Sorry Dan Shipper, you are wrong.
Posted By crranky ~ 17th August 2012
This in response to a couple of Dan Shipper’s comments in his most recent article “The Now Syndrome.”
“Get rid of false constraints and move forward.”
I am the nontechnical founder of several great startup ideas (I didn’t say startups) sometimes very poorly executed.
I am a marketing guy. I can write. I can design. I can sell. I can do a lot of things well. But…
Coding is tough.
I appreciate the humble sentiments of Dan Shipper and other coders on Hacker News that say, stop whining about not being able to find a technical co-founder, just take 6 months and learn to code. Over and over I find myself captured and wooed by this.
I don’t often hear medical doctors saying the similar, hey stop coming to me with your ailments, just learn to be a doctor. I think being a coder is every bit as difficult technically as being a medical doctor. And yet, I slog through a few lessons on Lynda.com on CSS or PHP and I want to weep in frustration. Not because its difficult but because I want to stop and work on something that’s better suited to my temperament, strengths and likes. I don’t want to become a doctor. I don’t want to become a coder. But the later is a little more problematic in my situation. I love startups, I love the dynamic nature of the web. I’m beginning to believe this is a curse. Am I alone? Probably not.
And yes, I can appreciate the difference between being a coder and learning to code.
I want to learn to code. But what if I’m not built to be a coder? Guys, am I missing the point here?
So, Dan and others, they’re not false constrains, really, seriously, they are not.
Learn to code is quite simple, mastering programming languages is not. And I don’t think Dan was implying that you need to master a language, I think he was encouraging people to learn the very basic stuff to build their MVP.
To code, and to be a programmer are not the same thing.
I play soccer, but I’m not a soccer player.
My $0.02
Simple, maybe. Easy no.
Then pony up $50 and make some friends like the rest.
coding is easy. coding with sustainable architecture with solid foundation for future growth, is not.
but, whipping up a bunch of code to show off your idea should be easy enough to do.
coding is nothing at all like medical practice. it’s just like learning a language, only much simpler, since it’s a language you already speak, you just don’t know it yet.
I feel for you. I’m currently trying to learn to sing because I want to sing songs I want to write. I could go find a singer, but I have a particular vision in my head for what I want to say and how I want to say it. So, I’m going to learn to sing and I spend every day doing about an hour of singing practice if I can. It’s fun to keep trying, and I do see improvements in many other things. If it’s important to you then spending at least 2 hours every day on learning to code is a minimum effort requirement.
But, I’m going to give you some advice and it’s partly related to your analogy of a doctor. Yes, if you are a patient and you visit a doctor you won’t be told to become a practicing physician just to get cured. That’s very true.
However, if you went into a doctor and said, “Hey doc, I have this awesome idea for curing people of cancer and I’m looking for a doctor to help me. You see all we gotta do is combine grapefruit with antioxident emollients and I’m sure it’ll be solved. How about me and you start a business based on this, and I’ll own 95% of it but you do all the work? Awesome right? We’ll be rich!”
Then the doctor is going to tell you to get a medical degree because you just don’t know enough about medicine to even begin to understand why everything you just said is wrong. In your mind this idea is totally valid and awesome, but you’re uneducated and have no idea what you’re talking about.
The solution is to get educated and then when you understand the actual difficulty of the domain of medicine you can begin to formulate ideas that actually might work. You’ll also have more respect for the years of work a doctor has put in and will be less likely to offer disrespectful partnerships like “5% equity with no pay”.
That’s why you should learn to code. Once you just learn enough to build anything you’ll begin to respect programmers a lot more, be able to articulate ideas that are more realistic, and even be able to build out your own prototypes for ideas if you need.
But, there’s another option: Learn to do design. If you’re into web sites, and you’re looking to build them, then an alternative to being able to code them up is to be able to very clearly and exactly design them. If you can lay out all the major screens and the design then that’s worth its weight in gold. Design is also just about as hard to find as programming.
So, if you can’t get through programming courses, then try your hand at design.
I agree I need to learn to code. But I already respect programmers a great deal.
I’m a developer and I downplay what I do/can do frequently. I’m not sure why, maybe just because I don’t want to spend more time doing it. I’m constantly met, however, with people who idolize it. It’s a weird place to be in. That being said, I don’t think it is for everyone. I think the above comments about MVP may be right, but then you may also end up turning your crackpot (no offense intended) MVP into the core of your code for a year, and have serious pain later on.
It’s challenging to find a technical cofounder, but if that’s what you want, then I support your search. I also thank you for your compliments of developers and our efforts.
Bon chance, crranky, finding the right match for your ideas.
1) You don’t need to have a medical background in order to use the services of a doctor. OTOH you better know what you are talking about, when starting a company, creating a new kind of product, for which health care regulations apply. Even then you still need a medical expert.
2) There is a huge difference between knowing the basics of metabolism and being able to identify every muscle, bone, …
“I think being a coder is every bit as difficult technically as being a medical doctor. ”
I think your problem is that this statement is 100% wrong.
Once you get angry enough, and even desperate enough, you’ll learn
“What made it click for me was programming in anger. Programming because I needed to. Programming because I gave a damn about what I was writing and I wanted it done sooner rather than later.” -DHH, creator of Ruby on Rails
Read the rest here > http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2582-how-do-i-learn-to-program/
Yep, fear, anger and frustration can be powerful motivators.
Coding is not easy. Entering text into a document, crossing your fingers, and compiling is easy. Anyone who says you can learn to code to produce an MVP is full of shit.
I guess if your vision for an MVP is a heaping pile of shit. Maybe then, your spaghetti code will get you there. However, no amateur programmer is going to make a product that is bug-free, enjoyable to use, and easy to grow on top of.
I guess that no one’s ever heard of the term “Technical Debt” before. If you produce something with terrible (or non-existant) architecture, it is going to be extremely difficult to grow that product into a business. A business is not an MVP, no matter what people say. Unless you’re *planning* on selling out while still in the MVP stage, you are going to have to build on top of your MVP. Your vision will change, your customers will change, your design and spec will change.
When the time comes to write NextBestThing v2, you’re going to either rewrite from scratch or pour in many, many more hours than necessary to adapt v1 to work with all your spiffy new v2 features. That’s just not worth it, especially if you have no idea what you’re doing. Basically, hire a developer or make something that requires little to no code to produce.
Boil it down to the essentials.
You want to do a startup that involves code. Someone has to write the code. That means either you do it, or someone else does it. If you want someone else to do it, you either have to a) pay them – which means you need some real $$$ or b) convince them that your other skills are valuable enough for them to treat you as a co-founder (assuming that’s what you want to be).
As a technical founder, I can tell you that the bar for what technical people look for in a non-technical co-founder is pretty high. You need to have one or more of the following – a) lots of money b) a great rolodex that includes investors c) a golden resume that will make investors swoon, d) proven mastery of marketing, design or sales.
A great idea just doesn’t cut it. Most VCs will tell you that ideas are worthless by themselves.
So in the end, if code has to get written, you either do it yourself or become compelling to someone who can do it. Take your pick.
What’s all this demeaning “coders” stuff? It’s like you’re talking about “homeless” or “addicts”, reducing a function to an identity.
Presumably you mean to refer to product designers, engineers and developers. Yes, these are difficult talents to find, but you won’t find competent practitioners by calling them names like “coders”.
Supposedly it takes 10,000 hours to master something. With drive, a definite goal, entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to learn, you’ll be able to get to decent dev level. But remember, the code will be rewritten multiple times before and after you’ve got any sort of buy in.
Good stuff, guys. I really appreciate all your encouragement and input!
If you really want to learn programming, you should just try harder. And stop thinking how to make money using what you have just learned when you finish a lesson or two.
Programming is so much more comparing to coding, being able to code is super easy, you just spent time memorizing syntax. But programming is about solving problems, how you approach a problem, what the logic behind the code etc.
Just like marketing, it is just in a different context, everyone knows how to solve problems. I just feel you might think you are pretty well established in your field, you can marketing, you can design, you can write etc etc. It just might be hard for you to learn new stuff as you are constrained by your own knowledge & ego. You gonna Empty what is full.
Just try harder & be humble, blindly believe somehow what you learn is gonna be useful in the future.
Who the hell am I to judge, I am just a super-old design student who faced same problem one year ago. Yeah, I can code now.
Your advice is frustrating but I admit you are correct. “Just try harder” is sometimes all it takes. Thanks.
This topic strikes a chord with me as I too feel compelled to dive in and learn to code. I get it, I see the value in it as a designer who can learn to build my own stuff, it really is inspiring. But I often end up feeling like I’m trying to be someone I’m not and maybe that’s a cop out. Maybe it comes to down to preference? There is after all so much more that interests me and vies for my attention. Things like illustration, writing, mentoring etc. Does it come down to an issue of time? Perhaps or perhaps it’s another lame excuse to keep me from learning what I inherently see as valuable.
Thanks for sharing.
Hey Crranky,
I’ve done It and It’s hard like climbing Mount Everest without training …but I had faith.
Worked 15 years in Coms/Mkt roles for big Corp / small start-ups.
Came to realize that I wanted to use technology to change people’s life. Had no talent to hype but wasn’t too bad at getting things done.
So I took programming for about 2 years…basic stuff first then more robust Java frameworks.
Now JEE developer for small insurance co. with Spring Core, Hibernate, MySQL, Maven technologies for breaky everymorning.
(I had to lie big time to get hired though..came to interview with a mini working project on my notebook…was lucky to have a “young inexperienced” boss “HR wise”.
Have been 10 months in the job now and brought down my learning curve BIG time. What’s key is “best practices for coding & patterns” …so I can now reuse all that and start coding my ideas…
If they stick…then I’ll be able to hire the “real geeks”…hoping that my prototype can be maintained …along the way and we don’t have to rewrite everything…
I will never be a great coder but then I don’t need to be ..I just need to know enough to test ideas, which is now within my reach.
Next step for me is to look to find a Math/Algorithm guy / girl who can code too…;-) and a 100% PR person …the magic trio of skills I believe
Good luck
J