4 ms·

We get 17 seconds into your new startup pitch when I ask you if you're technical and you say yes. A bunch of startup marketing mumbo-jumbo later and you tell m

by naner 15y ago

We get 17 seconds into your new startup pitch when I ask you if you're technical and you say yes. A bunch of startup marketing mumbo-jumbo later and you tell me you're looking for a coder to help you. WTF?! You said you were technical?! Say what you mean. Ask if they are a programmer.

skrebbel 15y ago
Word. Also, I know plenty mechanical engineers who'd be somewhat offended by the article title. Tunnel vision, anyone?
- krschultz 15y ago
  True to some extent. I'm a mechanical engineer and every engineering I know would answer 'yes' when asked if they were technical. I'd be shocked if anyone out there defined 'non-technical' in such a broad way that an engineer wouldn't count just because they were laying out a circuit board or designing a biomedical device instead of writing Ruby on Rails code..
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - cshum 15y ago
    What I think: technical = can build stuff i.e. software <=> coder, hardware <=> electrical engineer, physical product <=> mechanical engineer and so on...
    - Iv 15y ago
      Bah... Hackernews is mainly about web apps and mobile apps. Sadly.
- sontek 15y ago
  Some of the best programmers I know have mechanical engineering backgrounds!
  - wsc981 15y ago
    Some of my best friends are gay!
  - sidman 15y ago
    Thats because there is a hell of a lot of coding in mech eng degree now. I actually did a few programming courses in my comp sci degree as an elective that were titled mech302 mech326 and didnt have the equivalent in the comp-sci department (which was disturbing actually). I think reason being is that before, mechanical engineering was just purely, mechanical engineering, where as now the mechanical engineering degree (in my old uni anyway) was combined with mechatronic, which was robotics, and alot of low level process control type courses that for obvious reasons required alot of programming ... They basically fell under the same department
- dalore 15y ago
  If the mechanical engineers were doing a startup that involved mechanical engineering then I would say they are technical.
- reneherse 15y ago
  Technical = Coder goes hand in hand with the narrow definition of 'startup' that's commonly used here. It's not meant to discount other engineering abilities, it's just a bit of jargon one needs to adapt to.
  - cjmauthor 15y ago
    I looked at the word technical and instantly knew that it was suggesting the question if I write code. I am not a coder, I am familiar with it, but I am closer to the guy trying to build a company by getting a group of coders together. The point is that nobody should be offended, in fact it is even ok to believe your technical if other techs believe you are not. Any startup needs all the cogs in the wheel to run, from the simpletons to the most advanced, and we all should embrace the role we find ourselves in and change it if we believe we were meant for something else.
  - skrebbel 15y ago
    It's this very narrow definition that is my problem. Your Average Silicon Valley Co-founder can't even imagine that a company could not be about web or mobile apps. I find this apalling. It makes me wonder whether Peter Thiel is right when he says that the Valley should think more about flying cars and not about 140 characters. I wonder whether the people in the Valley lost the ability to think about anything other than 140 characters. It sure is a competitive advantage of other high-tech regions in the world: less (or different) tunnel vision.
grepherder 15y ago
Came here to say almost the same thing, but one more tidbit. Technical = Technical, Programmer = Programmer, and in some cultures even Technical != Programmer. Granted I'm not in US, and I know in the jargon around here people who can code would generally be called technical, but where I live if someone asked me if I was technical I would say no. I can code and I understand maths. I'm not an engineer or anything, neither do I have knowledge worth anything about hardware. That doesn't even pass as "technical" around here. I know it's a bit nitpicky but wording is important if you value your time as you claim.
- xibernetik 15y ago
  In the (software/web) start-up culture, technical means writing code. If someone says "I'm creating a fitness app, yeah I'm technical" you expect them to mean "I can code" rather than "I know how to use CAD". Your argument applies in many contexts, but not this one.
  - grepherder 15y ago
    Yup, I kind of acknowledged that already, what you say is true of course. Yet in my environment I can still imagine software scenarios where I can say "you need a technical guy for this" to my friends and mean a non-programmer or a special type of programmer. I say no harm in being precise if it costs nothing.
    - archgoon 15y ago
      In the case of a fitness app, I could easily imagine it meaning 'my background is in human physiology and nutrition'.
      - xibernetik 15y ago
        If you are pitching to a potential investor about this idea for an app, and they ask you "So are you technical?" what they mean is "Are you a technical (co-)founder?" as in "Are you the guy who will build/design the prototype/app to a working level before we pour enough money in for you to actually hire decent coders?" When you say yes, but later reveal you don't know how to code but you studied nutrition, they are going to get annoyed. Once again, it's context. In many worlds technical means other things, but to North American VCs looking at software/apps/etc, it means you know how to get the app/site/whatever running. Since we're talking about the startup world, I really can't see how a potential investor would see it as anything less than deceptive if you said "yeah I'm technical" and then revealed you don't have the capabilities to implement your idea.
neebz 15y ago
I think when they say 'technical' , it probably means are you the one doing the technical job in the startup. For a CS-based startup, it's a programmer. For a hardware based startup, it could be the electrical/mechanical guy.
tel 15y ago
I think the point was over specific, but still valid. "Technical" translates to "someone who's actually building something physical". It's guiding the division between social/business/marketing constructions and, well, technical ones. I'd think the argument applies equally the the guy building the hardware (when that happens) and maybe even to the ID guy building the enclosure.

by naner 15y ago

skrebbel 15y ago

Word. Also, I know plenty mechanical engineers who'd be somewhat offended by the article title. Tunnel vision, anyone?

krschultz 15y ago
True to some extent. I'm a mechanical engineer and every engineering I know would answer 'yes' when asked if they were technical. I'd be shocked if anyone out there defined 'non-technical' in such a broad way that an engineer wouldn't count just because they were laying out a circuit board or designing a biomedical device instead of writing Ruby on Rails code..
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- cshum 15y ago
  What I think: technical = can build stuff i.e. software <=> coder, hardware <=> electrical engineer, physical product <=> mechanical engineer and so on...
  - Iv 15y ago
    Bah... Hackernews is mainly about web apps and mobile apps. Sadly.
sontek 15y ago
Some of the best programmers I know have mechanical engineering backgrounds!
- wsc981 15y ago
  Some of my best friends are gay!
- sidman 15y ago
  Thats because there is a hell of a lot of coding in mech eng degree now. I actually did a few programming courses in my comp sci degree as an elective that were titled mech302 mech326 and didnt have the equivalent in the comp-sci department (which was disturbing actually). I think reason being is that before, mechanical engineering was just purely, mechanical engineering, where as now the mechanical engineering degree (in my old uni anyway) was combined with mechatronic, which was robotics, and alot of low level process control type courses that for obvious reasons required alot of programming ... They basically fell under the same department
dalore 15y ago
If the mechanical engineers were doing a startup that involved mechanical engineering then I would say they are technical.
reneherse 15y ago
Technical = Coder goes hand in hand with the narrow definition of 'startup' that's commonly used here. It's not meant to discount other engineering abilities, it's just a bit of jargon one needs to adapt to.
- cjmauthor 15y ago
  I looked at the word technical and instantly knew that it was suggesting the question if I write code. I am not a coder, I am familiar with it, but I am closer to the guy trying to build a company by getting a group of coders together. The point is that nobody should be offended, in fact it is even ok to believe your technical if other techs believe you are not. Any startup needs all the cogs in the wheel to run, from the simpletons to the most advanced, and we all should embrace the role we find ourselves in and change it if we believe we were meant for something else.
- skrebbel 15y ago
  It's this very narrow definition that is my problem. Your Average Silicon Valley Co-founder can't even imagine that a company could not be about web or mobile apps. I find this apalling. It makes me wonder whether Peter Thiel is right when he says that the Valley should think more about flying cars and not about 140 characters. I wonder whether the people in the Valley lost the ability to think about anything other than 140 characters. It sure is a competitive advantage of other high-tech regions in the world: less (or different) tunnel vision.

grepherder 15y ago

Came here to say almost the same thing, but one more tidbit. Technical = Technical, Programmer = Programmer, and in some cultures even Technical != Programmer. Granted I'm not in US, and I know in the jargon around here people who can code would generally be called technical, but where I live if someone asked me if I was technical I would say no. I can code and I understand maths. I'm not an engineer or anything, neither do I have knowledge worth anything about hardware. That doesn't even pass as "technical" around here. I know it's a bit nitpicky but wording is important if you value your time as you claim.

xibernetik 15y ago
In the (software/web) start-up culture, technical means writing code. If someone says "I'm creating a fitness app, yeah I'm technical" you expect them to mean "I can code" rather than "I know how to use CAD". Your argument applies in many contexts, but not this one.
- grepherder 15y ago
  Yup, I kind of acknowledged that already, what you say is true of course. Yet in my environment I can still imagine software scenarios where I can say "you need a technical guy for this" to my friends and mean a non-programmer or a special type of programmer. I say no harm in being precise if it costs nothing.
  - archgoon 15y ago
    In the case of a fitness app, I could easily imagine it meaning 'my background is in human physiology and nutrition'.
    - xibernetik 15y ago
      If you are pitching to a potential investor about this idea for an app, and they ask you "So are you technical?" what they mean is "Are you a technical (co-)founder?" as in "Are you the guy who will build/design the prototype/app to a working level before we pour enough money in for you to actually hire decent coders?" When you say yes, but later reveal you don't know how to code but you studied nutrition, they are going to get annoyed. Once again, it's context. In many worlds technical means other things, but to North American VCs looking at software/apps/etc, it means you know how to get the app/site/whatever running. Since we're talking about the startup world, I really can't see how a potential investor would see it as anything less than deceptive if you said "yeah I'm technical" and then revealed you don't have the capabilities to implement your idea.

neebz 15y ago

I think when they say 'technical' , it probably means are you the one doing the technical job in the startup. For a CS-based startup, it's a programmer. For a hardware based startup, it could be the electrical/mechanical guy.

tel 15y ago

I think the point was over specific, but still valid. "Technical" translates to "someone who's actually building something physical". It's guiding the division between social/business/marketing constructions and, well, technical ones. I'd think the argument applies equally the the guy building the hardware (when that happens) and maybe even to the ID guy building the enclosure.