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> The work I was doing for Hippo – designing the product and talking to users – I was able to do much quicker than David was able to build the product (he had a

> The work I was doing for Hippo – designing the product and talking to users – I was able to do much quicker than David was able to build the product (he had a normal developer job). > I think my particular mistake was probably being too optimistic about how much development work David and A would and could do. I should have been more critical of our development productivity and not given them so much of the benefit of the doubt. Developers: Don't work for these people. This is why it is so important to donate your time to people who are serious. Do not give your time to backstop someone's else fantasies of doing something "important" or getting rich.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago
Agreed, this is the prototypical "non technical founder" that is primarily an "idea guy" and can't focus. Gives a bad name to all founders who aren't primarily engineers.
- zrobotics 8y ago
  Non-technical founder isn't the real problem here, it's a non-skilled founder. I wouldn't have a huge problem working with a business/marketing oriented founder, as I know I lack those skills. However, this is a founder working on a moral philosophy PhD, who apparently could only interview people and come up with pie in the sky ideas. I can't blame the developers for not taking this seriously. Plus, this isn't even a great idea, it sounds like a pitch for a silicon valley joke. Who wants an app to randomly nag them throughout the day to enter information to determine if you are happy or not. And his ideas for making you happy are telling- offer to watch a TED talk? There's nothing wrong with being non-technical, but you have to be able to bring some sort of value. Same thing as the common advice for indie game devs: your game idea is worthless, we all have at least 5 ideas kicking around. Show me a basic implementation, or some nearly-finished art assets, or at the very least a compelling business plan with data to back it up. Edit: this was maybe a bit harsh, I think his developer should share some blame here too. 2 years of part-time work and they were having trouble sending random push notifications? Aside from the random timing, sending a push notification is essentially android's hello world project. If you aren't interested in working on the project, then say so, don't pretend you will and then not do anything.
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    Right, as clarification the problem wasn't that he was non-technical. However because he's non-technical, he reinforces the stereotype of the non-technical founder as scammy con-artist, giving actually talented founders who are great at sales or strategy or operations a bad name.
woah 8y ago
I’m a developer, and I will say that the fact that the guy took 2 years to make an incomplete app to show different pieces of text, shows that the developer was not very serious either.
snaky 8y ago
I think all the model of modern startup culture is suboptimal but widely spread and so considered the only possible scheme by literally everyone. Couldn't we imagine the case when not enterpreneur dictates 'what to build' to developer, but exact opposite of that? Developer knows what he is going to build, and just hires marketing-minded guy for legwork wrt funding, marketing, and other extrovertial stuff - for the same little wage and stock options as it's done usually.
- rkangel 8y ago
  This happens, and you could argue is how Google and Microsoft got started. In practice though, knowing WHAT to build is at least as important a skill as HOW to build it. Things an engineer wants to build are not necessarily things a customer will buy. So starting with someone with understanding of the market is probably more likely to bring success.
  - snaky 8y ago
    The question is who is the boss. And almost always it's the marketing guy, we usually call him enterpreneur. I don't think this model is good or bad per se, I'm just talking about maybe, just maybe, it's not supposed to be like that everywhere every time.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

Agreed, this is the prototypical "non technical founder" that is primarily an "idea guy" and can't focus. Gives a bad name to all founders who aren't primarily engineers.

zrobotics 8y ago
Non-technical founder isn't the real problem here, it's a non-skilled founder. I wouldn't have a huge problem working with a business/marketing oriented founder, as I know I lack those skills. However, this is a founder working on a moral philosophy PhD, who apparently could only interview people and come up with pie in the sky ideas. I can't blame the developers for not taking this seriously. Plus, this isn't even a great idea, it sounds like a pitch for a silicon valley joke. Who wants an app to randomly nag them throughout the day to enter information to determine if you are happy or not. And his ideas for making you happy are telling- offer to watch a TED talk? There's nothing wrong with being non-technical, but you have to be able to bring some sort of value. Same thing as the common advice for indie game devs: your game idea is worthless, we all have at least 5 ideas kicking around. Show me a basic implementation, or some nearly-finished art assets, or at the very least a compelling business plan with data to back it up. Edit: this was maybe a bit harsh, I think his developer should share some blame here too. 2 years of part-time work and they were having trouble sending random push notifications? Aside from the random timing, sending a push notification is essentially android's hello world project. If you aren't interested in working on the project, then say so, don't pretend you will and then not do anything.
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  Right, as clarification the problem wasn't that he was non-technical. However because he's non-technical, he reinforces the stereotype of the non-technical founder as scammy con-artist, giving actually talented founders who are great at sales or strategy or operations a bad name.

woah 8y ago

I’m a developer, and I will say that the fact that the guy took 2 years to make an incomplete app to show different pieces of text, shows that the developer was not very serious either.

snaky 8y ago

I think all the model of modern startup culture is suboptimal but widely spread and so considered the only possible scheme by literally everyone. Couldn't we imagine the case when not enterpreneur dictates 'what to build' to developer, but exact opposite of that? Developer knows what he is going to build, and just hires marketing-minded guy for legwork wrt funding, marketing, and other extrovertial stuff - for the same little wage and stock options as it's done usually.

rkangel 8y ago
This happens, and you could argue is how Google and Microsoft got started. In practice though, knowing WHAT to build is at least as important a skill as HOW to build it. Things an engineer wants to build are not necessarily things a customer will buy. So starting with someone with understanding of the market is probably more likely to bring success.
- snaky 8y ago
  The question is who is the boss. And almost always it's the marketing guy, we usually call him enterpreneur. I don't think this model is good or bad per se, I'm just talking about maybe, just maybe, it's not supposed to be like that everywhere every time.