Help/Advice needed with starting a startup

I was in a similar position three months ago. I had an idea for a website that I was incredibly excited about, but no programming experience. (And no business experience, either! My major is creative writing.) At first I did the natural thing for a "non-technical co-founder": I asked every programmer I could find if they wanted to build the product for me in exchange for equity in my unfunded company. Needless to say, this did not work out.

I decided to teach myself how to do it, which meant starting from the very beginning. I bought a "For Dummies" book on HTML, CSS and JavaScript (Yes, it was really that bad! Back when I took a web design course in high school, they were still teaching us to format with tables.) and worked my way up to more serious books on MySQL, PHP, and jQuery, all the while working on my website. I now have a beta version of the site online, and I'm testing it with friends and family. I've also learned enough about programming to get a part-time job as a developer at another company. (Not the highest-paying developer job, but still! Real US currency, and the beta version of my website was my only resume.) There are still tons of things that I want to add to my website that I don't know how to build yet, and many aspects of the design that I'm not happy with, but that's okay! Only three months ago I didn't even know CSS! At least now I have a working demo that I can show to potential team members, investors, and future clients.

If you're already programming as a hobby, you'll probably love programming as a job, and you're a lot further along than I was when I started. The only way to build a web app is to build it. And I promise you that until you start building it you have not even begun to conceptualize it! Don't underestimate the difficulty of the intellectual challenges you're going to face.

But don't be daunted by the challenges, either. I can speak as someone who started with literally "just an idea". I think you'll be surprised by how much you'll be able to build in just six months.

Whoa! This seems absolutely like my position. Great job! Would love to have a look at your website (if you'd care to share the link).

Thanks for the advice - hugely helpful!

I would advise you get started coding as soon as possible. And there's two reasons I'm giving you this advice:

(1) no "learning experience" in the world compares to actually having to do something to your app's code -- I've been doing development for 10 years, and this is basically how I "learned" everything; by actually having to do it.

(2) your idea will probably change once you start working on it; they always do.

And don't worry: it's very unlikely that someone will just decide, out of the blue, to execute the exact same idea as you. And even if they do, the thing to remember is that it's the execution that matters, not the idea itself.

Yeah, I understand that point - but I'm still a bit unsure how to hit the ground running - you know, the initial qualms, what's the point that I start at? Do I just dive in and learn on the go? Or learn a bit, create, learn more and develop and so on.. ? Glad to have some pros provide some great advice!

What I would do -- what I actually do do, as a matter of fact -- is dive right in and learn on the go.

Necessity is the mother of invention -- or, in our case, the mother of resourcefulness. I.e. nothing will make you learn something faster, and better, than having your website crash/not-work if that particular something isn't done right.

That being said, don't go overboard; or be overconfident. Do practice the basics, before diving head first into your new website/app. And by "the basics" I mean getting a website up and running.

Then, you take that and you run with it -- as fast and for as long as you can. There; that's the secret to startups, right there :)

I would get cracking on web development if I were you. You can definitely do it alone for a while. That way you're not at the mercy of a programmer and you will have learned a useful skill in the likely event your idea doesn't make it.

Appreciate the advice, but I primarily wanted to know how much importance to give to the "time factor" - you know, I could spend 6 months developing skills for something I wanted to do only to realise that someone's get their foot into the hole I had my eyes on? I'm sorry if this sounds puerile or naive, but it's just the first time I've had an exciting idea for a startup so I really want to see this come to fruition soon!

I think it depends how much money you have to spend. If you have money then see about finding a developer. If you don't have money and you don't expect investment then I would say take your time. 6 months is not that long. Unless you're idea is fully developed it will probably take that long to figure out what it is you're really going to end up building based on feedback.

Yeah, I think more than money, the reason I am actually considering learning development myself is that it gives me some sort of "ownership security" - you know, the feeling that I didn't just have an idea but I own what I made of that idea rather than having got it done by others. Thanks for your advice!

http://www.axure.com/tour.aspx -- secret is -- they will give it to you for free if you're/were a 3.0 + student. Just email them from university domain, and request a 'good student' copy.

If you need help getting ramped up on their software, let me know.

JB

I would say you pick the programming language to get an idea what is possible in your web application and what is not. Meanwhile, never stop recruiting, it is not easy to find good developer.

I think you need a designer too. Most developer an't good at design work. Then you have a decent team structure.

I'm primarily looking to develop a Rails app. (Sorry, missed that out!)