

Just one way to look at things.

I was in the same position as you. Your best bet is to learn to code. Not only will you get more respect of programmers better than you, you'll understand the mental effort it takes to program, even if it's something that seems so "easy" to do. Trust me, there are alot of dependencies to think about when programming something that looks simple initially.

amen, and you might find that some of the ideas that you thought were really good or tractable might end up not sounding so good, once you get a better feel for how to actually implement them.

as an analogy, i know almost nothing about teenage girls' fashion; so even if i go to the mall one day and get inspired by some idea of how to do some innovations on a particular teenage girl fashion item, i highly doubt that i would be in a good position to actually make a company out of it.

I might sound funny, but I'd say, learn to code.

Especially if you call yourself 'rather independent'.

Dabble in most languages, pick what you like best and fit the bill and make your way slowly to alpha.

I'm just worried that if you don't know any coders and nothing about shipping a product, you might end up nowhere and lose a fair bit of cash.

Good luck.

Lots of developers will gladly code your app, cash your checks, and go home. But if you wanted me to put blood and sweat and tears into this project, I'd want equity. A lot of equity.

Even if you can't learn to code, do learn to communicate with technical guys if you've never worked with one before. I am both founder and coder and I find some of my co-founder who graduate from business school does not know to how communicate with technical members. This could be harder especially if you graduate from business school, knows nothing about technology, and you're going to work with a high-tech savvy. Their brain just works in different form from yours.

It depends on the technical complexity of your ideas, if it's just going to be a mod of an off-the-shelf CMS or something similar then you'll probably be fine.

The greater the technical complexity the more risky it is because there are far fewer outsourcing providers with the skills to achieve what you want.

(There are some exceptions to this: for example there are plenty of iphone app development agencies that are capable of taking on large complex projects)

I would also suggest that it'd be hard to find a coding co-founder. More often than not they don't really like guys like you. At least personally I wouldn't go for it. Many reasons - one is that I would certainly have a disagreement with you on a certain thing because of the fact you don't understand how it works and what really matters. Some recent posts on HN about co-founders divorces may be proving exactly this.

... and because of these issues, the idea guy usually doesn't understand (or appreciate) the amount of work needed to develop the idea, and so its difficult to come to an agreement on terms (equity share, etc).

No good coder wants to work with an "idea guy", unless he or she is proven or is willing to pay market rate for development. As developers, we know that if the idea and code is good enough, and we have at least a cursory understanding of online marketing, the money will come. What you need to prove to a developer is that you have the know-how or connections that they don't have.

In my experience the money doesn't just come! If only...

I disagree with the other comments (mainly because I have done what you describe multiple times with success). If you can afford to pay a programmer to do what you need, its fine. You wont get the same attention to detail you would get if that person had equity vs salary, but dont let that stop you. I still think finding a technical cofounder should be your first choice.

I'm the exact same type of person as you, and I've done alright so far. I learnt some HTML/CSS, but I'd hardly call that code. It's very easy, and I formed my business around that. I then outsourced all work to other coders, and sold the business for mid 5 figures ($xx,xxx).

I think it is important to know what good code does look like, or be well acquainted with someone who knows that (to protect you).

I outsource everything, I hire freelance developers for all work. This can be extremely bumpy, but a fun journey, none the less. There are thousands of freelance programmers in business. You know why? Because of people like you and me :)

Just learn to code, its not that hard to at least get a decent understanding of how to do it... if you have money to pay workers then that makes it all the better.. you can learn the ins and outs and give them technically detailed instructions so they won't waste any of your time and you can easily seed out people who don't know what they're doing... if you just work at learning a language for a few months and have money to invest, pretty soon you won't have to do any actual coding yourself as you can hire people pretty cheaply if you get remotely based workers.

I went from no programming skills to now working in a development shop as a full-time Ruby on Rails coder. This took three years. To those saying "just learn to code". Well, it is a serious undertaking, but it can be done. I'm 40 and learned programming, Ruby, a bit of other languages, CSS, unix shell, sql, etc, etc, etc. It is a lot of stuff to learn to become productive. If you've got the time and energy, you should do it. I'm now in a position to build what I want and bring on a team. In fact, I've already started. Learn to code. And good luck.

A friend of mine wanted to go this route. I helped her look for small web developers to implement her idea, in the end we concluded that approach is just too expensive, and ends up being too much of a risk (she wants to bootstrap this idea without outside investors).

While looking for developers she was lucky to come across a small web development studio who liked the idea enough to invest some of their own time to develop this idea. We'll have to see how that turns out, but so far everyone involved seems passionate enough, so I think they have a chance of succeeding.

If the project is small enough that it can be started by outsourcing, then you COULD do that. But its ideal to have someone on the team who can code; your site is pretty much useless should a bug come up, or simple feature is requested.

So, your options: 1) Learn to code and try to get the basic version out for yourself 2) Find a co-founder. 3) Outsource to build it out. Then see if you can get that profitable, and recruit a co-founder.

Assuming that your ideas do not require incredibly technical solutions this shouldn't be that much of a problem. I'm sure any team is better with a business person and a coding person, but for most sites I see launched I'd prefer business skills over coding skills, and I certainly wouldn't learn how to code to achieve it - there are no lack of cheap coders around.

There is often a lot of talk about Minimum Viable Product. Outsource the project for $xx and you will certainly achieve MVP. Developers working on their own projects tend to get the wrong idea of what is important and lover to tinker, so it is much harder to achieve MVP. Someone that has 10K to deliver a project tends to deliver exactly what is asked for and no more. You can certainly have a contract where bugs are fixed for free for a month etc, and an agreed rate for future additions.

Get your idea working, prove it is viable and you might have to throw away all of the code that was written and start again with a really good team, but at least you know it will pay off.

Good luck

I'm a programmer but I think I have a different take on this debate than most other programmers. I know quite a few people who aren't programmers but have started, and continue to run, successful businesses. The thing all of them have in common is that they don't necessarily choose tech-heavy niches. There are tons of problems that can be solved with a shitty web application written in broken PHP. These people all know basic PHP and outsource for parts of the apps they can't get right. If something sort of works they ship it anyway and refine it over time.

I think there's something very valuable in that mentality for hackers to learn from. There are a lot of businesses that start with a shitty product in a good market and refine it over time. We hear about it all the time: release early and often.

That's a tough position to be in. Use odesk or another site. Hire someone from East Europe if you can.

Read up a bit and get an idea of what's a good work rate. Work with 3 to 4 people and get an idea of relative work rates.

Your biggest problem isn't that you don't code - it's that you don't know what a really good coder can create + the rate at which he can create.

the mythical man month book would be a good book to read.

Looking at the comments why don't you team up with vlisivka. One big reason to pick someone outside the US is they won't just run off with your idea and there's less of a sense of entitlement.

Coders seem to feel (and I'm one/used to be) that they create 99% of the value, sales creates 1% and everyone else steals off the value they create.

You need to find someone in a country that doesn't have this attitude and East Europe and even South America are perfect.

Why not? http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/smartphone-apps/the-new-i... Even a "Miss World Australia" can do it.

Wireframe a B2B product, get a freelancer to evaluate it technically, and then go sell it. One you have that first customer, it won't be so hard to find a coder to help either for cash or equity.

I am in your situation. I think it is a tough road but doable. Remember, most of these answers will be biased :)

Here is what I would suggest:

Learn as much about coding as you can - take tutorials, learn the process of scoping out a project, go to meetups, conferences and learn as much as possible. In order to make a decent hiring decision, you must know A LOT about coding even if you cannot do it yourself.

Ideally, you should find a partner who shares your passion and who is willing to work as hard as you are.

Feel free to shoot me an email, if you are looking for more advice..

1. This stituation can work

I've worked for many businesses as a coder where none of the owners can code. They've often been technology companies too.

There's no reason this won't work. The normal difficulty of starting any business is more difficult than finding/hiring a coder.

2. Divide and Conquer to keep control

If you're worried about someone taking the idea or losing control of it, consider another field... physical products where the product is manufactured by a 3rd party engineering firm.

What is generally done is that different parts of the product are created by different firms to prevent 1 firm making the whole product.

You can apply this to webapps just as well

If you want to outsource your coding, you should see if you are any good at specifying what you want and conversing with developers. Try little projects for $1000 or so, ideally things that will help you with your business but are not huge parts of the line of business. You should learn something about how developers think and what they can do for you, as well as where you need to become proficient.

Yes, it's feasible, if your startup idea doesn't depend on great code. In other words, if it's a good idea that doesn't require technical wizardry, but fairly standard stuff. And there are plenty of those.

But he'll have to talk to someone technical to know what the requirements of his ideas are, right?

It's feasible. I've done it before.

run it past these guys?

http://www.sproutbox.com/

If you're not a doctor, would you start a hospital?

Actually, there's a congressional moratorium on precicely this example. Hospitals enrolled in Medicare/Medicaid prohibit practising doctors from hospital ownership.

I wonder why that is.

> I have a number of startup ideas.

I have too.

> I'm rather independent - and I don't have any coder friends.

I am too - and I don't have any business-oriented friends.

> The thing is: I don't code.

I can, but I face same problem - I cannot do lot of other things, like marketing, market research, etc. ;-)

You can hire developer to teach you some programming and pay for consultations when you in doubt. I cannot hire businessman to teach me business. :-( So, don't worry - you are at better standing point than most of HN visitors.

PS. I am strong in Linux/Java/Perl/Bash/HTML/Server side. I am Ukrainian (Eastern Europe). Drop me email at vlisivka@gmail.com , if you are interested to teach me some business.

No, I'd argue he's worse off than most.

You can hire business and marketing and PR people the same way he can hire programmers, administrators and so forth. The difference is, even if you don't hire those people you can still have a viable product with lots of users. He can't have anything without paying for it and keeping fingers crossed.

In any case, I hope you guys work something mutually beneficial out.

Only on HN would people argue that it's more important for a small business owner to know how to write code than to know business.

Sure, that's sometimes true. But it's definitely not universally true. Even for a high tech "internet company."

Craigslist didn't succeed because Craig was such a good developer. Any clown with a PHP book could have coded the first version of that site. (In fact, I think it was written for free by volunteers)

I think your whole post argues against you.

Craig was a developer. Whether he was good or not is irrelevant, but he knew enough to write a prototype. He had (and arguably still has) little business skills. If he hadn't been a developer, there would be no Craigslist.

The same applies to Markus Frind, the google boys, and the majority of famous tech startups. Hell, even in Sun's case, Vinod (MBA) approached Andy (PhD) wanting to grow an existing, already-profitable business.

> Only on HN would people argue that it's more important for a small business owner to know how to write code than to know business.

If the small business is a bootstrapping internet startup, then yes we'd rather know how to code.

This comment, and the corresponding "if you build it they will come" mentality is exactly why so many startups fail.

How exactly would you have a viable product with lots of users without marketing?

I have seen bad products become phenomenally successful with good marketing, but I can't think of any app, no matter how good it is, succeed without marketing.

Or do you think your marketing plan consisting of "word of mouth" will work?

Seriously, usually I love the hacker mindset on HN, but comments like this make me cringe.

I think a more accurate mentality is if you build it they CAN come. I'm fully aware that the act of building itself means nothing, so let's not make this all black and white.

What I meant is that learning how to email bloggers, use adwords, optimize for SEO and create funnels, or the B&M version of the above, is about 500x easier than being technically competent.

I have a tech background. I've built sites that achieved rapid growth. No, it didn't happen magically on its own. Yes, I eventually learned about A/B testing and conversion. But if life was an RPG, I'd load my character up on the technical mastery, knowing how much harder that is to build up relative to business skills.

As a coder and a marketer, I would disagree. You can get by with sloppy code and even some bugs, but messing up an ad campaign could have drastic financial consequences.

No disrespect, but I think the nuances/details of marketing successfully are far more difficult to master than learning a programming language. Not to mention that there's a lot more competent programmers than competent marketers.

Assuming you don't go the year+ path of learning how to code (note the saw of a little knowledge being dangerous), you need to find a programmer who you ABSOLUTELY trust and respect, without reservation or hesitation. A co-founder, hired gun, whatever. You'll need him to vet your ideas, the people who do the actual work, the technical project management, etc.

Buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-S... and read/skim it. If you don't "get it", accept what it says as Revealed Truth and then if you have any talent for this game you'll understand more and more as you play it.

The Joel Test is also a good thing to pay attention to and follow: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html

The state of the mind which is best situated for coding (literally) or system administration is somewhere near Asperger's ^_^ so I don't think those skills - communication and people-reading which are the must for a founder could coexist with the narrow-focusing and persistence which would benefit a coder. These are two opposite extremes - the social mind and technical one. ^_^

btw, dividing of the tasks and responsibility is a good thing in general, and that is how (and why) YC works - they're searching for an appropriate state of the mind and help them to overcome people/business related difficulties.. (in the very polite and idealistic terms ^_^)

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