2 ms·
The prevailing attitude on HN is that all founders and early employees at a startup must be coders. As a technical person with a business background (and MBA i
by maukdaddy 17y ago
The prevailing attitude on HN is that all founders and early employees at a startup must be coders. As a technical person with a business background (and MBA in progress) I find this attitude short-sighted, since technical employees with business background can bring a LOT of value to a startup vs hiring yet another programmer.
- anamax 17y ago> The prevailing attitude on HN is that all founders and early employees at a startup must be coders. That's not quite right, but code is the product. > As a technical person with a business background (and MBA in progress) I find this attitude short-sighted, since technical employees with business background can bring a LOT of value to a startup vs hiring yet another programmer. I'll bite - what value do you bring that exceeds the value of a coder? I'll assume that you're not coding, so be specific about what that business background provides. Note - coders can talk with customers, get requirements, etc. Some of us own suits and have some VC "greenstamps" to cash in.
- anamax 17y agoI forgot to ask. When is that value "full-time" and what should happen before then? While this whole line of disucssion has been about "code", I'm interested in how things might be different when for "not software" products.
- rantfoil 17y agoI agree with you -- not everyone has to code. I am not against non-technical founders at all. The great nontech cofounders are people who can either design or hustle with the best of them. Those are the phenomenal non-technical cofounders. Note: MBA does not a hustler make. MBAs are made to be great at working for others in larger organizations. But getting an MBA does not preclude hustle, nor value to a startup.