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While I generally agree that an idea is not worth the paper used to write it down, there is also a certain level of domain expertise that a coder will lack which an "idea person" can supply if they have the right sort of experience. You may be a rails "rock star", but if you don't know dick about the widget* supply business then your widget management app is not going to go anywhere.

*I do hate how useless wen plugins have appropriated a nice generic term...

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Absolutely right. Still, I'd be wary of bringing on an "idea person" to a lean start-up if they didn't also have business contacts within the widget supply business that could be leveraged into sales, or skills to otherwise contribute to the product.

Also, I don't think it's all about coders. Depending on the business, there are lots of other day-to-day productive roles that need to be filled. But it's incredibly rare that I would describe any of them as "idea person".

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