I think bootstrapping might be impossible for non-programmers | Hacker News Reader

I think bootstrapping might be impossible for non-programmers

thestartuptoolkit.com

47 pointsColinWright23 comments

The assumption that all intangible value is constrained to that which can be expressed through code is flawed. A better argument would be bootstrapping may be infeasible for start-ups producing tangible goods.

>If you’re sincere about getting into startups, start learning to code today.

Tech start-ups, yes, and a diminutive definition of technology at that (you know what you don't need to know for, say, an interior design, drilling technology, or infrastructure start-up?). We all have a tendency to over-articulate our fields - it's in the structure of how normal science progresses [1]. I tend to do it with finance, coding, and engineering. Just as everyone need not know how to tranche out a capital structure or Fourier transform their cat, not every problem need be (nor can be) addressed through code.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-e...

"Learn enough javascript and jquery to make your portfolio images appear with a nice lightbox effect when someone clicks on them"

That, plus a CS degree and a few years of programming experience, should set you well on your way.

I found that odd myself--the implication is that said entrepreneur needs non-trivial programming done in order to make an idea succeed, and that's something you can just pick up in a couple of weekends? If you can pick it up (with zero initial programming experience) in a couple of weeks with some Googling, then you really don't need much serious programming involvement.

Sure, there are people smart enough to just start from zero and ramp all the way up to "competent programmer" while working on their pet project full-time, but I don't think that's the best advice for everybody thinking about doing a tech startup.

It's good to have attainable goals when learning a new language, and such a function is likely a decent introduction to JS and maybe jQuery. Start small, then tackle bigger and bigger problems as you learn.

Does this guy actually run a successful tech startup? What makes him think so? Experience? Observations? Weird that an article like this would get written and then posted on here by: 'Rob is a tech entrepreneur who moved his first company to London from the valley. He has successfully bankrupted 3 companies'.

edit/tldr: I think what I'm trying to say is, it isn't very helpful to be positioning opinions or thoughts as advice.

Non-programmer bootstrapper here. (Designer and Project Manager to be specific). I'd like to share my experiences. I don't code but I did do a lot of research. Like most of you guys I decided to 'scratch my own itch'. My design agency was having a hard time finding (local and affordable) models for commercial photo shoots and I know for a fact photographers are under a lot of financial pressure to lower prices. Also nobody wants to pay royalties, so I build http://royaltyfreemodels.com/

Did my own research, UI/UX (thanks Forrst.com !), wireframing and design. Used my network to find a freelance programmer and a good framerwork (CakePHP). Did NOT forget the legal part and paid a laywer (almost as expensive as the developer). Don't forget the lawyer and try to cut out almost 20% of their fee. The lawyer enjoyed working for a startup (less formal and he got to brainstorm along). He showed me legal ways I did not know of and stopped me from paining a big red bullseye on my back.

Buy http://37signals.com/rework and read it twice. So far I've applied for the founder institute (made it in, but was not able to actually follow the course due to a surprisingly large amount of very good students last fall and the fact my startup isn't 'mobile').

I've 'sold' some people and after focussing on models/people to join, I'm now focussing on photographers and design agency's. I want the site to become the 'ShutterStock of people'.

If you can't develop expect to be frustrated by the slow speed of reaction, adjusting and updating the site and it's bugs. Also, I work all day so I can only spend evenings and weekends. That sucks.

I'm not sure it's impossible. I started down that path, doing OK, learning to program only after I got tired of waiting for deliverables. In fact, I found that hiring freelancers to build something that I could study made my learning process easier.

That said, I agree that learning to program makes sense. Just don't really expect to be able to build a website in two weeks.

From the article: (Note: In this post I’m talking specifically about tech startups, and especially non-sales-driven tech startups)

More specifically: non-sales-driven tech startups with founders who don't have their own money to fund development by working with employee-programmers, directly employed or outsourced.

If you read that and thought "you can't employ that programmer, they have to be a cofounder"? Then add in the criteria that you're aiming at a "tech-heavy market", rather than building a webapp for a non-technical need.

(As an example: while I respect patio11 greatly, I suspect that the actual Bingo Card Creator webapp could have been developed by a good programmer from some decent sketches, at least in beta.)

So basically this article targets business people with little money and a "great startup idea!" that they can't build themselves. I fully believe there are a lot of those out there, but it's still a fairly narrow category...

Given that he describes it as "Hello World attached to a random number generator" - quite possibly so. But it became meaningly profitable due to the design iteration and statistical marketing that followed, not to mention familiarity with its mostly nontechnical audience.

Certainly, and that's why patio11 has done as well as he has. But it's an easy example of why web startups aimed at a nontechnical audience can succeed even without being terribly complex, and is a supporting point for the idea that some startups can probably succeed without a "rock star" developer.

I agree with the premise that there is alot of changes that have to be made as you move along and iterate, but if you have a skill you can bill at a higher rate than you can hire a programmer at, then you can totally iterate. I have development skills, but also run a consultancy where I can net higher hourly rates than it costs me to hire top tier developers. So alot of times is more expedient to hire them and focus on running my consulting business. There are multiple paths, but I have seen with some of my clients they need to have deeper pockets or ongoing revenue from which to iterate out of.

I am a product strategist by trade, am a novice engineer, and run a big data startup serving the financial services sector.

Though the development of our platform is beyond my current abilities, I have been able to generate >$5m in LOIs without working MVP.

Bootstrapping is not impossible for a non-engineer, though we must focus on our strengths - in my case vision, design, and sales - in order to compensate and garner the support of others to build your team.

This article indirectly speaks to a larger issue:

Hackers need to become more well rounded and learn business skills, which will help them filter what to build, when, and why.

Right now hackers are too often like muscle heads, one thing overpowers the rest of their well-roundedness.

It's my belief that tech folks can learn how things work (including business, marketing, etc), far easier than business folks can learn tech things, like coding, etc. Why?

Figuring out how things could/do work is what we do all day in code. It's a super transferrable skill, maybe the most important one. There's no reason that it isn't being applied to improving ourselves in more ways than keyboard wizardry. Let's quit hiding behind the hacker talk.

I hope that we understand that "bootstrapping" is how the majority of small businesses get started, not just web startups.

The majority of people, period, suck at starting businesses for the same reason. Funding makes them suck often in different ways, as they usually spend it in less than optimal ways.. this parallels our experiences in the startup world.

The more we can relate to customers through marketing, sales, business skills, in addition to design and coding, the more well rounded one is in dealing with all situations, including the stuff you haven't dreamed of.

Welcome to the University of You. :)

University of You, where the ROI is immediate and you remain debt free.

Also beneficial to stay enrolled forever.

Once we think we're done learning, or we've arrived, we reach our apex and then start dying.

A couple weeks back, I saw E. O. Wilson speak. The guy is a science pioneer, has written over 20 books, and had come to talk about the new cutting-edge work he was doing in evolutionary biology. The guy is 82. And sharp as a tack.

When I asked him what his advice was for the whippersnappers among us, he said: never retire. Sure, you can quit doing one thing. But start doing something else. From the way he said it, his implication was exactly yours: the moment you allow yourself to stagnate, that's the beginning of the end.

Agreed!

This has always bugged me. Partly because of the musclehead thing, and partly because it leads to shitty products and insane companies.

If you don't have at least a little skill in an area, you can't really know how to work with those people, and you can't really appreciate the work enough to tell when somebody's doing it well.

Great companies like IDEO and Toyota are explicit about this. IDEO goes out looking for what they call "T-shaped" people: broad general knowledge and serious mastery of one area. Toyota does extensive cross-training and rotation, because you can't optimize a system that you don't understand and appreciate.

Hackers need to become more well rounded and learn business skills, which will help them filter what to build, when, and why.

"Business skills" seems to encompass an amazingly broad range of available knowledge. I've seen people refer to this idea occasionally, but it's always a vague allusion to "business skills" and nothing really concrete.

Having been full time, self employed, running my own business as a techie for over 12 years, I can assure you the vagueness is surprisingly accurate, kind of like learning "programming"..

I did list marketing as an example of a business skill that's critical. It sounds like you're interested to know more, so here's something I quickly googled for you that reflects what I meant for clarity:

http://www.businessschooledge.com/21-business-skills-to-succ...

I'm reminded of a quote from Neal Stephenson's Anathem:

> "But Raz, you are /educable/, you can learn 'this kind of thing', if by that you mean how to assemble a Cold Black Mirror. You've spent your whole life, ever since you were Collected, becoming educable."

>"Well, maybe you have a point there," I said, remembering the hithero inconceivable sight of Fraa Arsibalt powering up a nuclear reactor.

>"But the clincher—and here I'm just imagining how Ala would have framed the argument—is that the whole mission, the journey you and the others are going on, isn't going to be just this. When you get where you're going, who knows what you'll be called upon to do? And then you'll have to draw on everything you know—every aptitude you've ever acquired since you became a fid."

I agree with the overall sentiment, but I don't think building and maintaining your own blog is a great learning project. Perhaps building it is, as an exercise...just like building an adder circuit is a good project for sophomores in computer engineering. But afterwards, I think learners will be more motivated to work on things that can more directly benefit the bottom line, such as API/web-scraping data collection. Or even automation of tasks/data-compilation that is necessary to multiply your ability to create your idea.

From wikipedia:

"Bootstrapping in business means starting a business without external help or capital. Such startups fund the development of their company through internal cash flow and are cautious with their expenses.[11][12] Generally at the start of a venture, a small amount of money will be set aside for the bootstrap[13] process. Bootstrapping can also be a supplement for econometric models.[14]"

I looked it up to be sure, but bootstrapping as I know it has more to with business experience then programming. Things like knowing how to (cheaply) form a corporation (and the right kind too), set up (cheaply) any administrative infrastructure like accounting, control spending, ect.

Additionally, I am having trouble seeing how learning programming will help you with the above, or help you either A) find a technical co-founder or B) contract out developers to develop you product. I don't like the title and I don't think the author supported the title with his argument at all.

All law firms are bootstrapped and always have been, as are almost all small accounting firms. Many authors bootstrap: either they write their works while still employed, or they quit and hope to make enough from their writing to do it full-time. (Off the top of my head: John Grisham, Terry Brooks, and Orson Scott Card began writing while still employed.)

A lot of food trucks were funded via bootstrapping. Many independent films are self-financed by the filmmaker.

Further note: at LA Demo Day last week, fully one-third of the startups were bootstrapped by lawyer-founders, most of whom were the non-technical founders.

So yeah, this article is just some FUD that tries to place programmers on some sort of exalted pedastal without realizing that they're just doing what people have been doing in other professions for decades.

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