3 ms·

This article tries hard to give coders a warm, fuzzy feeling about how important they are. As a coder working on a startup, I can tell you one thing I've learn

This article tries hard to give coders a warm, fuzzy feeling about how important they are. As a coder working on a startup, I can tell you one thing I've learned: coding (at least for me) is not the hard part. If your dream is to be an entrepreneur, here's my advice: learn to code and learn to sell, or find a great cofounder who knows how to sell.

cunac 15y ago
by time you will learn that coding and building sustainable software product are not same thing there are ton of code monkeys but they will not produce product
- LearnYouALisp 15y ago
  But given enough time... (joking)
bradhe 15y ago
As a technical cofounder that also wears the CEO hat, jesus christ I agree.
dkrich 15y ago
I think you're missing the point of the article. He's not talking about starting a company, he's talking about employee poaching (or lack thereof) by large tech companies, and its effects on engineering salaries. But as an aside, I definitely agree about selling. There seems to be this disdain for MBA/business types that don't build. As an engineer I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for skilled salespeople and I would definitely want one on my side when starting out.
ootachi 15y ago
Yeah, that rubbed me the wrong way too. Engineers are completely overrated; your best bet is to hire no engineers and outsource to India or odesk, or if you absolutely must hire engineers, hire them for rock-bottom prices and fire them if they ask for more.
- LearnYouALisp 15y ago
  I think your brand of humor is a little too subtle, haha.
- neurotech1 15y ago
  That is the dumbest piece of advice you could give a founder. A start-up that outsources its core competency is doomed. If you have an idea, and can't find a technical co-founder, learn to program yourself. PHP aint that hard.
  - MortenK 15y ago
    Skype outsourced it's development to Estonian developers, which as we know went very well. Though it's a prevalent opinion on HN, outsourcing is not inherently bad for a startup. What matters it the quality and the skills of the people, local as well as remote.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Yeah, it must be a huge pile of valuable IP if someone without tech knowledge can hack it together with self-taught PHP in a few weeks... Aren't startup people supposed to be all focused on getting results? If it takes paying someone else to hack up v1, rather than you spending time on it when you should be out selling or interviewing potential customers, etc, do that. We never hear the stories from people who self-taught PHP or Rails for 6 months hacking on an idea only to then try to give it to users and have it rejected for multiple reasons. But they happen. Probably more than anyone realizes.

cunac 15y ago

by time you will learn that coding and building sustainable software product are not same thing there are ton of code monkeys but they will not produce product

LearnYouALisp 15y ago
But given enough time... (joking)

bradhe 15y ago

As a technical cofounder that also wears the CEO hat, jesus christ I agree.

dkrich 15y ago

I think you're missing the point of the article. He's not talking about starting a company, he's talking about employee poaching (or lack thereof) by large tech companies, and its effects on engineering salaries. But as an aside, I definitely agree about selling. There seems to be this disdain for MBA/business types that don't build. As an engineer I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for skilled salespeople and I would definitely want one on my side when starting out.

ootachi 15y ago

Yeah, that rubbed me the wrong way too. Engineers are completely overrated; your best bet is to hire no engineers and outsource to India or odesk, or if you absolutely must hire engineers, hire them for rock-bottom prices and fire them if they ask for more.

LearnYouALisp 15y ago
I think your brand of humor is a little too subtle, haha.
neurotech1 15y ago
That is the dumbest piece of advice you could give a founder. A start-up that outsources its core competency is doomed. If you have an idea, and can't find a technical co-founder, learn to program yourself. PHP aint that hard.
- MortenK 15y ago
  Skype outsourced it's development to Estonian developers, which as we know went very well. Though it's a prevalent opinion on HN, outsourcing is not inherently bad for a startup. What matters it the quality and the skills of the people, local as well as remote.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Yeah, it must be a huge pile of valuable IP if someone without tech knowledge can hack it together with self-taught PHP in a few weeks... Aren't startup people supposed to be all focused on getting results? If it takes paying someone else to hack up v1, rather than you spending time on it when you should be out selling or interviewing potential customers, etc, do that. We never hear the stories from people who self-taught PHP or Rails for 6 months hacking on an idea only to then try to give it to users and have it rejected for multiple reasons. But they happen. Probably more than anyone realizes.