11 ms·

MBA builds app in less than 2 months

48 points by esgie 13y ago

stevekinney 13y ago
> You don’t need Hacker School, App Academy or one of those other organizations that trades their knowledge for your hard earned skrilla. Hacker School is free. Essentially, it's a 3-month, self-directed program but you're surrounded by dozens of like-minded individuals and some incredibly talented veterans from the industry.
- esgie 13y ago
  A lot of these schools are free to attend but take a percentage of your salary once you find a job upon completion.
  - willbill 13y ago
    You should reword this. Few of these schools are free. Most supplement a course fee with a placement fee they receive by acting as your recruiter.
    - yaddayadda 13y ago
      So they have a vested interest in your subsequent earnings. Wow, on first blush, I think all schools should have a vested interest in your subsequent earnings.
  - stevekinney 13y ago
    That, like your initial assertion, isn't really true. Hacker School doesn't take a segment of your earnings either. They try to get you a job at then end they take a recruiting commission from whoever hires you, but nothing from the student. In fact, I don't know of a single school that does this. gSchool refunds your tuition if you don't find a job. Flatiron School refunds a portion if you take a job through one of their partners. No one, as far as I know, takes a portion of student's salary beyond the tuition.
localhost3000 13y ago
I made this same discovery the summer before enrolling in bschool and then promptly dropped out of my class. it didn't make sense to take on the debt once I determined I really enjoyed building software (and was good at it).
- tixocloud 13y ago
  I applaud you for having the courage to attempt something and then saying that it's not what you're looking for.
michaelolenick 13y ago
I wish MBA's would knock it off with their everything is easy meme. Yes - software, including apps, can be created in two months. In fact we can write them in two hours, or take two years; it depends. Buried in your post is that your partner split so you spent 24x7 obsessed on coding which, IMO, is the right way to learn, and sometimes even the right way to work (in bursts at least; doing that for too long leads to -- in MBA speak -- massively diminishing ROI for your time). In any event congratulations on getting your app out, and welcome to unwritten secret society of computer programmers who have published software.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  >> in MBA speak -- massively diminishing ROI for your time I don't know any MBAs who speak like that, myself included. The only people I've encountered who speak like that are consultants and salespeople who don't have MBAs. Having said that, I don't live in the USA, so maybe Americans with MBAs are a very different beast.
slantyyz 13y ago
As much as people here may like to malign MBAs, I don't understand what the MBA has to do with anything. A smart go-getter made an app in less than two months.
- TylerE 13y ago
  80% make the other 20% look bad.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    Or, is it the 20% that make the 80% look bad?
    - mesozoic 13y ago
      As an MBA I can tell you for sure it's one or the other. I'm not sure which though.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
hello_newman 13y ago
Disclaimer: I am a student at General Assembly WDI in Santa Monica, and I am also looking to go to Hack Reactor in San Francisco when this is completed. I totally agree you DO NOT need to go to these programs. Everything that they teach is definitely out there for you to learn on your own. I started to get interested in this stuff last year working on a start-up/project and I like these schools for a couple reasons; 1. I get access to instructors. Because I am a "noob" I get flustered when I spend 2-3 hours looking for an answer. 65% of the time, Stackoverflow has the answer. But for the other 35% that needs an in depth examination, having an instructor 10 feet away from me for 9 hours a day is incredible. 2. Employer confidence. I believe the best way to get fucking good at this "craft/trade" if you will, is to be gainfully employed where you get paid to spend in excess of 40 hours a week working on your craft. There is no doubt you can get a job without these programs by teaching yourself, building some shit, making a nice github and applying for entry level/intern level dev jobs. But employers like seeing you came from these programs. It's a "stamp of approval" if you will. Companies take a chance on hiring junior devs, and these programs offer some piece of mind being "hey, this person was good enough to get in this program, and has spent 12 weeks being trained by these other qualified people". 3. Network. I have had the absolute pleasure of meeting 20 other incredibly smart, driven, talented, and fun people. I get to be surrounded, pushed, and inspired by these people everyday 5 days a week, 9-12 hours a day, for 12 weeks. 4. Teaching you how to learn. This is huge for me. People on the outside seem to say that these programs make people "one trick ponies" who only know how to do some rails CRUD app. But that is really not true. The biggest thing with this program (and others) is it teaches you how to learn this stuff. Rails will be gone in a couple years replaced by something new. All this shit is always changing; it's our job as web devs to stay on top of it, and adapt to survive. Skills like asking the right questions, reading documentation, where to go when you're stuck etc. These are just some of the benefits I can think of off the top of my head. These are not for everyone, but it has helped me immensely and love doing this. It should also be noted, I am 21 and dropped out of school to go to this. Edit; The title changed. Originally this comment was to note on the original title of "whether app academy/DBC/HR/Hacker School etc is worth it". My argument was for why I think, in my opinion, these programs are worth it. Didn't want this taken out of context.
danielna 13y ago
I had a lawn mowing business when I was 16. I had marketing, a service and collected payments. What's the point of business school?
- jmduke 13y ago
  I made five-page web sites when I was 15. I had published code, marketing (business cards!), customers, and more money than I would have gotten had I worked the help desk. What's the point of engineering school?
  - danielna 13y ago
    I was being sarcastic, which admittedly is lost on the web. Software dev is reduced as easily to an overly simplistic implementation as business savvy is. I think we're making the same point.
    - jmduke 13y ago
      Well, now I feel like a jerk. Yeah, I couldn't tell that you were being sarcastic (which I guess is a point in of itself) -- my bad.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  The point of business school, for the most part, is for people who work in large bureaucratic organizations to get a pay bump at the middle management level. But contrary to the MBA's are idiots stereotype, most MBAs don't flaunt their education or turn into "House of Lies"-style management consulting idiots after getting their degrees either.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I wonder what positions the good MBAs tend to work in vs the bad, for example which kind are more likely to be big company CxOs.
- Dewie 13y ago
jmduke 13y ago
Lot of comments on HN, Reddit, and elsewhere criticizing the title ("what does the MBA thing have to do with anything?", "who cares if its an MBA?", etc.), which I think is a little ironic because the overwhelming mentality on tech forums is that MBAs are idiots with more money than brains that get paid absurd amounts of money to play golf and talk about synergy who could never do what we do. I'm glad that more traditionally non-tech people are being exposed to the wonders of programming. I'd be equally ecstatic if the title read 'English major builds app in less than 2 months.'
- slantyyz 13y ago
  I think it's a little unfair to assume that MBAs are non-technical. You can enter an MBA program with any undergraduate degree. When I did mine between 1992-1994, my cohort had a pretty good cross-section of individuals with undergrads in just about every subject area, from liberal arts to engineering.
- Dewie 13y ago
  The only interesting part is that he did it - without any previous knowledge - in two months. Whether he is a janitor, MBA or photographer is not relevant at all. The title itself could be seen as an insult - that "even an MBA can do it". Maybe it's this mindset that inspired the title? The usual characteristic that is brought up when somebody accomplishes something noteworthy given their background is time - 2 months in this case, a 12 year old person in another case.
- soneca 13y ago
  I was bothered by the title too, but reading you and the OP, I realized that in the same way MBA is a generalization that generates both bad (arrogance) and good (intelligence) impressions, so is the word "hacker". And YC is built upon the idea that make hackers develop business and entrepreneurial skills is a good thing, so why not the idea of making MBAs develop programming skills is something equally good? Myself, I am not a MBA, but I related to this stereotype more than I relate to a hacker (I studied Economics and my carreer is on non-profit management). And I learned to code and created a web app, a B2C SaaS, in 5 months. From zero knowledge to publish the site to first sale in 5 months. I would not put a lable like that on me, even less claim bragging rights on this, but I think both me and the author are good examples that people may easily and quickly change whole carreers that were decided when we were less than 20 years old. And that is a good think. That a hacker may hustle and achieve to create a business from their code and a MBA may hustle and achieve to create a code from the business he imagined, are both sides of a new and welcomed coin. Why not celebrate them both?
esgie 13y ago
The title was changed on me. It originally said: Is Hacker School/App Academy/ect worth it? (MBA builds an app in less than 2 months) And was posted to have a conversation about whether Hacker School and programs like that are worth it, letting people share their opinions. The MBA aspect was meant for context. By editing the title to what it is above, the focus becomes something completely different.
- eaurouge 13y ago
  It originally said: Is Hacker School/App Academy/ect worth it? (MBA builds an app in less than 2 months) Let's flip that to: Is B school worth it? (Engineer builds a business in less than 2 months). I agree with what jmduke and damoncali had to say about this, but I'm pretty sure Hacker School provides a lot more value than the ability to build an iOS app in less than 2 months.
jrarredondo 13y ago
Maybe the title for this should have been "Building a simple app is easy"
- toong 13y ago
  I think it's more like: "Building a simple app is hard, but doable"
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Bjoern 13y ago
Just a unrelated side note. Why does this page need to break my browser page scrolling via space bar (in Firefox) ?
127001brewer 13y ago
I have an MBA and I have created a (very small) business (https://realpropertyexchanges.com/ https://realpropertyexchanges.com/) within two months during late nights and weekends. But I also have a family with small children, a great "day job" and other activities and interests (including some other development: https://github.com/mattchoinski https://github.com/mattchoinski). Just from my limited participation in this community, I sense that several other people are doing great things with limited resources. It's great that the author accomplished so much, but he's not alone.
mmgutz 13y ago
Shouldn't come as a surprise. Most productive software developers I know don't have engineering or comsci backgrounds. Programming, in general, is about problem solving.
ianstallings 13y ago
If you did this project and enjoyed the time spent, there is a good chance you are really a programmer that just happens to have an MBA. I hope you continue down that path because we need people with drive like you. I wish my first program was this good.
Stealx 13y ago
Title sounds like the start of a joke...
jamesjporter 13y ago
Nitpick, but its worth pointing out that Hacker School as a program and an institution is a very different beast than App Academy, Dev Bootcamp, etc. and is somewhat mischaracterized in the article.

48 points by esgie 13y ago

> You don’t need Hacker School, App Academy or one of those other organizations that trades their knowledge for your hard earned skrilla. Hacker School is free. Essentially, it's a 3-month, self-directed program but you're surrounded by dozens of like-minded individuals and some incredibly talented veterans from the industry.

esgie 13y ago
A lot of these schools are free to attend but take a percentage of your salary once you find a job upon completion.
- willbill 13y ago
  You should reword this. Few of these schools are free. Most supplement a course fee with a placement fee they receive by acting as your recruiter.
  - yaddayadda 13y ago
    So they have a vested interest in your subsequent earnings. Wow, on first blush, I think all schools should have a vested interest in your subsequent earnings.
- stevekinney 13y ago
  That, like your initial assertion, isn't really true. Hacker School doesn't take a segment of your earnings either. They try to get you a job at then end they take a recruiting commission from whoever hires you, but nothing from the student. In fact, I don't know of a single school that does this. gSchool refunds your tuition if you don't find a job. Flatiron School refunds a portion if you take a job through one of their partners. No one, as far as I know, takes a portion of student's salary beyond the tuition.

localhost3000 13y ago

I made this same discovery the summer before enrolling in bschool and then promptly dropped out of my class. it didn't make sense to take on the debt once I determined I really enjoyed building software (and was good at it).

tixocloud 13y ago
I applaud you for having the courage to attempt something and then saying that it's not what you're looking for.

michaelolenick 13y ago

I wish MBA's would knock it off with their everything is easy meme. Yes - software, including apps, can be created in two months. In fact we can write them in two hours, or take two years; it depends. Buried in your post is that your partner split so you spent 24x7 obsessed on coding which, IMO, is the right way to learn, and sometimes even the right way to work (in bursts at least; doing that for too long leads to -- in MBA speak -- massively diminishing ROI for your time). In any event congratulations on getting your app out, and welcome to unwritten secret society of computer programmers who have published software.

slantyyz 13y ago
>> in MBA speak -- massively diminishing ROI for your time I don't know any MBAs who speak like that, myself included. The only people I've encountered who speak like that are consultants and salespeople who don't have MBAs. Having said that, I don't live in the USA, so maybe Americans with MBAs are a very different beast.

slantyyz 13y ago

As much as people here may like to malign MBAs, I don't understand what the MBA has to do with anything. A smart go-getter made an app in less than two months.

TylerE 13y ago
80% make the other 20% look bad.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  Or, is it the 20% that make the 80% look bad?
  - mesozoic 13y ago
    As an MBA I can tell you for sure it's one or the other. I'm not sure which though.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

hello_newman 13y ago

Disclaimer: I am a student at General Assembly WDI in Santa Monica, and I am also looking to go to Hack Reactor in San Francisco when this is completed. I totally agree you DO NOT need to go to these programs. Everything that they teach is definitely out there for you to learn on your own. I started to get interested in this stuff last year working on a start-up/project and I like these schools for a couple reasons; 1. I get access to instructors. Because I am a "noob" I get flustered when I spend 2-3 hours looking for an answer. 65% of the time, Stackoverflow has the answer. But for the other 35% that needs an in depth examination, having an instructor 10 feet away from me for 9 hours a day is incredible. 2. Employer confidence. I believe the best way to get fucking good at this "craft/trade" if you will, is to be gainfully employed where you get paid to spend in excess of 40 hours a week working on your craft. There is no doubt you can get a job without these programs by teaching yourself, building some shit, making a nice github and applying for entry level/intern level dev jobs. But employers like seeing you came from these programs. It's a "stamp of approval" if you will. Companies take a chance on hiring junior devs, and these programs offer some piece of mind being "hey, this person was good enough to get in this program, and has spent 12 weeks being trained by these other qualified people". 3. Network. I have had the absolute pleasure of meeting 20 other incredibly smart, driven, talented, and fun people. I get to be surrounded, pushed, and inspired by these people everyday 5 days a week, 9-12 hours a day, for 12 weeks. 4. Teaching you how to learn. This is huge for me. People on the outside seem to say that these programs make people "one trick ponies" who only know how to do some rails CRUD app. But that is really not true. The biggest thing with this program (and others) is it teaches you how to learn this stuff. Rails will be gone in a couple years replaced by something new. All this shit is always changing; it's our job as web devs to stay on top of it, and adapt to survive. Skills like asking the right questions, reading documentation, where to go when you're stuck etc. These are just some of the benefits I can think of off the top of my head. These are not for everyone, but it has helped me immensely and love doing this. It should also be noted, I am 21 and dropped out of school to go to this. Edit; The title changed. Originally this comment was to note on the original title of "whether app academy/DBC/HR/Hacker School etc is worth it". My argument was for why I think, in my opinion, these programs are worth it. Didn't want this taken out of context.

danielna 13y ago

I had a lawn mowing business when I was 16. I had marketing, a service and collected payments. What's the point of business school?

jmduke 13y ago
I made five-page web sites when I was 15. I had published code, marketing (business cards!), customers, and more money than I would have gotten had I worked the help desk. What's the point of engineering school?
- danielna 13y ago
  I was being sarcastic, which admittedly is lost on the web. Software dev is reduced as easily to an overly simplistic implementation as business savvy is. I think we're making the same point.
  - jmduke 13y ago
    Well, now I feel like a jerk. Yeah, I couldn't tell that you were being sarcastic (which I guess is a point in of itself) -- my bad.
slantyyz 13y ago
The point of business school, for the most part, is for people who work in large bureaucratic organizations to get a pay bump at the middle management level. But contrary to the MBA's are idiots stereotype, most MBAs don't flaunt their education or turn into "House of Lies"-style management consulting idiots after getting their degrees either.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I wonder what positions the good MBAs tend to work in vs the bad, for example which kind are more likely to be big company CxOs.
Dewie 13y ago

jmduke 13y ago

Lot of comments on HN, Reddit, and elsewhere criticizing the title ("what does the MBA thing have to do with anything?", "who cares if its an MBA?", etc.), which I think is a little ironic because the overwhelming mentality on tech forums is that MBAs are idiots with more money than brains that get paid absurd amounts of money to play golf and talk about synergy who could never do what we do. I'm glad that more traditionally non-tech people are being exposed to the wonders of programming. I'd be equally ecstatic if the title read 'English major builds app in less than 2 months.'

slantyyz 13y ago
I think it's a little unfair to assume that MBAs are non-technical. You can enter an MBA program with any undergraduate degree. When I did mine between 1992-1994, my cohort had a pretty good cross-section of individuals with undergrads in just about every subject area, from liberal arts to engineering.
Dewie 13y ago
The only interesting part is that he did it - without any previous knowledge - in two months. Whether he is a janitor, MBA or photographer is not relevant at all. The title itself could be seen as an insult - that "even an MBA can do it". Maybe it's this mindset that inspired the title? The usual characteristic that is brought up when somebody accomplishes something noteworthy given their background is time - 2 months in this case, a 12 year old person in another case.
soneca 13y ago
I was bothered by the title too, but reading you and the OP, I realized that in the same way MBA is a generalization that generates both bad (arrogance) and good (intelligence) impressions, so is the word "hacker". And YC is built upon the idea that make hackers develop business and entrepreneurial skills is a good thing, so why not the idea of making MBAs develop programming skills is something equally good? Myself, I am not a MBA, but I related to this stereotype more than I relate to a hacker (I studied Economics and my carreer is on non-profit management). And I learned to code and created a web app, a B2C SaaS, in 5 months. From zero knowledge to publish the site to first sale in 5 months. I would not put a lable like that on me, even less claim bragging rights on this, but I think both me and the author are good examples that people may easily and quickly change whole carreers that were decided when we were less than 20 years old. And that is a good think. That a hacker may hustle and achieve to create a business from their code and a MBA may hustle and achieve to create a code from the business he imagined, are both sides of a new and welcomed coin. Why not celebrate them both?

esgie 13y ago

The title was changed on me. It originally said: Is Hacker School/App Academy/ect worth it? (MBA builds an app in less than 2 months) And was posted to have a conversation about whether Hacker School and programs like that are worth it, letting people share their opinions. The MBA aspect was meant for context. By editing the title to what it is above, the focus becomes something completely different.

eaurouge 13y ago
It originally said: Is Hacker School/App Academy/ect worth it? (MBA builds an app in less than 2 months) Let's flip that to: Is B school worth it? (Engineer builds a business in less than 2 months). I agree with what jmduke and damoncali had to say about this, but I'm pretty sure Hacker School provides a lot more value than the ability to build an iOS app in less than 2 months.

jrarredondo 13y ago

Maybe the title for this should have been "Building a simple app is easy"

toong 13y ago
I think it's more like: "Building a simple app is hard, but doable"

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Bjoern 13y ago

Just a unrelated side note. Why does this page need to break my browser page scrolling via space bar (in Firefox) ?

127001brewer 13y ago

I have an MBA and I have created a (very small) business (https://realpropertyexchanges.com/ https://realpropertyexchanges.com/) within two months during late nights and weekends. But I also have a family with small children, a great "day job" and other activities and interests (including some other development: https://github.com/mattchoinski https://github.com/mattchoinski). Just from my limited participation in this community, I sense that several other people are doing great things with limited resources. It's great that the author accomplished so much, but he's not alone.

mmgutz 13y ago

Shouldn't come as a surprise. Most productive software developers I know don't have engineering or comsci backgrounds. Programming, in general, is about problem solving.

ianstallings 13y ago

If you did this project and enjoyed the time spent, there is a good chance you are really a programmer that just happens to have an MBA. I hope you continue down that path because we need people with drive like you. I wish my first program was this good.

Stealx 13y ago

Title sounds like the start of a joke...

jamesjporter 13y ago

Nitpick, but its worth pointing out that Hacker School as a program and an institution is a very different beast than App Academy, Dev Bootcamp, etc. and is somewhat mischaracterized in the article.