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Ask HN: When your non developer friend wants to work in your startup..

4 points by bo_Olean 16y ago

You are a struggling startup. You are busy. you may lose bucks each wasted hours. Your friend don't knows coding. Your friend wants paying job. Even if you can't pay him, he is ready to work for free for learning. He asks you same code often than search google, he doesn't know what he wants to do with coding. he just _needs_ a job. He wants you to give him work because he thinks you are smart. i wonder whether you hackers have faced such situation. i want to know how you would handled such scenario ?

wirebane 16y ago
I like to put here the Rework from Jason Fired quote "When you don't need someone, you don't need someone". Don't give a job just to give a job to someone, wait for a position that fits him properly an then, if you wish, put him on your company.
maushu 16y ago
Bad idea. Never, ever, give a job out of compassion when the only reason is sympathy. You will end up frustrated with a worker that doesn't bring much and your friend will also end up discomfited with a job that doesn't fulfill him. Be a great friend and help him find a job, you are the smart one.
RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
My $0.02, YMWV Sometimes when you say things, you need to word them in a way that conveys the correct information to them, even if the same phrase when spoken to you would mean something different. I believe this might be one of those cases. Your friend needs a job, and sees you as having a company. He needs to be told, perhaps quite bluntly, that you don't have a company. You have something which may eventually pay off, but at the moment, it's a stuggle to make ends meet even just for you alone. Putting someone on won't increase your revenue, so you can't pay him. Taking time away from what you're doing will decrease your revenue, so you can't mentor him. In short, he needs to be told that you don't have a company, and in some senses you don't have a job. You have an activity that you spend all your time on, with none to spare, and you don't make enough money yet for yourself. All the above may not quite be true, but you need to get that message across in terms he will understand. You may want to say something like "As a friend I'm sure you'll try to see things from my point of view" but that message might not be heard.
- bo_Olean 16y ago
  he yet has not been told that we are not interested in hiring him. actually he is getting some wrong idea that we are "wow" since we are trying to work something out on our own. we want to work more and without any non interested learning/teaching sessions. telling him what you said here would work, i guess. thanks for the tips.
MichaelStubbs 16y ago
While I have never faced such a situation, from what you have described I would have to say "no". I just don't see where this turns into an employment opportunity. Some people wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but they are not a chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a chef that couldn't cook. The same analogy can be applied to coding. While he's willing to work for free anyway, I'd say there needs to be some independent learning and thinking before moving forward. To me, it sounds like he is very desperate for a job and making decisions without fully thinking them through. For example, what if he turns out to hate coding? He may be willing to work for free, but time most certainly isn't free and he could end up wasting a lot of your and your companies time. My final advice to you would be to say if he's serious about becoming a coder then start coding as a hobby, then get serious if he finds he enjoys it and is good at it. He can look for other jobs in the mean time, he can even get another job in the mean time and practice coding on evenings/weekends, but there has to be knowledge and understanding before there can be employment.
- bo_Olean 16y ago
  >> Some people wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but they are not a chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a chef that couldn't cook. what the analogy.
AngeloAnolin 16y ago
You did mention already that you are a 'struggling startup' and it would be unwise to take your friend, who may add burden to the finances of your entrepreneurship. You can't hire someone in the first place who does not know what he wants to do except get paid. What I would suggest is for you to simply help your friend realize where s/he is good at help him/her find work which would unlock that potential. If hiring him does not make things better for both of you, then it would be best not to do it. Sometimes, doing the right thing may be a bit painful on the 'friendship' side of things.
- bo_Olean 16y ago
  yes. hiring him is sure a burden, financially + time killer too. we won't be able to do both, neither teach him nor could do our work. it is distractive when someones interrupts your work asking something so stupid, you never thought that silly even when you were just - printf hello world. i will rather be referring him to other suitable works. i am getting more confidence that i would handle the situation with ease, thanks.
mapster 16y ago
You might tell him to stop coding and think long and hard about how he could be help with a goal. Tell him the goals of your work. Let him come up with a plan for himself, and if it doesn't work, then he will be OK with it. It is easy to be harsh and curt, but taking a little patience to deal with this is worth while. You may learn something yourself.

4 points by bo_Olean 16y ago

wirebane 16y ago

I like to put here the Rework from Jason Fired quote "When you don't need someone, you don't need someone". Don't give a job just to give a job to someone, wait for a position that fits him properly an then, if you wish, put him on your company.

maushu 16y ago

Bad idea. Never, ever, give a job out of compassion when the only reason is sympathy. You will end up frustrated with a worker that doesn't bring much and your friend will also end up discomfited with a job that doesn't fulfill him. Be a great friend and help him find a job, you are the smart one.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

My $0.02, YMWV Sometimes when you say things, you need to word them in a way that conveys the correct information to them, even if the same phrase when spoken to you would mean something different. I believe this might be one of those cases. Your friend needs a job, and sees you as having a company. He needs to be told, perhaps quite bluntly, that you don't have a company. You have something which may eventually pay off, but at the moment, it's a stuggle to make ends meet even just for you alone. Putting someone on won't increase your revenue, so you can't pay him. Taking time away from what you're doing will decrease your revenue, so you can't mentor him. In short, he needs to be told that you don't have a company, and in some senses you don't have a job. You have an activity that you spend all your time on, with none to spare, and you don't make enough money yet for yourself. All the above may not quite be true, but you need to get that message across in terms he will understand. You may want to say something like "As a friend I'm sure you'll try to see things from my point of view" but that message might not be heard.

bo_Olean 16y ago
he yet has not been told that we are not interested in hiring him. actually he is getting some wrong idea that we are "wow" since we are trying to work something out on our own. we want to work more and without any non interested learning/teaching sessions. telling him what you said here would work, i guess. thanks for the tips.

MichaelStubbs 16y ago

While I have never faced such a situation, from what you have described I would have to say "no". I just don't see where this turns into an employment opportunity. Some people wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but they are not a chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a chef that couldn't cook. The same analogy can be applied to coding. While he's willing to work for free anyway, I'd say there needs to be some independent learning and thinking before moving forward. To me, it sounds like he is very desperate for a job and making decisions without fully thinking them through. For example, what if he turns out to hate coding? He may be willing to work for free, but time most certainly isn't free and he could end up wasting a lot of your and your companies time. My final advice to you would be to say if he's serious about becoming a coder then start coding as a hobby, then get serious if he finds he enjoys it and is good at it. He can look for other jobs in the mean time, he can even get another job in the mean time and practice coding on evenings/weekends, but there has to be knowledge and understanding before there can be employment.

bo_Olean 16y ago
>> Some people wake up in the morning and say "today I want to be a chef", but they are not a chef until they learn how to cook - no company would employ a chef that couldn't cook. what the analogy.

AngeloAnolin 16y ago

You did mention already that you are a 'struggling startup' and it would be unwise to take your friend, who may add burden to the finances of your entrepreneurship. You can't hire someone in the first place who does not know what he wants to do except get paid. What I would suggest is for you to simply help your friend realize where s/he is good at help him/her find work which would unlock that potential. If hiring him does not make things better for both of you, then it would be best not to do it. Sometimes, doing the right thing may be a bit painful on the 'friendship' side of things.

bo_Olean 16y ago
yes. hiring him is sure a burden, financially + time killer too. we won't be able to do both, neither teach him nor could do our work. it is distractive when someones interrupts your work asking something so stupid, you never thought that silly even when you were just - printf hello world. i will rather be referring him to other suitable works. i am getting more confidence that i would handle the situation with ease, thanks.

mapster 16y ago

You might tell him to stop coding and think long and hard about how he could be help with a goal. Tell him the goals of your work. Let him come up with a plan for himself, and if it doesn't work, then he will be OK with it. It is easy to be harsh and curt, but taking a little patience to deal with this is worth while. You may learn something yourself.