Ask HN: How to start-up when you are not technical? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to start-up when you are not technical?

We are a group of girls in SF that are extremely excited about a start-up idea. We have bounced it off of a few YC alum, and they think it is a great idea too, but we cannot contribute technically.

This is our current plan, what should we do to make it better?

1) Learn Django (we have no python experience, but we can read).

2) Use that knowledge to post a marketing site describing the idea and start collecting email addresses.

3) Since we cannot program, jump straight to getting the marketing site on Techcrunch and seeing what happens.

4) Find a technical co-founder that realizes we are serious and will join us.

Do you think this will work? What else can we do to help see this company come to light?

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Good luck! Some specific responses:

* You don't need to learn Django to put up a simple marketing page and collect emails. A very simple PHP script will suffice, and for most hosting providers you'll spend less time learning PHP and getting a page up than you will just working out how to install Django and deploy it behind Apache. That stuff is well worth doing when you have a real site to put up, but not for a single page with one form.

* I don't think TC will be interested in featuring a marketing page with no product behind it.

* As naithemilkman asked, how big is your group? If there are more than two of you and you're looking for a technical cofounder to do all the implementation, your idea better involve a lot of non-technical work. Otherwise, frankly, what are you all going to bring to the table?

I do think learning Django is a great idea in general, and it will also give you independence from having to persuade a technical person to join you and work on your project. I like Django because Python is a very easy language for beginning programmers, and there's a lot of reusable Django code out there. The docs and community are pretty solid, too. (If you do start learning Django I'd suggest reading the 1.3 docs, since 1.3 is coming out in a few days.) The other thing that might make sense is to have one or two people focus on Python and back-end Django (views, models/ORM, etc.) and one focus on learning HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Django templates (front-end stuff), if all of you are serious about making a technical contribution.

How about pooling together cash and hiring a freelancer to do #2 as another option.

Just out of curiousity, how big is your 'group' and what's the role assignment like? Who's going to be doing what? The reason I ask this is because it sounds like there might be too many 'non techies' involved in the project. Is everyone going to learn to code?

From my short experience in teaching myself to code in python, there is an entire sys admin side to the equation that is often left out of conversations but is really important as well. So I think that's something you need to factor into your to-do list as well. If you're going to be learning Django, you kinda need to know Python. Otherwise the terms will just fly over your head pretty quickly and you'll be making really obvious mistakes (like not putting a comma at the end of a tuple). So having kind of walked this path already, I recommend doing a 101 on Python to begin with (its not that hard to get the basics down). You might find my blogpost on this useful: http://pragmaticstartup.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/how-i-am-le...

If you do not want to bother yourself too much with sys admin, you probably want to consider hosting your mvp on Google App Engine (GAE) to begin with. But having said that, I don't think there have been many startups who have gone down this route in the mid-long term. The general consensus from what I have read seems to be to use GAE to host weekend projects and then migrate away once you decide to take your project more seriously.

I'm fairly new to HN in terms of commenting, but have been here for a while lurking. Your comment and blog post in particular was very helpful. I carry a very strong design background myself and the only development experience I have is front-end.

I'm also looking to start learning Python and Django so I'll be sure to give your learning process a try. Many thanks for this!

Thanks! I hope you find it helpful and good luck with the learning!

There's typically a lot that's required in growing and scaling a web business. Often its a bit more than just learning to program and building your site. Technical co founders are generally hard to find, because the good ones get taken quickly. Additionally many technical co-founders don't see the idea in the same way you do. I'd recommend doing all you can to first validate your idea before attempting to find that technical cofounder or learning to program yourself. Your #2, seems like a great starting point. From there I'd focus on both #1 and #4, #1 more to build out your concept and prove it than to fully build the product. While it might seem like extra work, it's worth it to work through issues and will make finding a technical cofounder easier.

As for actually finding a technical cofounder, go to various events. Since you're in the bay area there's no shortage of them from Hackers and Founders meetups, to Lean Coffee. There's usually several per week so get out there early and start connecting with developers that may be able to help you down the line.

As for Techcrunch, like many others have mentioned here hold off. You won't get 10 chances to be on the front page unless your foursquare or twitter, even more so you want to be able to truly capitalize if you do receive that marketing.

Since you are a group of girls in the startup scene, for whatever project you take on, I would suggest that you put a lot of focus on being in the public eye for your brand (I mean this in the least creepy way possible). In an industry that's clouded with males, a startup with a group of female founders is quite refreshing, and would likely get some good media attention.

Why don't you guys use performable or unbounce to test demand before building the product?

Do some customer development, see if there's a real need, and see if/what people are willing to pay for what you build.

It's really be a waste of time and resources if your idea isn't something worth building.

Do #2 first, to validate your idea. This will help you better persuade your tech cofounders to take the plunge and join you guys. At least it helped me!

After that's up, start learning programming. Rails or Django should do fine. Just get a MVP out there and slowly gain some users/customers

3) ..don't rush getting on TC

4) It's like looking for the ideal boyfriend. You'll never find him if YOU keep looking so hard and see everyone as a potential boyfriend. Instead just learn to program a little, build out a simplistic product and they'll come to you.

BTW, I'll be doing a "Learn Rails and build an app in 7 days" course soon, so if you're interested drop me an email at hajrice@gmail.com

I have to say skip straight to #4. Finding a tech founder will be the best thing you can do to get started. But you better decide what role each nontech has beforehand. I doubt the tech founder will be happy with 20% equity with the other 4 just coasting on the idea for the same amount.

I have a background in web development and would be open to talking to you about your project and helping you out in any way i can. Including helping you get your coding off the ground. Please let me know if you are interested. Thanks.

Hi, would be great to speak with you. Please send an email to gnote22@yahoo.com and let us know the best way to get in touch. Thanks!

Start learning and writing the code yourself. All you need is time and commitment - not money. This will enable you to implement your great ideas in future too and give you a job if this idea doesn't work out. Win/Win.

It depends what sort of web company / product / service you intend to build. Regardless, if you have freelancers make parts of it, you should get your toes wet in programming so you can vet the deliverables etc.

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