10 ms·

I just need a programmer

288 points by bgray 16y ago

wccrawford 16y ago
Wait, so they're surprised that they can't find students willing to work hard in return for some vague hope of money in the future? Wow. Color me shocked. /sarcasm And the advice that they could just learn programming themselves? I don't think anyone ever says 'I need X, but don't know anything about it myself. I'll just learn it.' (At least, nobody that thinks logically.) It doesn't work that way. (Okay, granted, some small number of people might think that and actually succeed at it. But at the cost of things they could have been doing efficiently, instead.)
- gregpilling 16y ago
  "I don't think anyone ever says 'I need X, but don't know anything about it myself. I'll just learn it.'" Yes, people do that. Like me, when I was interested in having a strawbale house I read a book and built a strawbale house (took 6 months). Learned a lot about construction in the process. When I wanted a website, I read a book and built my first website. Like the house, it was not the ultimate expression in its field but it was a website. So now I am not an expert at construction nor website building but I do know a whole lot more than the average person and I do know what parts are hard and what parts are easy. Makes the conversations with the real professionals much easier.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    You're definitely unusual. Almost everything I own I bought by exchanging cash for the product. Most services, I exchange cash for the service. I generate the cash by doing things I'm good at. My dad is unusual too though. Say you need a new dryer, he'll go on and tell you that all it is is some heating something or other, sheet metal, yada yada yada. I'm half way to Sears... :-)
porter 16y ago
It seems funny to me that so many people want to be software entrepreneurs, but refuse to learn about software. Six months ago I quit my banking job of five years to learn how to program. I am taking discrete math, data structures & algorithms, and computer organization courses as a non-degree student. I am also up to speed with python/django/HTML/CSS/JS, or at least I know them well enough to hack a prototype together. Programming is overwhelming at first, but seriously, it's not that hard to learn enough to test out your ideas.
- stevejobs 16y ago
  Most people are good at what they're good at, so it makes no sense for them to learn something they have little interest or skill in. The typical request from a non-tech guy is not in implementing a hard engineering problem like database management or search query structure, but in putting together what is typically a glorified e-commerce site or social site (digg etc).
  - jimbokun 16y ago
    Just happened to read Forbes write up on Reed Hastings (Netflix) as their CEO of the year. Turns out he has an M.S. C.S. from Stanford. Jobs did some programming and soldering logic boards. Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter with Paul Allen. Zuckerberg was in Harvard C.S., I believe, and wrote the first implementation of Facebook himself. Bezos has a B.S. in C.S. and Electrical Engineering. Larry, Sergey, Jerry Yang all Stanford C.S. grad school drop outs. So, I am having a hard time coming up with a spectacularly successful software company where the founders "just needed a programmer."
    - die_sekte 16y ago
      Facebook probably counts somewhat. The Winklevii needed "just a programmer". Too bad the programmer didn't want to be "just a programmer".
    - lian 16y ago
      Well, Apple could be a counterpoint if we're just talking about current CEOs. Steve Jobs has never been revered for his electronics skills, and it seems he kind of snuck in the back door in early jobs at Atari and HP. His specialty was always sales, whether selling Apple computers or selling himself. That said, if we're talking "founders," Steve Wozniak was built right in, and he's the computer guru we're looking for. Just giving the computational credit where it's due, on this one.
scrrr 16y ago
Funny, I have the opposite problem. I need a biz-guy!
- roel_v 16y ago
  Me too. I can't find someone with idea, no matter how stupid, no matter how hard I try. Going to 'networking events' usually yields dozens of business cards of people who want to sell 'services' to 'local businesses' (design, legal, accounting, market research, whatever...) but they all just want to get paid by the hour - let along that one of them could come up with an idea. So that causes the situation where you have 30 or 50 people all trying to sell each other the same services, with nobody who can actually create anything new.
- flyosity 16y ago
  It might be valuable to enumerate for which exact reasons you need this "biz guy" and really ask yourself if you can't do most of it yourself, at least at the beginning. I'm a designer/developer and I sold ads and did a lot of business development for my startup for over a year before we were acquired. It's amazing how much stuff a smart person can get done (that's out of their comfort zone) when they really, really have to.
- efsavage 16y ago
  Yeah, I think the programmer version of this is "I've got a great program/site, I just need someone to sell it!".
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - balakk 16y ago
    You mean programmers will actually admit they can't do everything? Fantasy.
anthonycerra 16y ago
What it really boils down to is the drive of the individual. If you're not willing to do whatever it takes to make the dream a reality then you're not an entrepreneur. That might mean growing your network to find a co-founder or it might mean buckling down and learning to program yourself. There's so much free information out there today that ignorance is no excuse.
nhangen 16y ago
I'm one of these guys. Why didn't I learn to program? I had maybe an hour/day in between my job and my side hustle, and I just didn't have enough time to get through the problems in order to be a good programmer. Since then, I've found that watching projects come to life, while learning on the side, has made it much easier to pick up Objective C, Javascript, Ruby, etc. Of course, I didn't expect programmers to work for free...that would be ridiculous. That being said, it's kind of like learning HTML or CSS, unless you're doing it actively, full-time, for months or even years, it's going to take some time to feel like you know what you're doing. Lastly, there are so many languages. There's Ruby, Python, PHP, C and its variants, etc. Do you learn web languages or something like Objective C? Those are some of the things that went through my mind when I started.
- sudont 16y ago
  Luckily the base thinking skills transfer over, so learning how to program in Java/C means that the student now knows how to program irregardless of the language. Picking up a new language is less like learning a new dialect and more like learning the local slang and customs. Except for MUMPS. Fuck that shit.
  - adacosta 16y ago
    regardless
    - sudont 16y ago
      Ssssh, you prescriptivist!
  - eru 16y ago
    Picking up a new paradigm is also harder than picking up a different language within a paradigm you know. But you'll get pretty far with the imperative languages you mentioned.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    Except for MUMPS. Fuck that shit. Amen.
geebee 16y ago
This is a good post. I'd take it one step farther. To say the idea is nothing without the execution still (kind of) suggests that they are different things. I think that where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I wouldn't quite claim that ideas aren't worth much. I know a few academics, and they are rightly careful about sharing their ideas before they get far enough with the implementation (lab work, publications) to ensure that they will be credited. If I'm going to agree that "idea stealing" is a problem, then I'm committed to agreeing that raw ideas do have some value. Software can be like this, but in general, I think most software "ideas" are more similar to an idea for a novel, painting, or screenplay than a blockbuster pharmaceutical drug. Give two programmers the same "idea", and you'll end up with two different products - maybe almost as different as two different novels. Hell, give two writers or programmers the same detailed outline, and you'll probably end up with two different outcomes. When I was in college, "business types" walked through shopping malls and appended "dot com" to what they saw, and thought they had a valuable idea. Now, people tend to prepend "social networking for" or "wireless". "Social networking - for surfers! for moms!" Now one warning - however much I may feel this way, the law isn't necessarily on my side. IANAL and everything, but some IP lawyers came to talk to a startup I worked at once to tell us about how important it is to shut the fuck up, and evidently simply being "the programmer" doesn't mean you have to be included on a patent. So to that extent, the law does recognize a separation between idea and implementation.
- vog 16y ago
  > where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I strongly disagree with that. Although ideas and execution (i.e. software) are both "nothing more" than information, they don't have much in common. Also, ideas are refined as well as changed during execution - that is, our perception of the big picture changes as we get more information about the details. > Give two programmers the same "idea", and you'll end up with two different products I fully agree with that. BTW, this somewhat contradicts the first statement.
  - dfj225 16y ago
    > where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I think that is nearly true from the customer's perspective. They (most likely) don't have any information about the idea and only know what they interact with in the form of the execution.
Ataraxy 16y ago
I am a marketer. I am also fairly technical and think that I have a firm understanding of how things work but lack the capabilities/aptitude to properly code them. I managed to cobble together a functional prototype of some analytics software we needed. It was fine until it became quickly apparent that my coding skills suck despite a more or less understanding of it all. We had to hire a coder to write it all from scratch to be able to handle hundreds of thousands clicks per day. It has been bumpy but it was still the right decision in order to allow our business to grow. My point is, even if you want something bad enough that you will sit there for a couple of weeks straight to cobble your vision together, nothing beats having it done by a professional that understands what they are doing. I wish still we had a full time developer and ui designer available to us to make my much grander/awesome/profitable vision a reality. In time we will...
- anamax 16y ago
  > I managed to cobble together a functional prototype of some analytics software we needed. It was fine until The key point is that you had something complete, it wasn't a vague idea. In some sense, your prototype was "a product". It wasn't adequate in many ways. I mention product because the "suits" are offering "I need someone to improve my product" terms while expecting "I need someone to build a product from my idea". There's a huge gap between "a decent social site" and the minimal facebook, and market research and bizdev don't address that gap.
raganwald 16y ago
The trouble with thinking "I have magic beans, I just need water!" is that you don't understand water. You don't know good water from bad. You don't really know how much water to use and when. You can't watch the beans grow and adjust your watering schedule because you think it's all about the beans. You don't get water. That's my problem with "I just need a programmer" entrepreneurs. I can work out how to get paid, but I can't work out how to make them understand software well enough to make good business decisions about a software company. (The same thing is true of "I just need a salesperson," of course.)
- sudont 16y ago
  More like regular beans and magic water.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Are you, by any chance, an expert in fluid dynamics?
    - sudont 16y ago
      Sorry, no. I'm a gardener, so I'm more about the soil... Why do you ask?
      - binarysoul 16y ago
        He just needs a cfd expert, he's already got water
      - dj_axl 16y ago
        As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
        deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
    - 16y ago
rcavezza 16y ago
I used to be one of those people before I learned how to program. Best investment I've made in the last 10 years.
vog 16y ago
Wow, I'm really impressed how quickly this page loads! Or, maybe I'm just too used to the masses of those annoyingly slowly loading blogs.
- loire280 16y ago
  It's written using NanoBlogger, which generates static HTML files. They're being served from a university server, which means powerful web server with nearly unlimited bandwidth. Hardly anything's static HTML nowadays... Also it doesn't have dozens of plugins like so many blogs, so it's not hitting Facebook, addthis, last.fm, etc.
CoachRufus87 16y ago
that was me 2 years ago. I considered elance (couldn't afford it), recruited 1 cs buddy I went to high school with (he was busy doing his own things), so I figured I had no choice but to learn to program. I found HN, which introduced me to Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, and I just launched my first app: http://www.fanscription.com http://www.fanscription.com Oh, and I'm an Econ/Business Major. "Just Do It" -Nike
- modokode 16y ago
  Doing beats talking every day of the week. Which is what a lot of these callers mentioned probably do wrong.
- ericlavigne 16y ago
  I love your front page. Have you gotten much response from businesses that want to use your service? How are you advertising?
  - CoachRufus87 16y ago
    Thanks! I launched the site just a week ago and have been in talks with a few local businesses who want to sign up. As far as advertising goes, I'm starting locally here in Austin and hope to gradually spread out over time. I love the fact that I'm learning/making mistakes/improving as a make progress.
RoyG 16y ago
This isn't just a programming issue; it reminded me of my younger days as a freelance designer, where I would meet with many prospective entrepreneurs who would tell me something like 'I'm very good at design, I just need somebody to work the software.' Invariably, there is more to both programming and design than meets the eye. While learning can help obviate this problem it's not a cure-all; it is also important to learn how to a.) prioritize and simplify when your reach exceeds your grasp and b.) have realistic expectations for outcomes vs. budget. It's a good idea to learn both, but again, the execution is more problematic.
commieneko 16y ago
That post was much better than I expected. Ideas are important (although the usually mutate in the process of implementation.) The ability to implement is important (although the tendency to go after low hanging fruit rather than what is actually needed is strong.) The last ingredient, though, is the ability to communicate the idea and the implementation to customers/investors/users/etc. Marketing, UI/Human Factors, and Sales are often as important.
fbnt 16y ago
I think the majority of developers/startup founders have no problems sharing their idea or plan before launch date. They talk about it to attract new prospective clients, collaborators, create interest and so on. Very few operates in stealth mode nowadays. So when you freely share your idea before launching the product you already consider the value of the idea alone basically zero, while you think the value resides all in your execution. That's why I believe that if you have an idea you'd better be an exacutor or a sales person, otherwise there no or little value in your contribution. There's no shortage of ideas.
andyidsinga 16y ago
I really liked this post. Jumping into execution/implementation, especially when we're naive about all of complexities is a valuable learning experience. It seems we're also likely to meet folks and make new friends who do understand the complexities ..and from that group we'll find our project partners. He also makes a good point about discouraging people ...it seems we need to do more of pointing people down the path of learning, implementation and discovery. Yoh ho ho.
zavulon 16y ago
There's another option, without having to learn how to program. Be good and make money at what you do so you can afford to pay good programmers what their time is worth, so they can make your idea happen without too much hassle. (Disclaimer - I run a company that does just that)
TotlolRon 16y ago
Naaa. If you have an idea and you learn how to implement it you might find yourself a single founder/creator. You know what they say about those, right? "What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best." -- Paul Graham, 18 mistakes, 2006.
- andyidsinga 16y ago
  I disagree. If you want to interact with carpenters, learning about carpentry, trying out carpentry (while not pretending to be an expert) helps a lot. Put another way - its like speaking a language in a foreign country - the effort and practice is quite meaningful to those who live there. It seems that to avoid becoming a single founder we have to have the ability to reach out and speak the language of those we want to join us. Cheerio yohs.
sgentle 16y ago
I see a lot of "just learn to program" around here, and I think it's all a bit glib and far from reality. Firstly, programming is hard. It's not the sort of thing you pick up in a few weeks. Hell, there are people who manage to make it through a CS degree and several years in industry without actually knowing what they're doing. What makes you think it's a valuable use of your time to do something mediocre that other people have spent much of their lives learning to do well? Secondly, good programming doesn't make a good business. It's as important (I would even say more important) to have a solid revenue model. Who are your customers? Why are they buying? How can you get more? These are questions many programmers wouldn't want to touch with a barge pole. Don't waste that symbiosis. To me, the real message is that ideas aren't worth shit. Implementation is king. It seems like a lot of people (angry ex-startup programmers?) confuse real business people (who can contribute a lot to a team in sales & biz dev) with useless "ideas guys". If you're one of those then, y'know, stop it. You should go learn an actual skill (programming or otherwise) that will allow you to contribute to the idea's realisation. (I should clarify, though, that I think anyone working in software should learn about programming. But encouraging business guys to write their own code is like encouraging programmers to draw their own art.)
- Travis 16y ago
  Is it that coders confused the good business guys with the charlatans, or is it that it's difficult to tell them apart? Much like business guys can't tell good coders from bad without knowing about programming (100% agreement there), it's just as important for programmers to know about business (sales cycles, product dev, customer service, etc.)
  - r0s 16y ago
    You have a good point, but still, the difference between learning to "program" and making a working product can be decades. This hits home for me, struggling to self-learn desktop programming, pushing back expected prototype dates further and further.
    - Travis 16y ago
angrycoder 16y ago
As someone who has spent most of his career at a consultancy, people like this put food on my table. The ones who end up being successful understand that they need to learn just as much about the process of software development and usability as we need to learn about their vertical. They understand that a good product is a result of give and take with your developers and analysts. The ones who fail are the type A alpha dogs who just want you to do whatever they say because they are paying you a crap load of money per hour. They generally have the right mindset for an entrepreneur, they are trying to solve a problem they have. A couple of common problems are: 1) Everyone in their vertical may have this problem, but they assume everyone does business the same way that they do and follows the same process. They weigh down their system with too many requirements and business rules. As a result, they bury the one or two useful nuggets and end up with a product that is only suited to them. 2) They want to make some monolithic end to end solution right out the gate. They want to jump straight to being a WalMart sized franchise when they need to start as a mom and pop corner store (aka a MVP).
- JoeAltmaier 16y ago
  I too have a consultancy, I too see bright young people at the door with the same issues. I tell them "Think of the skinniest chicken you can possibly make, that will still get up and walk, and make that first". They won't, or at least they don't. They cannot imagine their baby without All the bells and whistles. All I can do is educate them on the process, help with archicture, and maybe (but not always) help out with the coding - I charge a lot and they generally shop the rest out.
- gamble 16y ago
  Number 1 is so, so true. After being burned a couple of times on this, the first thought that comes to mind when someone claims to be a subject-matter expert is that they're really an expert in the business processes used by one particular organization. It's very rare to meet someone who has sufficiently broad experience in an industry to know how and why processes differ between companies.
- rwhitman 16y ago
  There is a good business model in serving these people. Want to build the next WalMart sized franchise? Have the millions to make it happen? Well step this way my friend. Paid a good chunk of my bills, I'll say that.
naithemilkman 16y ago
I am currently one of these guys in transition. Using Gladwell's 10,000 hour as a proxy for mastery. I estimate getting between 100 - 250 hours of programming time is good enough to get a working MVP out. Does anyone think this is overly optimistic or unrealistic?
- yoshyosh 16y ago
  Ive read it takes about 6 months. To be honest a lot of it is about deliberate practice rather than just 'getting in the hours'
  - rndmcnlly0 16y ago
    "Deliberate practice" is, in fact, what Gladwell is saying the 10,000 hours should measure.
  - naithemilkman 16y ago
    You mean it just takes a fixed amount of time to internalise yourself with a new field of study just like anything else? And for programming that lead time is about 6 months to get up to speed?
yesno 16y ago
This is a very unfortunate situation in our industry. BizDev guy says he needs one of them "programmers" who can code and don't talk back to him. BizDev guy knew almost nothing about software development or the "properties of a system software". Business didn't work out because the software is flacky. BizDev guy blames them "programmers" when changes are hard, software is super buggy. BizDev thinks he's awesome cause he has 3 things: Money, Network and Idea. Everybody should bow down to Money. Programmers became hateful against the BizDev guy. They say "I can do this by myself, screw you guys". Then programmers try to re-create their ideal world: solving cool problems, working with cool gadgets, in a cool office environment. Some said programmers have to work in a close office, alone GASP. Of course these silos came up with a chunk of code that probably hard to be integrated. Them programmers try to hire BizDev guy cause now the VCs are on their butt asking how money could be made. Of course it'll be hard for them programmers to hire BizDev since they have a very strong bias. They probably ended up hiring Sales Engineer instead of bright BizDev. Programmers think they're awesome cause they have 3 things: Knowledge, Skill and Idea. Knowledge is everything they say. This... is why 9 out of 10 startups failed. That 1 startup that succeed? the BizDev guy has an MBA and BS in CS or EE. The Programmers? they took minor in economics/commerce or accounting.
ssskai 16y ago
Question: If I were a "BizDev" guy and wanted to create a website that has similar functionalities as, say, Groupon or PayPal (I understand they're different), what languages would be best to learn? I would suspect some front-end GUI paired with a back-end database system would be needed, but what languages specifically would be best? As an entrepreneur with a degree in Mech. Eng. and Entrp., and I have done programming in MATLAB, some VBA, and some HTML. So I understand the logic behind programs, but don't necessarily know all the languages. Any and all suggestions are most welcomed!
- yoshyosh 16y ago
  best to free lance those types of sites (groupon) since they don't require that much programming
- cot6mur3 16y ago
  You need a templating + biz logic language, and a database. The usual starters for non-purists are PHP and MySQL. Also, most front-ends use JavaScript these days, often with a helper JavaScript library like JQuery. Myself, I'm more of a Python (language) + PostgreSQL (database) person, but they may take a little longer to get up to speed with.
_delirium 16y ago
I somewhat but not entirely agree with this. I definitely agree in the case he discusses: there are way too many people with vague ideas who "just need a programmer". I don't think the root problem is that implementation is the source of all value, though. In their case, they don't understand how to develop computational ideas in a useful way at all. It's not the lack of C++ knowledge or Ruby knowledge, but the lack of a general understanding of computational thinking. A computationally-literate idea that's well developed, on the other hand, can be very valuable, and can account for probably 90% of the interestingness of idea+implementation. Not always: sometimes you find really major things in the implementation that cause you to rethink the idea. But there are many times that I've implemented a theoretical idea myself and not really learned anything in doing so. You read a paper, or even a blog post, which explains an idea in detail, motivates why the author developed it, gives a broad sketch of how you'd implement it, etc., etc., but the author hasn't actually implemented it. Then I implement it myself. Have I provided the majority of the value, because I'm the first person with working code? Not really; in many cases the implementation was a pretty straightforward translation of the idea into code. A computationally literate and well-developed idea is arguably something close to "execution", but not quite the nuts-and-bolts variety. To use a physics analogy, my ideas on space travel are not very well developed or valuable, but Freeman Dyson's are valuable, even though he's implemented his ideas to the same extent I have: neither one of us has ever attempted to build spaceships. He's a pure idea-person, but his ideas are developed quite fully, so readers can understand what he proposed and why, what its pros and cons might be, what possible pitfalls await, what the broad outlines of possible fixes for those pitfalls might be (even if they depend on materials or other things not currently available), etc. I'd say the same of people even further into idea-land, like Isaac Asimov, who provided valuable ideas with nothing close to an implementation. The trick imo is that most ideas either just aren't novel enough to be interesting, or aren't sufficiently well developed and explained to provide value to a reader.
- timwiseman 16y ago
  I must respectfully beg to differ on your interpretation. The way your describe your "computationally literate and well-developed idea " is not at all what most people consider an idea. It is pseudo-code, which really is the vast majority of the implementation. Since I started using Python I no longer bother with pseudo-code at all, but when I was using Java I considered a complete pseudo-code 90% of the implementation and translating into Java to only be the last 10%. You touch on this by saying that its "close to "execution"", but I think you do not go nearly far enough. It is most of the way to execution. To put it another way, I think having an idea is like standing at a starting line for a race. You havne't done anything except contemplating running the actual race yet. Having a fully developped algorithm in pseudo-code (possibly along with a thorough UI concept) is like passing the last mile marker. You haven't finished the execution yet, but you have gone a very long way towards it...
JMWes 16y ago
Too many business people think programming is a commodity that can be easily outsourced. Too many programmers think business people all have vague ideas. They are both wrong.
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
So, you are looking for a programmer? Well, I am one. A goddamn good one. I can make a computer cry twisting its inner wires with just my thought. And I happen to be looking for a partner too. Are you a solid-brass-balls entrepreneur not afraid of rasing money? Can you knock down every tabloid's door to get our story told? Can you set up appointments across the globe with people richer than god? Can you bring a thousand customers just the first month and two thousands more the next? I can code the whole fucking app in one month and get version two ready the next month if that is what you need. See? That's execution, my friend. I can code apps blindfolded and with my hands tied. Can you do business like that? I don't want dreamers, I want doers. Now, stop wasting my time with an idea, I have had plenty every day of my life since I started programming and I have spent twenty years perfectioning my skills. I know what I can do. So, I ask you again, what are your business skills? Besides having an idea?
- afterburner 16y ago
  I'm going to keep this on file if the situation ever comes up again... I couldn't quite articulate the sentiment then. Although it might burn bridges.
  - dasil003 16y ago
    To be Machiavellian about it, it's worth burning bridges with the two-bit hacks if it furthers your reputation as a truly badass developer.
    - run4yourlives 16y ago
      Assuming you can evaluate "two-bit hacks" in a way that is accurate enough that you don't create false positives. One burnt bridge that turns out to be a major success later on, even if they are a hack, actually, can kill you. The parable of the Lion and the Mouse should always be heeded.
      - dasil003 16y ago
        No that's not the assumption. The assumption is you can increase your reputation with a group of people who matter more, thus opening more doors on average. No one can see all ends, you just work the angles you have.
joe_the_user 16y ago
I believe that the punch-line is also "but I don't intend to pay hourly industry rates".
megaframe 16y ago
I'm with this guy, if I have Ideas I learn to implement them myself, if nothing else even if I got other people to do the work I know what they're going through to do it so I can plan for it, and as issues arise I can help not just sit around trying to motivate.
disgruntled 16y ago
The problem with offering equity is that it's often just a dangling carrot that never materializes. I've worked for several startups offering stock options over the years and observed an alarming pattern: programmers are treated as commodities to develop the idea, then laid off before the product launch. The C-levels reap all the gains and the product builders go collect unemployment.
dools 16y ago
I have quite a few people I know who are on the "business side" of the entrepreneurial merry go round that quite often call me with their latest idea. The remarkable thing is that no matter how many times I get back to them with a time estimate of 6 months - or a cost investment of $50k - $100k to get it live etc. the first sentence they always speak is "it's just a simple site that ... " In fact it's not really limited to these guys. Everyone who calls me to get something done starts off by telling me how simple it is. "It's just this simple thing that ... " as if that's somehow going to make me realise that it IS simple and I can actually do in a weekend what I had thought would take months!! If it's that simple, DO IT YOURSELF!
- tjmc 16y ago
  My stepbrother used to do that. After politely turning down about his third "simple" idea, I tried a different tack and asked him to draw the entire app on paper. After all, if it was so simple, it wouldn't take long to draw right? I insisted he include the appearance of validation messages, system generated emails and administration screens. He didn't ask for my help again, but to his credit he did paper prototype another idea and got a guy to code it.
rwhitman 16y ago
One thing I'd say is that I don't believe programmers are the only profession afflicted with this scenario. Who knows how many times I've had a 'brilliant' idea for something outside my domain where I've said to myself "this is a great idea, now all I need is a ____". I am just thankful that I'm smart enough not to start asking successful people to buy into my stupid idea until I've done some research first...
kaiwen1 16y ago
Great quote:Learning to program used to be an inevitable consequence of using computers. Sadly, that's no longer true. The inevitable consequence of using computers these days seems to be interacting with people we may or may not know well and watching videos.
kaiwen1 16y ago
Great quote:Learning to program used to be an inevitable consequence of using computers. Sadly, that's no longer true. The inevitable consequence of using computers these days seems to be interacting with people we may or may not know well and watching videos.

288 points by bgray 16y ago

Wait, so they're surprised that they can't find students willing to work hard in return for some vague hope of money in the future? Wow. Color me shocked. /sarcasm And the advice that they could just learn programming themselves? I don't think anyone ever says 'I need X, but don't know anything about it myself. I'll just learn it.' (At least, nobody that thinks logically.) It doesn't work that way. (Okay, granted, some small number of people might think that and actually succeed at it. But at the cost of things they could have been doing efficiently, instead.)

gregpilling 16y ago
"I don't think anyone ever says 'I need X, but don't know anything about it myself. I'll just learn it.'" Yes, people do that. Like me, when I was interested in having a strawbale house I read a book and built a strawbale house (took 6 months). Learned a lot about construction in the process. When I wanted a website, I read a book and built my first website. Like the house, it was not the ultimate expression in its field but it was a website. So now I am not an expert at construction nor website building but I do know a whole lot more than the average person and I do know what parts are hard and what parts are easy. Makes the conversations with the real professionals much easier.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  You're definitely unusual. Almost everything I own I bought by exchanging cash for the product. Most services, I exchange cash for the service. I generate the cash by doing things I'm good at. My dad is unusual too though. Say you need a new dryer, he'll go on and tell you that all it is is some heating something or other, sheet metal, yada yada yada. I'm half way to Sears... :-)

porter 16y ago

It seems funny to me that so many people want to be software entrepreneurs, but refuse to learn about software. Six months ago I quit my banking job of five years to learn how to program. I am taking discrete math, data structures & algorithms, and computer organization courses as a non-degree student. I am also up to speed with python/django/HTML/CSS/JS, or at least I know them well enough to hack a prototype together. Programming is overwhelming at first, but seriously, it's not that hard to learn enough to test out your ideas.

stevejobs 16y ago
Most people are good at what they're good at, so it makes no sense for them to learn something they have little interest or skill in. The typical request from a non-tech guy is not in implementing a hard engineering problem like database management or search query structure, but in putting together what is typically a glorified e-commerce site or social site (digg etc).
- jimbokun 16y ago
  Just happened to read Forbes write up on Reed Hastings (Netflix) as their CEO of the year. Turns out he has an M.S. C.S. from Stanford. Jobs did some programming and soldering logic boards. Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter with Paul Allen. Zuckerberg was in Harvard C.S., I believe, and wrote the first implementation of Facebook himself. Bezos has a B.S. in C.S. and Electrical Engineering. Larry, Sergey, Jerry Yang all Stanford C.S. grad school drop outs. So, I am having a hard time coming up with a spectacularly successful software company where the founders "just needed a programmer."
  - die_sekte 16y ago
    Facebook probably counts somewhat. The Winklevii needed "just a programmer". Too bad the programmer didn't want to be "just a programmer".
  - lian 16y ago
    Well, Apple could be a counterpoint if we're just talking about current CEOs. Steve Jobs has never been revered for his electronics skills, and it seems he kind of snuck in the back door in early jobs at Atari and HP. His specialty was always sales, whether selling Apple computers or selling himself. That said, if we're talking "founders," Steve Wozniak was built right in, and he's the computer guru we're looking for. Just giving the computational credit where it's due, on this one.

scrrr 16y ago

Funny, I have the opposite problem. I need a biz-guy!

roel_v 16y ago
Me too. I can't find someone with idea, no matter how stupid, no matter how hard I try. Going to 'networking events' usually yields dozens of business cards of people who want to sell 'services' to 'local businesses' (design, legal, accounting, market research, whatever...) but they all just want to get paid by the hour - let along that one of them could come up with an idea. So that causes the situation where you have 30 or 50 people all trying to sell each other the same services, with nobody who can actually create anything new.
flyosity 16y ago
It might be valuable to enumerate for which exact reasons you need this "biz guy" and really ask yourself if you can't do most of it yourself, at least at the beginning. I'm a designer/developer and I sold ads and did a lot of business development for my startup for over a year before we were acquired. It's amazing how much stuff a smart person can get done (that's out of their comfort zone) when they really, really have to.
efsavage 16y ago
Yeah, I think the programmer version of this is "I've got a great program/site, I just need someone to sell it!".
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- balakk 16y ago
  You mean programmers will actually admit they can't do everything? Fantasy.

anthonycerra 16y ago

What it really boils down to is the drive of the individual. If you're not willing to do whatever it takes to make the dream a reality then you're not an entrepreneur. That might mean growing your network to find a co-founder or it might mean buckling down and learning to program yourself. There's so much free information out there today that ignorance is no excuse.

nhangen 16y ago

I'm one of these guys. Why didn't I learn to program? I had maybe an hour/day in between my job and my side hustle, and I just didn't have enough time to get through the problems in order to be a good programmer. Since then, I've found that watching projects come to life, while learning on the side, has made it much easier to pick up Objective C, Javascript, Ruby, etc. Of course, I didn't expect programmers to work for free...that would be ridiculous. That being said, it's kind of like learning HTML or CSS, unless you're doing it actively, full-time, for months or even years, it's going to take some time to feel like you know what you're doing. Lastly, there are so many languages. There's Ruby, Python, PHP, C and its variants, etc. Do you learn web languages or something like Objective C? Those are some of the things that went through my mind when I started.

sudont 16y ago
Luckily the base thinking skills transfer over, so learning how to program in Java/C means that the student now knows how to program irregardless of the language. Picking up a new language is less like learning a new dialect and more like learning the local slang and customs. Except for MUMPS. Fuck that shit.
- adacosta 16y ago
  regardless
  - sudont 16y ago
    Ssssh, you prescriptivist!
- eru 16y ago
  Picking up a new paradigm is also harder than picking up a different language within a paradigm you know. But you'll get pretty far with the imperative languages you mentioned.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  Except for MUMPS. Fuck that shit. Amen.

geebee 16y ago

This is a good post. I'd take it one step farther. To say the idea is nothing without the execution still (kind of) suggests that they are different things. I think that where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I wouldn't quite claim that ideas aren't worth much. I know a few academics, and they are rightly careful about sharing their ideas before they get far enough with the implementation (lab work, publications) to ensure that they will be credited. If I'm going to agree that "idea stealing" is a problem, then I'm committed to agreeing that raw ideas do have some value. Software can be like this, but in general, I think most software "ideas" are more similar to an idea for a novel, painting, or screenplay than a blockbuster pharmaceutical drug. Give two programmers the same "idea", and you'll end up with two different products - maybe almost as different as two different novels. Hell, give two writers or programmers the same detailed outline, and you'll probably end up with two different outcomes. When I was in college, "business types" walked through shopping malls and appended "dot com" to what they saw, and thought they had a valuable idea. Now, people tend to prepend "social networking for" or "wireless". "Social networking - for surfers! for moms!" Now one warning - however much I may feel this way, the law isn't necessarily on my side. IANAL and everything, but some IP lawyers came to talk to a startup I worked at once to tell us about how important it is to shut the fuck up, and evidently simply being "the programmer" doesn't mean you have to be included on a patent. So to that extent, the law does recognize a separation between idea and implementation.

vog 16y ago
> where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I strongly disagree with that. Although ideas and execution (i.e. software) are both "nothing more" than information, they don't have much in common. Also, ideas are refined as well as changed during execution - that is, our perception of the big picture changes as we get more information about the details. > Give two programmers the same "idea", and you'll end up with two different products I fully agree with that. BTW, this somewhat contradicts the first statement.
- dfj225 16y ago
  > where it comes to software, the execution is the idea. I think that is nearly true from the customer's perspective. They (most likely) don't have any information about the idea and only know what they interact with in the form of the execution.

Ataraxy 16y ago

I am a marketer. I am also fairly technical and think that I have a firm understanding of how things work but lack the capabilities/aptitude to properly code them. I managed to cobble together a functional prototype of some analytics software we needed. It was fine until it became quickly apparent that my coding skills suck despite a more or less understanding of it all. We had to hire a coder to write it all from scratch to be able to handle hundreds of thousands clicks per day. It has been bumpy but it was still the right decision in order to allow our business to grow. My point is, even if you want something bad enough that you will sit there for a couple of weeks straight to cobble your vision together, nothing beats having it done by a professional that understands what they are doing. I wish still we had a full time developer and ui designer available to us to make my much grander/awesome/profitable vision a reality. In time we will...

anamax 16y ago
> I managed to cobble together a functional prototype of some analytics software we needed. It was fine until The key point is that you had something complete, it wasn't a vague idea. In some sense, your prototype was "a product". It wasn't adequate in many ways. I mention product because the "suits" are offering "I need someone to improve my product" terms while expecting "I need someone to build a product from my idea". There's a huge gap between "a decent social site" and the minimal facebook, and market research and bizdev don't address that gap.

raganwald 16y ago

The trouble with thinking "I have magic beans, I just need water!" is that you don't understand water. You don't know good water from bad. You don't really know how much water to use and when. You can't watch the beans grow and adjust your watering schedule because you think it's all about the beans. You don't get water. That's my problem with "I just need a programmer" entrepreneurs. I can work out how to get paid, but I can't work out how to make them understand software well enough to make good business decisions about a software company. (The same thing is true of "I just need a salesperson," of course.)

sudont 16y ago
More like regular beans and magic water.
- raganwald 16y ago
  Are you, by any chance, an expert in fluid dynamics?
  - sudont 16y ago
    Sorry, no. I'm a gardener, so I'm more about the soil... Why do you ask?
    - binarysoul 16y ago
      He just needs a cfd expert, he's already got water
    - dj_axl 16y ago
      As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
  - 16y ago

rcavezza 16y ago

I used to be one of those people before I learned how to program. Best investment I've made in the last 10 years.

vog 16y ago

Wow, I'm really impressed how quickly this page loads! Or, maybe I'm just too used to the masses of those annoyingly slowly loading blogs.

loire280 16y ago
It's written using NanoBlogger, which generates static HTML files. They're being served from a university server, which means powerful web server with nearly unlimited bandwidth. Hardly anything's static HTML nowadays... Also it doesn't have dozens of plugins like so many blogs, so it's not hitting Facebook, addthis, last.fm, etc.

CoachRufus87 16y ago

that was me 2 years ago. I considered elance (couldn't afford it), recruited 1 cs buddy I went to high school with (he was busy doing his own things), so I figured I had no choice but to learn to program. I found HN, which introduced me to Michael Hartl's Ruby on Rails Tutorial, and I just launched my first app: http://www.fanscription.com http://www.fanscription.com Oh, and I'm an Econ/Business Major. "Just Do It" -Nike

modokode 16y ago
Doing beats talking every day of the week. Which is what a lot of these callers mentioned probably do wrong.
ericlavigne 16y ago
I love your front page. Have you gotten much response from businesses that want to use your service? How are you advertising?
- CoachRufus87 16y ago
  Thanks! I launched the site just a week ago and have been in talks with a few local businesses who want to sign up. As far as advertising goes, I'm starting locally here in Austin and hope to gradually spread out over time. I love the fact that I'm learning/making mistakes/improving as a make progress.

RoyG 16y ago

This isn't just a programming issue; it reminded me of my younger days as a freelance designer, where I would meet with many prospective entrepreneurs who would tell me something like 'I'm very good at design, I just need somebody to work the software.' Invariably, there is more to both programming and design than meets the eye. While learning can help obviate this problem it's not a cure-all; it is also important to learn how to a.) prioritize and simplify when your reach exceeds your grasp and b.) have realistic expectations for outcomes vs. budget. It's a good idea to learn both, but again, the execution is more problematic.

commieneko 16y ago

That post was much better than I expected. Ideas are important (although the usually mutate in the process of implementation.) The ability to implement is important (although the tendency to go after low hanging fruit rather than what is actually needed is strong.) The last ingredient, though, is the ability to communicate the idea and the implementation to customers/investors/users/etc. Marketing, UI/Human Factors, and Sales are often as important.

fbnt 16y ago

I think the majority of developers/startup founders have no problems sharing their idea or plan before launch date. They talk about it to attract new prospective clients, collaborators, create interest and so on. Very few operates in stealth mode nowadays. So when you freely share your idea before launching the product you already consider the value of the idea alone basically zero, while you think the value resides all in your execution. That's why I believe that if you have an idea you'd better be an exacutor or a sales person, otherwise there no or little value in your contribution. There's no shortage of ideas.

andyidsinga 16y ago

I really liked this post. Jumping into execution/implementation, especially when we're naive about all of complexities is a valuable learning experience. It seems we're also likely to meet folks and make new friends who do understand the complexities ..and from that group we'll find our project partners. He also makes a good point about discouraging people ...it seems we need to do more of pointing people down the path of learning, implementation and discovery. Yoh ho ho.

zavulon 16y ago

There's another option, without having to learn how to program. Be good and make money at what you do so you can afford to pay good programmers what their time is worth, so they can make your idea happen without too much hassle. (Disclaimer - I run a company that does just that)

TotlolRon 16y ago

Naaa. If you have an idea and you learn how to implement it you might find yourself a single founder/creator. You know what they say about those, right? "What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best." -- Paul Graham, 18 mistakes, 2006.

andyidsinga 16y ago
I disagree. If you want to interact with carpenters, learning about carpentry, trying out carpentry (while not pretending to be an expert) helps a lot. Put another way - its like speaking a language in a foreign country - the effort and practice is quite meaningful to those who live there. It seems that to avoid becoming a single founder we have to have the ability to reach out and speak the language of those we want to join us. Cheerio yohs.

sgentle 16y ago

I see a lot of "just learn to program" around here, and I think it's all a bit glib and far from reality. Firstly, programming is hard. It's not the sort of thing you pick up in a few weeks. Hell, there are people who manage to make it through a CS degree and several years in industry without actually knowing what they're doing. What makes you think it's a valuable use of your time to do something mediocre that other people have spent much of their lives learning to do well? Secondly, good programming doesn't make a good business. It's as important (I would even say more important) to have a solid revenue model. Who are your customers? Why are they buying? How can you get more? These are questions many programmers wouldn't want to touch with a barge pole. Don't waste that symbiosis. To me, the real message is that ideas aren't worth shit. Implementation is king. It seems like a lot of people (angry ex-startup programmers?) confuse real business people (who can contribute a lot to a team in sales & biz dev) with useless "ideas guys". If you're one of those then, y'know, stop it. You should go learn an actual skill (programming or otherwise) that will allow you to contribute to the idea's realisation. (I should clarify, though, that I think anyone working in software should learn about programming. But encouraging business guys to write their own code is like encouraging programmers to draw their own art.)

Travis 16y ago
Is it that coders confused the good business guys with the charlatans, or is it that it's difficult to tell them apart? Much like business guys can't tell good coders from bad without knowing about programming (100% agreement there), it's just as important for programmers to know about business (sales cycles, product dev, customer service, etc.)
- r0s 16y ago
  You have a good point, but still, the difference between learning to "program" and making a working product can be decades. This hits home for me, struggling to self-learn desktop programming, pushing back expected prototype dates further and further.
  - Travis 16y ago

angrycoder 16y ago

As someone who has spent most of his career at a consultancy, people like this put food on my table. The ones who end up being successful understand that they need to learn just as much about the process of software development and usability as we need to learn about their vertical. They understand that a good product is a result of give and take with your developers and analysts. The ones who fail are the type A alpha dogs who just want you to do whatever they say because they are paying you a crap load of money per hour. They generally have the right mindset for an entrepreneur, they are trying to solve a problem they have. A couple of common problems are: 1) Everyone in their vertical may have this problem, but they assume everyone does business the same way that they do and follows the same process. They weigh down their system with too many requirements and business rules. As a result, they bury the one or two useful nuggets and end up with a product that is only suited to them. 2) They want to make some monolithic end to end solution right out the gate. They want to jump straight to being a WalMart sized franchise when they need to start as a mom and pop corner store (aka a MVP).

JoeAltmaier 16y ago
I too have a consultancy, I too see bright young people at the door with the same issues. I tell them "Think of the skinniest chicken you can possibly make, that will still get up and walk, and make that first". They won't, or at least they don't. They cannot imagine their baby without All the bells and whistles. All I can do is educate them on the process, help with archicture, and maybe (but not always) help out with the coding - I charge a lot and they generally shop the rest out.
gamble 16y ago
Number 1 is so, so true. After being burned a couple of times on this, the first thought that comes to mind when someone claims to be a subject-matter expert is that they're really an expert in the business processes used by one particular organization. It's very rare to meet someone who has sufficiently broad experience in an industry to know how and why processes differ between companies.
rwhitman 16y ago
There is a good business model in serving these people. Want to build the next WalMart sized franchise? Have the millions to make it happen? Well step this way my friend. Paid a good chunk of my bills, I'll say that.

naithemilkman 16y ago

I am currently one of these guys in transition. Using Gladwell's 10,000 hour as a proxy for mastery. I estimate getting between 100 - 250 hours of programming time is good enough to get a working MVP out. Does anyone think this is overly optimistic or unrealistic?

yoshyosh 16y ago
Ive read it takes about 6 months. To be honest a lot of it is about deliberate practice rather than just 'getting in the hours'
- rndmcnlly0 16y ago
  "Deliberate practice" is, in fact, what Gladwell is saying the 10,000 hours should measure.
- naithemilkman 16y ago
  You mean it just takes a fixed amount of time to internalise yourself with a new field of study just like anything else? And for programming that lead time is about 6 months to get up to speed?

yesno 16y ago

This is a very unfortunate situation in our industry. BizDev guy says he needs one of them "programmers" who can code and don't talk back to him. BizDev guy knew almost nothing about software development or the "properties of a system software". Business didn't work out because the software is flacky. BizDev guy blames them "programmers" when changes are hard, software is super buggy. BizDev thinks he's awesome cause he has 3 things: Money, Network and Idea. Everybody should bow down to Money. Programmers became hateful against the BizDev guy. They say "I can do this by myself, screw you guys". Then programmers try to re-create their ideal world: solving cool problems, working with cool gadgets, in a cool office environment. Some said programmers have to work in a close office, alone GASP. Of course these silos came up with a chunk of code that probably hard to be integrated. Them programmers try to hire BizDev guy cause now the VCs are on their butt asking how money could be made. Of course it'll be hard for them programmers to hire BizDev since they have a very strong bias. They probably ended up hiring Sales Engineer instead of bright BizDev. Programmers think they're awesome cause they have 3 things: Knowledge, Skill and Idea. Knowledge is everything they say. This... is why 9 out of 10 startups failed. That 1 startup that succeed? the BizDev guy has an MBA and BS in CS or EE. The Programmers? they took minor in economics/commerce or accounting.

ssskai 16y ago

Question: If I were a "BizDev" guy and wanted to create a website that has similar functionalities as, say, Groupon or PayPal (I understand they're different), what languages would be best to learn? I would suspect some front-end GUI paired with a back-end database system would be needed, but what languages specifically would be best? As an entrepreneur with a degree in Mech. Eng. and Entrp., and I have done programming in MATLAB, some VBA, and some HTML. So I understand the logic behind programs, but don't necessarily know all the languages. Any and all suggestions are most welcomed!

yoshyosh 16y ago
best to free lance those types of sites (groupon) since they don't require that much programming
cot6mur3 16y ago
You need a templating + biz logic language, and a database. The usual starters for non-purists are PHP and MySQL. Also, most front-ends use JavaScript these days, often with a helper JavaScript library like JQuery. Myself, I'm more of a Python (language) + PostgreSQL (database) person, but they may take a little longer to get up to speed with.

_delirium 16y ago

I somewhat but not entirely agree with this. I definitely agree in the case he discusses: there are way too many people with vague ideas who "just need a programmer". I don't think the root problem is that implementation is the source of all value, though. In their case, they don't understand how to develop computational ideas in a useful way at all. It's not the lack of C++ knowledge or Ruby knowledge, but the lack of a general understanding of computational thinking. A computationally-literate idea that's well developed, on the other hand, can be very valuable, and can account for probably 90% of the interestingness of idea+implementation. Not always: sometimes you find really major things in the implementation that cause you to rethink the idea. But there are many times that I've implemented a theoretical idea myself and not really learned anything in doing so. You read a paper, or even a blog post, which explains an idea in detail, motivates why the author developed it, gives a broad sketch of how you'd implement it, etc., etc., but the author hasn't actually implemented it. Then I implement it myself. Have I provided the majority of the value, because I'm the first person with working code? Not really; in many cases the implementation was a pretty straightforward translation of the idea into code. A computationally literate and well-developed idea is arguably something close to "execution", but not quite the nuts-and-bolts variety. To use a physics analogy, my ideas on space travel are not very well developed or valuable, but Freeman Dyson's are valuable, even though he's implemented his ideas to the same extent I have: neither one of us has ever attempted to build spaceships. He's a pure idea-person, but his ideas are developed quite fully, so readers can understand what he proposed and why, what its pros and cons might be, what possible pitfalls await, what the broad outlines of possible fixes for those pitfalls might be (even if they depend on materials or other things not currently available), etc. I'd say the same of people even further into idea-land, like Isaac Asimov, who provided valuable ideas with nothing close to an implementation. The trick imo is that most ideas either just aren't novel enough to be interesting, or aren't sufficiently well developed and explained to provide value to a reader.

timwiseman 16y ago
I must respectfully beg to differ on your interpretation. The way your describe your "computationally literate and well-developed idea " is not at all what most people consider an idea. It is pseudo-code, which really is the vast majority of the implementation. Since I started using Python I no longer bother with pseudo-code at all, but when I was using Java I considered a complete pseudo-code 90% of the implementation and translating into Java to only be the last 10%. You touch on this by saying that its "close to "execution"", but I think you do not go nearly far enough. It is most of the way to execution. To put it another way, I think having an idea is like standing at a starting line for a race. You havne't done anything except contemplating running the actual race yet. Having a fully developped algorithm in pseudo-code (possibly along with a thorough UI concept) is like passing the last mile marker. You haven't finished the execution yet, but you have gone a very long way towards it...

JMWes 16y ago

Too many business people think programming is a commodity that can be easily outsourced. Too many programmers think business people all have vague ideas. They are both wrong.

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

So, you are looking for a programmer? Well, I am one. A goddamn good one. I can make a computer cry twisting its inner wires with just my thought. And I happen to be looking for a partner too. Are you a solid-brass-balls entrepreneur not afraid of rasing money? Can you knock down every tabloid's door to get our story told? Can you set up appointments across the globe with people richer than god? Can you bring a thousand customers just the first month and two thousands more the next? I can code the whole fucking app in one month and get version two ready the next month if that is what you need. See? That's execution, my friend. I can code apps blindfolded and with my hands tied. Can you do business like that? I don't want dreamers, I want doers. Now, stop wasting my time with an idea, I have had plenty every day of my life since I started programming and I have spent twenty years perfectioning my skills. I know what I can do. So, I ask you again, what are your business skills? Besides having an idea?

afterburner 16y ago
I'm going to keep this on file if the situation ever comes up again... I couldn't quite articulate the sentiment then. Although it might burn bridges.
- dasil003 16y ago
  To be Machiavellian about it, it's worth burning bridges with the two-bit hacks if it furthers your reputation as a truly badass developer.
  - run4yourlives 16y ago
    Assuming you can evaluate "two-bit hacks" in a way that is accurate enough that you don't create false positives. One burnt bridge that turns out to be a major success later on, even if they are a hack, actually, can kill you. The parable of the Lion and the Mouse should always be heeded.
    - dasil003 16y ago
      No that's not the assumption. The assumption is you can increase your reputation with a group of people who matter more, thus opening more doors on average. No one can see all ends, you just work the angles you have.

joe_the_user 16y ago

I believe that the punch-line is also "but I don't intend to pay hourly industry rates".

megaframe 16y ago

I'm with this guy, if I have Ideas I learn to implement them myself, if nothing else even if I got other people to do the work I know what they're going through to do it so I can plan for it, and as issues arise I can help not just sit around trying to motivate.

disgruntled 16y ago

The problem with offering equity is that it's often just a dangling carrot that never materializes. I've worked for several startups offering stock options over the years and observed an alarming pattern: programmers are treated as commodities to develop the idea, then laid off before the product launch. The C-levels reap all the gains and the product builders go collect unemployment.

dools 16y ago

I have quite a few people I know who are on the "business side" of the entrepreneurial merry go round that quite often call me with their latest idea. The remarkable thing is that no matter how many times I get back to them with a time estimate of 6 months - or a cost investment of $50k - $100k to get it live etc. the first sentence they always speak is "it's just a simple site that ... " In fact it's not really limited to these guys. Everyone who calls me to get something done starts off by telling me how simple it is. "It's just this simple thing that ... " as if that's somehow going to make me realise that it IS simple and I can actually do in a weekend what I had thought would take months!! If it's that simple, DO IT YOURSELF!

tjmc 16y ago
My stepbrother used to do that. After politely turning down about his third "simple" idea, I tried a different tack and asked him to draw the entire app on paper. After all, if it was so simple, it wouldn't take long to draw right? I insisted he include the appearance of validation messages, system generated emails and administration screens. He didn't ask for my help again, but to his credit he did paper prototype another idea and got a guy to code it.

rwhitman 16y ago

One thing I'd say is that I don't believe programmers are the only profession afflicted with this scenario. Who knows how many times I've had a 'brilliant' idea for something outside my domain where I've said to myself "this is a great idea, now all I need is a ____". I am just thankful that I'm smart enough not to start asking successful people to buy into my stupid idea until I've done some research first...

kaiwen1 16y ago

Great quote:Learning to program used to be an inevitable consequence of using computers. Sadly, that's no longer true. The inevitable consequence of using computers these days seems to be interacting with people we may or may not know well and watching videos.

kaiwen1 16y ago