4 ms·

Seeing "(e) None of the founders are programmers." on the form, I was wondering - and I fear this has probably been answered before but it's not an easy thing t

by corin_ 15y ago

Seeing "(e) None of the founders are programmers." on the form, I was wondering - and I fear this has probably been answered before but it's not an easy thing to look for - pg, would you mind saying how often, if ever, you have taken in founders who literally couldn't code their way out of a paper bag, and if so do you have anything you can share on success rates / examples?

arjunnarayan 15y ago
I'd wager about zero, with a zero per cent rate of success.
- mikedmiked 15y ago
  I have no source to back this up (I tried): Didn't the airbnb founder(s) have little/no coding experience?
  - abstractbill 15y ago
    No, one of the three airbnb founders has a CS degree from Harvard (http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team).
- corin_ 15y ago
  I'm not sure why you'd think that. If you take a few examples of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Dropbox... I don't think any of these needed coders to think of. Obviously having technical founders can have many benefits, including: a.) Can create technical product yourself, spend less on coders initially (e.g. Zuckerburg) b.) Some products may need complicated code even for a POC (whereas sites like Twitter, less so. Any mediocre dev could make a badly written Twitter clone) c.) Easier to think of technical ideas. For example I doubt a non-technical person would think of creating BitCoin. On a smaller level, could fail to think of feature-sized ideas within a company. I think that, if Twitter didn't exist and I decided to create it, lack of coding skill wouldn't be a problem, as long as I had funding for coders to replace the technical founder's early role. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming I could do what Twitter have done, but I don't think that the things I'd have done worse would be because of technical ability, the same as if I was hired as a lawyer my failings wouldn't be for tech/code reasons. Edit: As an example data point, the company I work for is a digital publishing company, creating and managing content websites. Founded by people from hardware distribution industry, and successful - yet I would argue that our core business type is similar to Reddit, in that success/failure comes more from business decisions than "wow, you coded a better website than other people!" (Reddit being better than Digg, for example, is much more than "Reddit is coded better".)
  - goldmab 15y ago
    The advantage that Zuckerberg got from writing Facebook himself wasn't that he could "spend less on coders," it's that Facebook got created at all. Meanwhile, he had been contracted by the Winklevoss twins to implement their idea, which he didn't do because why would he?
    - bermanoid 15y ago
      Meanwhile, he had been contracted by the Winklevoss twins to implement their idea, which he didn't do because why would he? Well, let's be fair here - he did implement their idea, at least the important part of it, the bit without which Facebook probably would have been a flop (the early elite school exclusivity, which was a major selling point especially at the first few schools, since there was nothing else particularly special about the site itself). He just decided to keep it for himself rather than hand it over when it was ready.
  - emmett 15y ago
    And yet...Reddit, Facebook, and Dropbox ALL had highly technical founders. I'm not sure about Twitter, but I think so too in that case. So maybe it IS important.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      But does that mean that the difference between technical and non-technical makes the difference between success and not, or does it just mean it's the difference between "got an idea, might as well code a bit and see what happens" and "got a great idea... I wonder if I can get some investment"?
  - jules 15y ago
    Suppose your idea is to build a brilliant sculpture. Who will most likely succeed: a sculptor, or a guy who's instructing a sculptor? Would it work better to hire a sculptor and explain to them exactly what it should look like, or would it work better to be that sculptor and directly build what you have in mind? Even if you are explaining it to somebody else, it helps your ability to explain tremendously to be able to sculpt yourself. That's not to say that other roles aren't very important, like marketing for example. But unless your "business decisions" are truly brilliant, you're probably not adding a lot of value in a startup if that is your only contribution. Despite your opinion that it they are unnecessary, is it a coincidence that all the startups you name had technical founders? Obviously your chances of success are not zero without a technical cofounder, but empirically a technical cofounder does seem to be a common factor.
brk 15y ago
Weren't there a couple of guys from Toronto doing something tangential to eBay that fit this profile (non-programmers, successful exit)?
akkartik 15y ago
I think I read somewhere that the octoparts applied without any programming knowledge between them.
pg 15y ago
I think we have twice funded groups that didn't include a hacker. One was a math major as an undergrad though. One of these groups was Auctomatic, which did pretty well. Another is in the current batch and isn't launched yet.
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  I may add Swagapalooza, I think.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    This is correct, although there wasn't any code to be written, at least not in that phase of the business.
  - pg 15y ago
    Oops, yes, make that 3.
- praxeologist 15y ago
  How do you feel about non-tech, consumer products? I noticed it wasn't expressly prohibited and was thinking we might apply.
  - pg 15y ago
    We're open to anything.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Is there an essay subject lurking in there on your opinions based on these three examples?

by corin_ 15y ago

arjunnarayan 15y ago

I'd wager about zero, with a zero per cent rate of success.

mikedmiked 15y ago
I have no source to back this up (I tried): Didn't the airbnb founder(s) have little/no coding experience?
- abstractbill 15y ago
  No, one of the three airbnb founders has a CS degree from Harvard (http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team http://www.airbnb.com/founding-team).
corin_ 15y ago
I'm not sure why you'd think that. If you take a few examples of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Dropbox... I don't think any of these needed coders to think of. Obviously having technical founders can have many benefits, including: a.) Can create technical product yourself, spend less on coders initially (e.g. Zuckerburg) b.) Some products may need complicated code even for a POC (whereas sites like Twitter, less so. Any mediocre dev could make a badly written Twitter clone) c.) Easier to think of technical ideas. For example I doubt a non-technical person would think of creating BitCoin. On a smaller level, could fail to think of feature-sized ideas within a company. I think that, if Twitter didn't exist and I decided to create it, lack of coding skill wouldn't be a problem, as long as I had funding for coders to replace the technical founder's early role. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming I could do what Twitter have done, but I don't think that the things I'd have done worse would be because of technical ability, the same as if I was hired as a lawyer my failings wouldn't be for tech/code reasons. Edit: As an example data point, the company I work for is a digital publishing company, creating and managing content websites. Founded by people from hardware distribution industry, and successful - yet I would argue that our core business type is similar to Reddit, in that success/failure comes more from business decisions than "wow, you coded a better website than other people!" (Reddit being better than Digg, for example, is much more than "Reddit is coded better".)
- goldmab 15y ago
  The advantage that Zuckerberg got from writing Facebook himself wasn't that he could "spend less on coders," it's that Facebook got created at all. Meanwhile, he had been contracted by the Winklevoss twins to implement their idea, which he didn't do because why would he?
  - bermanoid 15y ago
    Meanwhile, he had been contracted by the Winklevoss twins to implement their idea, which he didn't do because why would he? Well, let's be fair here - he did implement their idea, at least the important part of it, the bit without which Facebook probably would have been a flop (the early elite school exclusivity, which was a major selling point especially at the first few schools, since there was nothing else particularly special about the site itself). He just decided to keep it for himself rather than hand it over when it was ready.
- emmett 15y ago
  And yet...Reddit, Facebook, and Dropbox ALL had highly technical founders. I'm not sure about Twitter, but I think so too in that case. So maybe it IS important.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    But does that mean that the difference between technical and non-technical makes the difference between success and not, or does it just mean it's the difference between "got an idea, might as well code a bit and see what happens" and "got a great idea... I wonder if I can get some investment"?
- jules 15y ago
  Suppose your idea is to build a brilliant sculpture. Who will most likely succeed: a sculptor, or a guy who's instructing a sculptor? Would it work better to hire a sculptor and explain to them exactly what it should look like, or would it work better to be that sculptor and directly build what you have in mind? Even if you are explaining it to somebody else, it helps your ability to explain tremendously to be able to sculpt yourself. That's not to say that other roles aren't very important, like marketing for example. But unless your "business decisions" are truly brilliant, you're probably not adding a lot of value in a startup if that is your only contribution. Despite your opinion that it they are unnecessary, is it a coincidence that all the startups you name had technical founders? Obviously your chances of success are not zero without a technical cofounder, but empirically a technical cofounder does seem to be a common factor.

brk 15y ago

Weren't there a couple of guys from Toronto doing something tangential to eBay that fit this profile (non-programmers, successful exit)?

akkartik 15y ago

I think I read somewhere that the octoparts applied without any programming knowledge between them.

pg 15y ago

I think we have twice funded groups that didn't include a hacker. One was a math major as an undergrad though. One of these groups was Auctomatic, which did pretty well. Another is in the current batch and isn't launched yet.

rokhayakebe 15y ago
I may add Swagapalooza, I think.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  This is correct, although there wasn't any code to be written, at least not in that phase of the business.
- pg 15y ago
  Oops, yes, make that 3.
praxeologist 15y ago
How do you feel about non-tech, consumer products? I noticed it wasn't expressly prohibited and was thinking we might apply.
- pg 15y ago
  We're open to anything.
corin_ 15y ago
Is there an essay subject lurking in there on your opinions based on these three examples?