13 ms·

Tell HN: Hello

847 points by wwwarsame 11y ago

Hello All, My name is Mohamed, and I am a jail guard! After a year or so reading HN, I finally made an account! This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place! I have learned a great deal from all of you. With this said, I am embarking on a two year journey to apply to YC in FALL of 2017. I have given myself this arbitrary timeline to motivate myself. You see, I am a total noob. I'm about to enroll in an online coding bootcamp. This is to grasp enough CS/coding experience so I can graduate from the proverbial 'I'm looking for a technical co-founder' dilemma, and to build the MVP on my own. What I become, for better or worse, is how I will attract the right people to tell my story and grow a company together. In the meantime, I am working on myself first and learning each day from all of you. I am excited to begin this marathon I call starting a startup.

primitivesuave 11y ago
Hey Mohamed! I'm really glad you're making a startup. When I started my first startup, I had no idea how to make "mywebsite.com" link up to my actual website - the whole process was a mystery to me. It was like wandering around in a dark room and bumping into the furniture and walls. I got the business started with just a simple Bootstrap template and PHP form, and it worked great! After around 6 months of learning new things every day through the Internet, chat rooms, etc, all in an effort to improve the website, I felt like one of those days I just found the light switch, and the whole room was illuminated. Nowadays I can work on my own schedule on coding projects that I truly enjoy doing. Two years ago, I didn't even know what I was capable of building. There were certainly those days where it all feels a bit overwhelming, but like another great commenter pointed out here, perseverance is key.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you for the encouraging words.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
MurWade 11y ago
Hello. good luck. i will be watching you. haha
empressplay 11y ago
Good for you! Best of luck.
brobinson 11y ago
Do you already have a business idea or two floating around in your head? Just curious.
hliyan 11y ago
You've given yourself two years -- that's good, realistic. May I ask what level of knowledge skill in what areas you're aiming for by fall of 2017, and how much time you plan to devote per, say week, for the exercise? Also, good luck. If you need to be pointed in the right direction, I'm sure a lot of people here (including myself) would be happy to do so during this period.
sharavsambuu 11y ago
Good luck man you can do it!
nailer 11y ago
Awesome Mohamed! Start small, and use the free resources - try the Learn the Hard Way series. Python is a great language to start with, JavaScript is a little more difficult but you can do more things. Attend meetups too, they'll inspire you and it's nice to be able to speak to people in real life about this stuff.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you sir. I have recently downloaded the online version of Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way ebook with accompanying lessons. Taking this along with Udacity's Intro to Comp Science course which uses Python. Basic JS under my belt from team treehouse and udemy course.
trentmb 11y ago
> This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place! You and I both- I commend you on your humility and look forward to your success.
alouanchi 11y ago
Good luck man, wish you all the best in this journey.
peterjancelis 11y ago
I hope your MVP will be catering to prison guard or prison management. You probably got some unique insights there that few developers have.
- chronic32 11y ago
  Just build a mobile app... That's what startups have done and will continue to do
- Kluny 11y ago
  Not to mention the prison industry is overdue for some serious upsets.
Stratoscope 11y ago
Wow, Mohamed, this is great. I'm glad I stayed up late enough tonight to see your post. Please feel free to give me a shout via the email address in my profile - I'd be more than happy to kick around any ideas to help you get started. What kind of computer do you use - Windows, Mac, Linux? I'd like to give you some suggestions for programming tools (mostly free, some you might pay for), but of course the details will depend on which OS you're using. I second nailer's suggestion that you may want to start with Python for some of your initial learning. It's an easy language to get started with, but also very powerful. Even if you end up using another language later on, your Python skills will remain valuable - it's great for writing anything from little scripts up to large apps. Ruby is also really nice, you wouldn't go wrong with that either. And of course you'll want to learn JavaScript eventually too, regardless of what else you do. You could start with any of these really, but Python is probably the easiest to begin with. What you really want to start out doing is to get the basic concepts of programming down - and these carry over from language to language. One suggestion I'll make right away: in every language you work with, find and learn how to use a good debugger. For JavaScript, every browser has a nice built-in debugger. (I like the one in Chrome, but they are all pretty good.) For Python or Ruby it will depend to some degree on which OS you use. And a good IDE with built-in syntax checking, autocomplete, and all that is really great to have. Some people will tell you not to use IDEs and debuggers and things like that, as if it were a sign of weakness to use good tools. Or that if you follow Test Driven Development you should never need to use a debugger. Don't listen to them! I see so many people asking questions on Stack Overflow that they could have answered for themselves in a few minutes if they only knew how to debug their code. Testing is important and you should learn all about it and do it, but debuggers are for more than just fixing bugs. They help you explore and learn how your code works, and what the APIs you're calling really do, in an interactive and visual way. Here's a Stack Overflow post of mine from a couple of years ago with screenshots of a few Python debuggers: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16474706/1202830 http://stackoverflow.com/a/16474706/1202830 Don't worry if there's a lot of stuff in those screens; it will all make sense as you get into it. You'll also want to get into version control sooner rather than later. Most people use Git these days, although Mercurial is very good too. I recommend avoiding the Git command line though, at least at first. You have enough to learn as it is without having to deal with that arcane system. But there are some nice visual interfaces to Git. I like SmartGit a lot and recommend it. It's free for noncommercial use. Or you may want to start with something even simpler like one of the free clients from GitHub. Again, let me know what OS you're on and I'll make some specific suggestions for various kinds of tools. p.s. Top of Hacker News on your first post! Not too shabby...
Jugurtha 11y ago
Welcome, Mohamed.. A little word of advice that I hope will save you a lot of time and frustration: - Don't wait to complete your training to start your project. Start with the knowledge you have and tweak it over time. If you have no knowledge right now, start by sketching in English. It seems stupid but just the fact of abstracting human needs that seem obvious to us and formalizing them into logical steps will help you tremendously. - Write code about random stuff you think about. It will be ugly and you'll laugh at it, but you will be lightyears ahead than if you wait when you finish your training to start writing code. It doesn't need to be great, awesomely useful or something. - Compare yourself with yourself. "..wrote 3,000 lines of Python in a day to build a Segway" made me hate myself. Fight that urge. I know I still am. Reading biographies of great people, seeing what people are actually doing and building makes me feel miserable, incompetent and good at nothing. - Understand that the points above are for you just in part, they are mainly for myself :) Here's something to make you feel less inadequate: http://carlcheo.com/fascinating-posts-from-tech-founders-who-changed-the-world http://carlcheo.com/fascinating-posts-from-tech-founders-who... Work to get better. When the itch presents itself, you'll have the skills to scratch it. Good luck.
- felixrabe 11y ago
  > Reading biographies of great people, seeing what people are actually doing and building makes me feel miserable, incompetent and good at nothing. Wow, that's something I totally have as well. At the same time, I want to be (and am, many times) inspired by other people who are already more successful than me. After all, they did struggle, maybe with other things, but their success proves that it is possible to reach it / to achieve something awesome. The struggle with a feeling of worthlessness is such a mystery. Why do I have it? Why so many people in general? What is the cause, what can be done? I try many things, fall flat on my nose, and then try to get up again. Sometimes, it's a hellish nightmare.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you Jugurtha.
radmuzom 11y ago
All the best. My advice to you would be to try and think how you can provide real value to people (which rules out 90% of "startups" in Silicon Valley) and make a positive change in their lives. This does not mean you have to solve world hunger, it can be as simple as having identified a loophole which allows for corruption in jails and you use technology to close that loophole.
- thekid314 11y ago
  Or fix that exploitative phone call system in jails.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    The startup Pigeonly, made by a guy who spent a few years in prison, has exactly that purpose: lower the cost of communications between inmates and their families. http://www.fastcompany.com/3037785/innovation-agents/how-an-ex-inmates-startup-is-disrupting-prison http://www.fastcompany.com/3037785/innovation-agents/how-an-... https://www.telepigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/
  - wwwarsame 11y ago
    Also the canteen they order, way overpriced. There are numerous inefficiencies in the prison system, and Pigeonly seems like they picked one area, phones, to attack first.
    - ectoplasm 11y ago
      Maybe there's some area for profit involving all the inmates doing useful desk jobs.
jnbiche 11y ago
Good luck with your endeavors! Regarding learning to code, I'll just reiterate what others have said that Python is an excellent language to learn with (that said, it's not ideal for everything, but it is a great learner's language). Also, if you haven't already, I'd suggest switching to Linux or OSX and get used to working on the command line. Most developers in the start-up scene will be working on OSX or Linux, and learning how to use the command line will benefit you enormously.
owaislone 11y ago
Good luck my friend!
arianvanp 11y ago
Awesome. If you ever wanna chat about coding or so. discuss geeky stuff. I'm always idling on IRC (freenode) on the nickname `arianvp`.
- cies 11y ago
  Always extending a helping hand :) Muhammed: arianvp serious chief geek, and a very helpful/resourceful one!
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you arianvanp. I will get in touch.
technofiend 11y ago
Mohamed let me tell you about my little sister. She was the opposite of me in that she hated school. Truly hated it. She said she'd never set foot in school again after graduating high school. But, she wanted to be a police officer, and that required college. So she put herself through school by being a prison guard. My little 5'3" sister running around bossing grown men like it was nothing. She made it through school and got hired as a police officer. She spent the next five years as a dispatcher. Nobody wanted to put her on the streets. But she persevered and eventually she won the day and became a patrol officer. I dare say except for getting married it was the happiest day of her life. Don't let anything stop you, man. Smart isn't everything: perseverance counts for a great deal.
- sktrdie 11y ago
  Great story expect the last part. Where you're sort of implying that all smart people are coders and others that do other types of jobs aren't. I met a lot of people that were a lot smarter than most "startup developers" and it didn't require them to sit in front of a computer most of the day.
  - Lorento 11y ago
    It's not easy to tell how smart someone is by meeting them. That tends to bias you towards social abilities. IQ tests help to level the field by testing abilities that we can't easily observe just by knowing someone. Not that IQ tests are accurate at all either. But I just mean to say that feeling that someone is smart can just mean they're smart at appearing smart and may not have the same abilities at a broad range of thinking skills as someone with a high IQ.
    - cturner 11y ago
      I had a cab driver a couple of weeks ago. We got talking, and I said I am a developer. He said he knew some c#. He seemed slow but I humoured him - asked how he got into it. He then started talking about machine code programming on the c64 and showed an encyclopedic knowledge of the sprite system, the way to build event loops and different approaches to laying out large programs.
zitterbewegung 11y ago
You have experience with Jails and guarding things? I would ask you to figure out some type of problem that requires the protection of some type of asset.
arisAlexis 11y ago
maybe your MVP will actually matter to lots of people and become useful for humanity since you are working for this specific sector that innovation is rare.
motyar 11y ago
Join Github.com, show up, create something, dont tell; show.
12jason 11y ago
Jail guard that must be interesting
12jason 11y ago
do people thro poo at you?
maxschumacher91 11y ago
Dear Mohamed, do you think you'll be able to use your specific insight into the prison system as a basis for your idea? I bet there are many problems waiting to be solved. Prisons are big money, especially in the US. Greetings and all the best for your journey to YC
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  He is already profiting from the US prison system. Also I would not recommend tangling with prison guard unions for his first project, tackle something unrelated and revisit it when more experienced.
  - maxschumacher91 11y ago
    Profiting from the system by being employed there? That's not what I had in mind. There are many opportunities outside of prison guard unions for innovation regarding the overall institution/process of incarceration in America. Domain expertise will only be built by tackling a problem in that domain. How could one possibly decide against pursuing a topic without trying it at all? Tough, seemingly entrenched markets often prove to be the most interesting: SpaceX, Uber etc
ramykhuffash 11y ago
This is an awesome post & I'm excited to see the support from HN. I like how you're giving yourself a solid goal and plenty of time to achieve it. Quick question - you mention that you'd like to build an MVP yourself, do you know what product you'd like to build or what market you're interested in serving?
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Hi ramykhuffash, I've just started learning the core web dev fundamentals - HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT. I am also taking a Ruby course on Udemy, and as mentioned, starting The Firehose Project in September. Two ideas so far: a. idea from my job (jail) b. ESL idea I always had even before starting the career as a jail guard. Things change so fast, so I will see what happens when one of these ideas makes contact with customers.
vjdhama 11y ago
Awesome man!! Your humility just inspires me. Ping me (@vjdhama) if you need any kind of help with coding or any aspect of learning for that matter. I'd be more than happy to lend out a hand.
- masterminding 11y ago
  I might have to take you up on that offer myself. ;-)
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you friend. I will get in touch.
bootload 11y ago
"My name is Mohamed, and I am a jail guard!" G'day, Mohamed don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job. You are much, much more than that. You work (and survive) in a Jail? That now makes you 10x better than most nerds on HN in understanding and handling people. Scan HN and the general press and you can see how badly Startups and their users are hurt by this and you'll realise this is a desirable skill. Start from there.
- akerl_ 11y ago
  ~"Don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job, just know that your job makes you better than these other people with a different job"
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Don't define yourself by your job, but recognize the unique skills it gave you and use them to your advantage.
    - wwwarsame 11y ago
      Yes!
  - y4mi 11y ago
    > ~"Don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job, just know that your job makes you better >> in understanding and handling people > than these other people with a different job" you can't ignore the middle, as that is the defining part of his sentence. every sentence is hypocrisy if you remove important parts
    - rickhanlonii 11y ago
      > ~"You can't ignore the middle, every sentence is hypocrisy."
  - galfarragem 11y ago
    This is related with English language itself (and most languages as far as I know). For example if you say that in Italian doesn't make sense: Io sono architetto. // I am an architect You must say: Io faccio l'architetto. // I make the architect (job) Disclaimer: I'm not a linguist neither an Italian native. More accurate comments are welcome.
richardboegli 11y ago
MS Access - Learn it first! Why? The first few reasons that come to mind: 1) To quote a friend of mine, “If a 50 year old boilermaker can work it out, then anyone can.” 2) MS Access will more than likely be installed on your computer at work. 3) Almost all "startup" type programs will need databasing of some sort. 4) It has macros and modules (VBA - Visual Basic for Applications) 5) As you start to learn Visual Basic for Application you can use this to potentially automate things at work as it available across Word and Excel. Read these to get started: Database basics [1] This article provides a brief overview of databases -- what they are, why you might want to use one, and what the different parts of a database do. Database design basics [2] A properly designed database provides you with access to up-to-date, accurate information. Learn the structure of an Access database [3] Becoming familiar with the tables, forms, queries, and other objects in a database can make it easier to perform a wide variety of tasks, such as entering data into a form, adding or removing tables, finding and replacing data, and running queries. [1] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Database-basics-2C57449A-4232-44BD-B090-EF01058ED1F1 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Database-basics-2C5... [2] https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Database-design-basics-eb2159cf-1e30-401a-8084-bd4f9c9ca1f5 https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Database-design-bas... [3] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Learn-the-structure-of-an-Access-database-6A95097A-F95C-45BF-BE9B-A3F8D7D61C1D https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Learn-the-structure...
- halflings 11y ago
  This is... some pretty weird advice. Learn MS Access first? Really? First, it's just a database system coupled with macros. That's not the most important thing you'll want to learn if you want to build a startup. The frontend and/or backend logic are the most interesting, not "macros" to run on your database. Then, VBA is pretty horrible for a beginner and he's probably going to want to deploy his service at some point (and MS solutions are not exactly the easiest to deploy for a beginner)
  - richardboegli 11y ago
    > This is... some pretty weird advice. Learn MS Access first? Really? Yes, really. He needs to learn the fundamentals. Read my post again and see the points I made. > Then, VBA is pretty horrible for a beginner and he's probably going to want to deploy his service at some point (and MS solutions are not exactly the easiest to deploy for a beginner) I've was able to deploy an MS Access database on Sharepoint in about 5 minutes.
amirouche 11y ago
I'd like to say that everything about coding is not startup. There is a life for code outside startups.
zongitsrinzler 11y ago
Hey Mohamed. I am interested in how someone who is not an engineer/investor/etc even came to hear about Hacker News?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  If I were to guess - reading news lead to getting interested about startups, and reading about those led him to YC and HN. But there's an alternative way people from various fields may end up here - HN discussions are sometimes top results when googling for some niche, not necessarily tech-related topics.
- rootdiver 11y ago
  I am not Mohamed, but about 5 years ago i also was a police officer in the Middle East.My hobby always was Programming and hacking from age of 13 so i have visited Hackernews on a daily basis until i quit my job and started to work as a Web developer for 1/4 of an average pay rate. Fast forward 5 years and i am in a much better place now and i never look back. I never did this before because i always thought that all the people that work in IT are way smarter than me and have all sort of degrees that i could not handle. Thank you HN :)
- pknerd 11y ago
  He seems interested in startups. Google would have redirected him here. Beside that, popular startup sites often quote HN in articles.
- morganvachon 11y ago
  Not the person you asked, but I can relate: I worked in law enforcement for 14 years, many of those as a jail officer. I've been a "hardware hacker" since I was a kid, and it's more or less what I do for a living right now, but I don't have any formal education in it so it's been nearly impossible to find a really great job in the field. I came across Hacker News many years ago on one of the other tech sites I frequent (probably OS News). I'm actually considering going back to law enforcement (again, in the jail) as it's steady employment with great benefits, and plenty of time off to work on side projects.
- 11y ago
felixrabe 11y ago
Hello Mohamed. I'd be very interested to hear about your journey starting today, whatever you end up doing, whether you persevere (what I hope) or not, no matter. Would you start a blog someplace and post a link here so we can be part of your adventure?
Alex999 11y ago
All i can say is "Best of Luck"
sidcool 11y ago
Good luck dude. I am sure you will rock. Independent of the outcome, your journey is going to be glorious!!
- dr_hercules 11y ago
  how do you know?
  - sidcool 11y ago
    Experience.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Dude!! You are an awesome human being!
  - sidcool 11y ago
    :)
greens231 11y ago
Hey Mohamed, My name is Kabir Narain. I started programming in Jan 2014 and recently launched my first app (www.almostfamous.club). Start by making simple websites or apps for the phone that you use. Its daunting at first but in around one year you should be feeling pretty confident of yourself. My email is 1119231@gmail.com Mail me if you need any assistance. Good luck! PS- i did not go to college or attend any programming courses so believe me, you CAN do it! (i was training as a sea navigator on board merchant ships before that)
pknerd 11y ago
Please create a blog and share your progress with outer world. It can help you alot!
atroyn 11y ago
Hi Mohamed Your goals are admirable, and I think you're on the right path. Do you have some product or company idea in mind already? The one piece of advice I'd like to give you is, there's no need to rush. There will be plenty more YC intakes, and you'll have tons of good ideas - learning to execute on them by trying a bunch of different stuff is the best way to get there, and to do that you need to give yourself time to learn.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Hi atroyn, Thank for your feedback. I have two ideas in mind. One is about a process I would like to streamline using technology at my current job, and the other one deals with ESL and learning a new language. Many of the ESL or learn a language methods out there are so boring, and I think I have a way to make it less boring and actually learn something. I had this problem when I wanted to learn French. You can sit there and repeat all the French words until the cows come home, but it will be no use to you when you want to converse in real life situations. The idea is about learning a new language in a way that is engaging, not learning from a CD and tucked away in your bedroom.
dheavy 11y ago
Good luck Mohamed. With your perseverance I'm absolutely certain you'll make it!
darrellsilver 11y ago
Hi Mohamed – what bootcamp are you joining?
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Hi Darrell, I am joining The Firehose Project on Sept. 21st, 2015.
naveensky 11y ago
Hi Mohamed, Good luck for your journey. It would be really exciting to know more about your journey, I hope you will have time to maintain blog or post more here :) Again, if you need any tech help, feel free to ping me at @naveensky (twitter) or email in my profile :) ATB
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you. I will tackle setting up a blog and writing my first blog post sometime this week. Thank you for the offer. I will be in touch.
Snesker 11y ago
Please think of your dignity and the quality of the board when you post asinine garbage like this, 'Mohamed'.
radcam 11y ago
From Mohamed to Mohamed, i own my iOS app and i can help you with anything iOS. i teach iOS and Swift to non-programmers and CS graduates. I'm not in the U.S. but if you ever need anything hit me up on Twitter @moubarak
geektips 11y ago
Hi Mohamed , all of the people here given you great advice on the language to learn and tools to use. I think this will be helpful for you https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Amazing. I've added this to my collection of web dev favourites. Thank you.
daSn0wie 11y ago
Intelligence doesn't matter as much as you think: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html Comparing yourself to others is always a losing game. Compare yourself to where you were when you started this journey, and you'll see that you've come pretty far. Get ready for the rollercoaster (emotionally) ride, and good luck!
- tete 11y ago
  Sadly money appears to matter though: http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-... However, doesn't mean you can't simply ignore that and just go for it.
cekanoni 11y ago
Fingers crossed for you man, have a fun learning this is nice motivation.
downandout 11y ago
Before you do this, consider the following question: would you rather spend your time learning to build the Uber app, or learning the skills to build Uber (the company)? Those are two truly different skill sets, and the latter is far more rare and valuable. The ability to raise money, build teams for a variety of functions, budget, and execute on an audacious vision is far outside the realm of most software engineers. Unless coding is truly your passion, hire someone or find a technical co-founder. Spend your time learning how to plan and build stable, scalable businesses and teams. Your goal should be to build an organization that can employ all of the software engineers necessary to carry out the vision for your business - not to be able to write all of the code yourself.
- taofu 11y ago
  Great distinction that is often overlooked. Could you / anyone elaborate on the key skills required in building a company? (aside from the oft-mentioned virtues of hard work, focus, and perseverance)
  - downandout 11y ago
    There are just a few general things: 1. The ability to curate a clear vision for the company and its path to success; 2. The ability to take that vision and turn it into an an actionable, real-world plan, with clearly defined roles for any staff necessary to execute it; and 3. The ability to sell the company's vision to others - investors, employees and customers/users.
- krisdol 11y ago
  As someone who can already build the app, how do I get the skills to build Uber the company?
  - joshmlewis 11y ago
    By doing and creating value. The premise of starting a company is simple, solve a problem that ideally you and others have which in return creates value enough that they'll pay for it. It's a million times easier said than done, and execution is the most valuable part of any idea because it's also the riskiest and most difficult part. Social apps have slightly different economics but the premise is the same.
dr_hercules 11y ago
How about working as an employed programmer first - learn from colleagues - and then after three years reconsider founding a company. I mean sorry, but if you worked so far as a jail guard then you probably don't have enough experience for you ambitious dreams yet. Honestly though ... this text seems so generical and naive that I have trouble believing its authenticity ...
- joesmo 11y ago
  I don't think the experience is necessary. He wants to found a company not be an excellent engineer. That means as long as he can get a prototype out, it doesn't matter if it's all spaghetti code. It's startup code and it will be shitty. He can then hopefully raise money and hire people with at least a few years experience to build things out properly (hopefully). I've seen successful startups started by people who could barely code or taught themselves to code to build the business just like the OP is describing. Sure, the code is shitty and there's no architecture, but once you're making money, who cares? This explains the shitty code found at most startups, but if it's temporary and a way to get somewhere, I definitely see its benefits. If this was a proper system, meant to live on for years, that's different. Hopefully the OP will have enough wisdom to realize when it's time to switch between the two mindsets. Most startup CEOs don't (even if they started out like the OP because they quickly get disconnected from engineering), and that's the real problem, IMO, but by then you've already started a company and raised money.
  - Mahn 11y ago
    Very important point here, and often overlooked. Real world runs on shitty code, people like Zuckerberg didn't spend his early facebook days discussing on message boards what is the best javascript framework or the best way to build testable code; he shipped, put it out there and attracted people. It was most likely spaghetti code as Zuckerberg did not have any prior professional experience as an engineer, but it worked.
  - dr_hercules 11y ago
    he worked in a prison you funny person ... what qualifies him to found tech company? right - nothing! and spaghetti code that turns useful requires even more experience to maintain.
ai_ja_nai 11y ago
Good luck!
Alex3917 11y ago
That timeline would be doable, but Spring 2019 wouldn't be bad to shoot for either. Here is an alternate 3.5 year plan: - Year 1: Learn to code full time. Later in the year, start applying for jobs as a developer. - Year 2: Get a job as a full stack dev. Devote nights and weekends to improving your development skills as much as possible. - Year 3: Get a cofounder, and work nights and weekends on your project. - Year 4: Go full time, and work for 6 months to launch the product and get enough traction to do YC. The problem is that if you don't spend any time actually working as a developer, you'll be limited to only doing very simple projects. And also, it's much more likely to work if you can find a cofounder and work with them part time for a while before going full time. As someone else already said, you'll also need the skills required to create a good product and build a good company, both of which are entirely different.
- leesalminen 11y ago
  This plan is very similar to my current path. I ended up taking a couple extra years on "Year 2" to really hone my skills.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you Alex. This is very good. Two years may not be enough as I am starting from scratch, so I may just consider this.
kaa2102 11y ago
Congratulations! The journey is long and challenging but totally worth it. Approach the startup world with the intellectual curiosity of a visitor in a foreign country. There are some great ways to learn how to code. Instead, I've found it beneficial to Learn How to Do X to Accomplish Y. There are numerous programming languages, APIs, platforms, devices, technologies, methodologies, etc. Focus on the X that helps you do Y. Udacity, Khan Academy, Coursera, and W3Schools.com offer a great start (some are free) for programming. A good start is learning front end development: HTML, Bootsrap. CSS, Javascript. Find some like-minded individuals. You can join tech meetups, Google Developer groups, etc. Good luck on your journey my friend! Keep building!
zyngaro 11y ago
I agree. HN is really unique in the web landscape. A lot of smart and nice people here. It's a great community that inspired you to take that challenge and that's amazing. Good luck.
justmaintain 11y ago
Become an entrepreneur instead. You work in a jail, possibilities for content creation in such environments are endless.
sureshn 11y ago
I urge you to read this article before you decide to take the entrepreneurial plunge http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?utm_source=parCM http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  This is very interesting. I don't have the pedigree mentioned in the article that, according to the article, leads one to Startup success. So, should I just give up or keep going?
  - weston 11y ago
    Just read your own quote earlier in this thread: "By learning to code, my desire is to get to a stage where: a. I can converse with tech people who have been at this their whole live, b. gain the proficiency to build the mvp, c. become a team member with attributable skill set when company is formed, etc. Hiring someone is inevitable down the line, but I need to create the map for him/her to paint first." Ignore that asinine article. Don't judge your success based on whether you started a startup or not. Base it on what you wrote above: Learning to code, having technical conversations, and being a better person than you ever thought possible.
iamgopal 11y ago
Find a problem that you know deep enough and needs to be solved, not to be mistaken for idea or solution, and work around it to build sustainable solution.
onassar 11y ago
Eid Mubarek Mohamed. Reach out if I can help with anything product/tech related :)
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Eid Mubarek to you too. I am grateful for the offer and will reach out to you when I get my thoughts together!
EGreg 11y ago
Mohamed - I would recommend learning about basic software engineering practices but NOT building your own app. It takes years to become good enough to do that successfully. Instead, learn how to hire and manage developers, especially overseas developers on upwork.com (formerly odesk), how to share equity (read Slicing Pie book) and most of all how to design the user experience, and market yourself to investors (create an online portal for investors that works on mobile and desktop browsers.) Use invisionapp or something similar to show your app to others, and iterate THAT. Your first customers are actually investors and developers!
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you. This is good. I will definitely take this into consideration.
zalzane 11y ago
> This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place! Rule 1: Don't confuse intelligence with experience. Technological and critical thinking skills can be learned by everyone given enough time and effort. A lot of people dismiss any possibility of becoming technically minded by saying "only smart people can do that", even though they have the potential to gain the same skills.
maqbool 11y ago
Good luck Mohamed.
wwwarsame 11y ago
Mohamed here.... Wow. Seriously? I wrote this after coming back from work, and went off to sleep (it was around 2AM). I don't know what to say, but thank you to all for taking the time to respond and upvoting this thread. I have never expected this to happen. I will respond to each commentor who specifically asked a direct question as time allows, but for now, I will jot down more about me and why I have the career that I have. To start, I earned my BSc in Public Health and Safety. After few years in the field, I became disgruntled with my career choice and felt miserable going to work each day. I felt trapped in a rat race full of fake smiles. I had to decide that I will either do this for 30 or so years and retire, or just leave. Well, the decision was made for me and I was fired...ahahah. I wish they could also fire my student debt. The annoyance I felt working in such environment where I was not being challenged enough and not learning much was oozing from every pore on my body, and managers could smell it. Fast forward, I went off to Africa for vacation and the basic life necessities we enjoy every day such as clean water, electricity and food safety were non-existent. Everything in many parts of Africa are run by NGO's. There were rules that prohibit people from planting their own food! The NGO's want to supply you the food from their end. Being self sufficient is not part of the game for these NGO's. Anyways, I could go on forever about the dire situations in Africa and the corruption from within the nation and from outside agencies, but it will be too long for one post. Fast forward some more, and I came back home. No job. No savings. My cousin told me to apply for a corrections job. I got it. And guess what? I love it. I use my natural verbal judo skills and empathy to get the job done. It is scary, but ultimately, you either get yourself in hot water or stay out of the hot water as a jail guard. I chose the latter. Long story short, I really enjoy my job and there are multiple ideas and what if's I come up with when I am there. I was always around entrepreneurs. The best entrepreneur I know of personally is my mother. I learned from her the idea that create something people want. In her case, it was order what people want. I always wondered why my mother would order only ladies clothing and jewelry and perfume for women only. Why not men? Because my mother understood these women and their inherent need to change clothes all the time, and she satisfied this by purchasing everything they needed as a wholesale from Middle East. She never bought even once what men want. She stuck to her believe and made a lot of money doing it by satisfying her core customers: housewives. I think we can all learn from people in our lives that made a silent contribution to push you to entrepreneurship, and for me, it was my mother. I have declared this little blurb last night because I can't stand being the idea guy anymore. I have countless ideas, but I understand the need to learn and become a sufficient partner when I do find a co-founder. The idea I will work on with the online coding bootcamp is from my workplace. I would like to streamline something so redundant that I do every day using technology. There are multiple things I could work on, but I have to start from somewhere first. Off to work for now, again, I will respond to direct questions from certain commentors. Again, thank you.
Axsuul 11y ago
Good luck Mohamed! There's nothing stopping you :)
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  This is medicine. Right here. When a total stranger believes in your dreams!
Rogerh91 11y ago
Welcome Mohamed. "This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place!" Don't feel out of place. You may just be suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect The smartest people for me are those who can drop all pretensions and learn as much as they can. You're well on your way.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  I heard about this effect before....great read. I am absorbing as much as I can!
- makeset 11y ago
  The Dunning-Kruger effect is grossly overestimating one's own skill. I think that's the opposite of what you meant.
  - girvo 11y ago
    They probably meant Impostor syndrome[0] instead. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
    - daragh99 11y ago
      I have thought about and battled with impostor syndrome a LOT! So much so that I wrote this incredibly long article about it. I hope it's useful. http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness-meditation-stopped-me-feeling-like-a-fake/ http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness-m...
Cblinks 11y ago
Hey Mohamed! I doing a coding challenge where I'm building 6 apps in 60 days. Take it one day at a time. The smartest person in the a game isn't always the person who ends up winning. The person who doesn't give up usually wins. You should check out codeschool.com. They have great courses.
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Thank you. I'm on Team Treehouse at the moment for Web Dev track. I will check out codeschool too.
ghufran_syed 11y ago
My daughter and I were in the same position around 18 months ago. Neither of us knew any coding, but we wanted to do a startup. I have an mba and another professional degree and wanted to do a startup, so in theory, I could have tried to find a tech cofounder, but in the end, felt I would be in a better position if I learnt to code. As usual, paul graham says it better than I can, "anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year. Since a successful startup will consume at least 3-5 years of your life, a year's preparation would be a reasonable investment. Especially if you're also looking for a cofounder." I would advise against the bootcamp (unless it's free?), you don't need one as long as you have one or two buddies who code, who can advise you on what to learn and help you when you get stuck, the response to your post suggests that you will have a lot of people who would be willing to help! It might be a good idea to put an email in your HN profile, make it easier for folks to get in touch. We started with python (udacity cs101), lisp/scheme using the free 'simply scheme' book ( https://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html https://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html ) together with learning some of the tools like unix command-line/vim/git, then a course on web programming (udacity cs253), while she was doing college full-time, and I was working full-time. We then started learning rails and working almost full-time on the startup around Oct 2014, and launched v1 of our web app in March 2015. Still working on getting more customers :). Don't be in too much of a rush to leave what you do now: I think it's definitely a good idea to have a 'day job' that pays the bills, while you work on little projects that are interesting to you and help you learn the various technologies, you may well find one of them turns into something a lot bigger. We also applied to yc (unsuccessfully), which may have been good for us: I think the value of the advice they can give is high, but I now think it's kind of a waste of the opportunity if you're not raising money at the end. We are still figuring out 'what users want', and in hindsight, raising money would have been both difficult to resist, and a terrible idea for us at that time. Most of the advice yc gives is 'open source', for example, paul graham's essays and books, jessica livingston's book, the yc startup school etc, so you don't need to get into yc to learn what they have to say. I now think that the best time to go through yc would be after you've internalized what they teach, have made something users want, are growing, and now need funding so you can grow even faster. I think YC fulfilled a different role in the early days when it was so small, but is now so competitive, it's best to think of it a bit like hiring an investment bank when looking to IPO. In theory, they take a chunk of equity in exchange for good capital markets advice that will get you a much better valuation: as far as investment banks go, this is usually self-interested bullshit, but I think would be an accurate description of the value of yc. Best of luck, and get in touch by email, it would be good to chat!
SoftwarePatent 11y ago
Welcome! With your background you might be interested in the YC startup Pigeon.ly. Maybe you could apply to work/intern for them to gain experience. http://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-focused-on-serving-the-us-prison-population-joins-y-combinator http://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-f...
ragavans 11y ago
Hellllloooo
wwwarsame 11y ago
EDIT...... As suggested, here it is.... Blog at FAVORTEXT.com. I've used Wordpress to generate this blog. It looks weird and things are out of place, but I will tackle this bit by bit as time goes on. This is where I will jot down my journey on learning coding, business development and going from an idea to an MVP prototype. I wish everyone here who took the time to respond a glorious and wonderful life.
trg2 11y ago
I would take these two free classes: 1.) http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ 2.) https://www.coursera.org/course/startup https://www.coursera.org/course/startup
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Hi trg2, I am already taking No. 1, and will now add No. 2 to my favorites. Thank you.

Tell HN: Hello

847 points by wwwarsame 11y ago

primitivesuave 11y ago

Hey Mohamed! I'm really glad you're making a startup. When I started my first startup, I had no idea how to make "mywebsite.com" link up to my actual website - the whole process was a mystery to me. It was like wandering around in a dark room and bumping into the furniture and walls. I got the business started with just a simple Bootstrap template and PHP form, and it worked great! After around 6 months of learning new things every day through the Internet, chat rooms, etc, all in an effort to improve the website, I felt like one of those days I just found the light switch, and the whole room was illuminated. Nowadays I can work on my own schedule on coding projects that I truly enjoy doing. Two years ago, I didn't even know what I was capable of building. There were certainly those days where it all feels a bit overwhelming, but like another great commenter pointed out here, perseverance is key.

wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you for the encouraging words.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

MurWade 11y ago

Hello. good luck. i will be watching you. haha

empressplay 11y ago

Good for you! Best of luck.

brobinson 11y ago

Do you already have a business idea or two floating around in your head? Just curious.

hliyan 11y ago

You've given yourself two years -- that's good, realistic. May I ask what level of knowledge skill in what areas you're aiming for by fall of 2017, and how much time you plan to devote per, say week, for the exercise? Also, good luck. If you need to be pointed in the right direction, I'm sure a lot of people here (including myself) would be happy to do so during this period.

sharavsambuu 11y ago

Good luck man you can do it!

nailer 11y ago

Awesome Mohamed! Start small, and use the free resources - try the Learn the Hard Way series. Python is a great language to start with, JavaScript is a little more difficult but you can do more things. Attend meetups too, they'll inspire you and it's nice to be able to speak to people in real life about this stuff.

wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you sir. I have recently downloaded the online version of Zed Shaw's Learn Python the Hard Way ebook with accompanying lessons. Taking this along with Udacity's Intro to Comp Science course which uses Python. Basic JS under my belt from team treehouse and udemy course.

trentmb 11y ago

> This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place! You and I both- I commend you on your humility and look forward to your success.

alouanchi 11y ago

Good luck man, wish you all the best in this journey.

peterjancelis 11y ago

I hope your MVP will be catering to prison guard or prison management. You probably got some unique insights there that few developers have.

chronic32 11y ago
Just build a mobile app... That's what startups have done and will continue to do
Kluny 11y ago
Not to mention the prison industry is overdue for some serious upsets.

Stratoscope 11y ago

Wow, Mohamed, this is great. I'm glad I stayed up late enough tonight to see your post. Please feel free to give me a shout via the email address in my profile - I'd be more than happy to kick around any ideas to help you get started. What kind of computer do you use - Windows, Mac, Linux? I'd like to give you some suggestions for programming tools (mostly free, some you might pay for), but of course the details will depend on which OS you're using. I second nailer's suggestion that you may want to start with Python for some of your initial learning. It's an easy language to get started with, but also very powerful. Even if you end up using another language later on, your Python skills will remain valuable - it's great for writing anything from little scripts up to large apps. Ruby is also really nice, you wouldn't go wrong with that either. And of course you'll want to learn JavaScript eventually too, regardless of what else you do. You could start with any of these really, but Python is probably the easiest to begin with. What you really want to start out doing is to get the basic concepts of programming down - and these carry over from language to language. One suggestion I'll make right away: in every language you work with, find and learn how to use a good debugger. For JavaScript, every browser has a nice built-in debugger. (I like the one in Chrome, but they are all pretty good.) For Python or Ruby it will depend to some degree on which OS you use. And a good IDE with built-in syntax checking, autocomplete, and all that is really great to have. Some people will tell you not to use IDEs and debuggers and things like that, as if it were a sign of weakness to use good tools. Or that if you follow Test Driven Development you should never need to use a debugger. Don't listen to them! I see so many people asking questions on Stack Overflow that they could have answered for themselves in a few minutes if they only knew how to debug their code. Testing is important and you should learn all about it and do it, but debuggers are for more than just fixing bugs. They help you explore and learn how your code works, and what the APIs you're calling really do, in an interactive and visual way. Here's a Stack Overflow post of mine from a couple of years ago with screenshots of a few Python debuggers: http://stackoverflow.com/a/16474706/1202830 http://stackoverflow.com/a/16474706/1202830 Don't worry if there's a lot of stuff in those screens; it will all make sense as you get into it. You'll also want to get into version control sooner rather than later. Most people use Git these days, although Mercurial is very good too. I recommend avoiding the Git command line though, at least at first. You have enough to learn as it is without having to deal with that arcane system. But there are some nice visual interfaces to Git. I like SmartGit a lot and recommend it. It's free for noncommercial use. Or you may want to start with something even simpler like one of the free clients from GitHub. Again, let me know what OS you're on and I'll make some specific suggestions for various kinds of tools. p.s. Top of Hacker News on your first post! Not too shabby...

Jugurtha 11y ago

Welcome, Mohamed.. A little word of advice that I hope will save you a lot of time and frustration: - Don't wait to complete your training to start your project. Start with the knowledge you have and tweak it over time. If you have no knowledge right now, start by sketching in English. It seems stupid but just the fact of abstracting human needs that seem obvious to us and formalizing them into logical steps will help you tremendously. - Write code about random stuff you think about. It will be ugly and you'll laugh at it, but you will be lightyears ahead than if you wait when you finish your training to start writing code. It doesn't need to be great, awesomely useful or something. - Compare yourself with yourself. "..wrote 3,000 lines of Python in a day to build a Segway" made me hate myself. Fight that urge. I know I still am. Reading biographies of great people, seeing what people are actually doing and building makes me feel miserable, incompetent and good at nothing. - Understand that the points above are for you just in part, they are mainly for myself :) Here's something to make you feel less inadequate: http://carlcheo.com/fascinating-posts-from-tech-founders-who-changed-the-world http://carlcheo.com/fascinating-posts-from-tech-founders-who... Work to get better. When the itch presents itself, you'll have the skills to scratch it. Good luck.

felixrabe 11y ago
> Reading biographies of great people, seeing what people are actually doing and building makes me feel miserable, incompetent and good at nothing. Wow, that's something I totally have as well. At the same time, I want to be (and am, many times) inspired by other people who are already more successful than me. After all, they did struggle, maybe with other things, but their success proves that it is possible to reach it / to achieve something awesome. The struggle with a feeling of worthlessness is such a mystery. Why do I have it? Why so many people in general? What is the cause, what can be done? I try many things, fall flat on my nose, and then try to get up again. Sometimes, it's a hellish nightmare.
wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you Jugurtha.

radmuzom 11y ago

All the best. My advice to you would be to try and think how you can provide real value to people (which rules out 90% of "startups" in Silicon Valley) and make a positive change in their lives. This does not mean you have to solve world hunger, it can be as simple as having identified a loophole which allows for corruption in jails and you use technology to close that loophole.

thekid314 11y ago
Or fix that exploitative phone call system in jails.
- icebraining 11y ago
  The startup Pigeonly, made by a guy who spent a few years in prison, has exactly that purpose: lower the cost of communications between inmates and their families. http://www.fastcompany.com/3037785/innovation-agents/how-an-ex-inmates-startup-is-disrupting-prison http://www.fastcompany.com/3037785/innovation-agents/how-an-... https://www.telepigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/
- wwwarsame 11y ago
  Also the canteen they order, way overpriced. There are numerous inefficiencies in the prison system, and Pigeonly seems like they picked one area, phones, to attack first.
  - ectoplasm 11y ago
    Maybe there's some area for profit involving all the inmates doing useful desk jobs.

jnbiche 11y ago

Good luck with your endeavors! Regarding learning to code, I'll just reiterate what others have said that Python is an excellent language to learn with (that said, it's not ideal for everything, but it is a great learner's language). Also, if you haven't already, I'd suggest switching to Linux or OSX and get used to working on the command line. Most developers in the start-up scene will be working on OSX or Linux, and learning how to use the command line will benefit you enormously.

owaislone 11y ago

Good luck my friend!

arianvanp 11y ago

Awesome. If you ever wanna chat about coding or so. discuss geeky stuff. I'm always idling on IRC (freenode) on the nickname `arianvp`.

cies 11y ago
Always extending a helping hand :) Muhammed: arianvp serious chief geek, and a very helpful/resourceful one!
wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you arianvanp. I will get in touch.

technofiend 11y ago

Mohamed let me tell you about my little sister. She was the opposite of me in that she hated school. Truly hated it. She said she'd never set foot in school again after graduating high school. But, she wanted to be a police officer, and that required college. So she put herself through school by being a prison guard. My little 5'3" sister running around bossing grown men like it was nothing. She made it through school and got hired as a police officer. She spent the next five years as a dispatcher. Nobody wanted to put her on the streets. But she persevered and eventually she won the day and became a patrol officer. I dare say except for getting married it was the happiest day of her life. Don't let anything stop you, man. Smart isn't everything: perseverance counts for a great deal.

sktrdie 11y ago
Great story expect the last part. Where you're sort of implying that all smart people are coders and others that do other types of jobs aren't. I met a lot of people that were a lot smarter than most "startup developers" and it didn't require them to sit in front of a computer most of the day.
- Lorento 11y ago
  It's not easy to tell how smart someone is by meeting them. That tends to bias you towards social abilities. IQ tests help to level the field by testing abilities that we can't easily observe just by knowing someone. Not that IQ tests are accurate at all either. But I just mean to say that feeling that someone is smart can just mean they're smart at appearing smart and may not have the same abilities at a broad range of thinking skills as someone with a high IQ.
  - cturner 11y ago
    I had a cab driver a couple of weeks ago. We got talking, and I said I am a developer. He said he knew some c#. He seemed slow but I humoured him - asked how he got into it. He then started talking about machine code programming on the c64 and showed an encyclopedic knowledge of the sprite system, the way to build event loops and different approaches to laying out large programs.

zitterbewegung 11y ago

You have experience with Jails and guarding things? I would ask you to figure out some type of problem that requires the protection of some type of asset.

arisAlexis 11y ago

maybe your MVP will actually matter to lots of people and become useful for humanity since you are working for this specific sector that innovation is rare.

motyar 11y ago

Join Github.com, show up, create something, dont tell; show.

12jason 11y ago

Jail guard that must be interesting

12jason 11y ago

do people thro poo at you?

maxschumacher91 11y ago

Dear Mohamed, do you think you'll be able to use your specific insight into the prison system as a basis for your idea? I bet there are many problems waiting to be solved. Prisons are big money, especially in the US. Greetings and all the best for your journey to YC

happyscrappy 11y ago
He is already profiting from the US prison system. Also I would not recommend tangling with prison guard unions for his first project, tackle something unrelated and revisit it when more experienced.
- maxschumacher91 11y ago
  Profiting from the system by being employed there? That's not what I had in mind. There are many opportunities outside of prison guard unions for innovation regarding the overall institution/process of incarceration in America. Domain expertise will only be built by tackling a problem in that domain. How could one possibly decide against pursuing a topic without trying it at all? Tough, seemingly entrenched markets often prove to be the most interesting: SpaceX, Uber etc

ramykhuffash 11y ago

This is an awesome post & I'm excited to see the support from HN. I like how you're giving yourself a solid goal and plenty of time to achieve it. Quick question - you mention that you'd like to build an MVP yourself, do you know what product you'd like to build or what market you're interested in serving?

wwwarsame 11y ago
Hi ramykhuffash, I've just started learning the core web dev fundamentals - HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT. I am also taking a Ruby course on Udemy, and as mentioned, starting The Firehose Project in September. Two ideas so far: a. idea from my job (jail) b. ESL idea I always had even before starting the career as a jail guard. Things change so fast, so I will see what happens when one of these ideas makes contact with customers.

vjdhama 11y ago

Awesome man!! Your humility just inspires me. Ping me (@vjdhama) if you need any kind of help with coding or any aspect of learning for that matter. I'd be more than happy to lend out a hand.

masterminding 11y ago
I might have to take you up on that offer myself. ;-)
wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you friend. I will get in touch.

bootload 11y ago

"My name is Mohamed, and I am a jail guard!" G'day, Mohamed don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job. You are much, much more than that. You work (and survive) in a Jail? That now makes you 10x better than most nerds on HN in understanding and handling people. Scan HN and the general press and you can see how badly Startups and their users are hurt by this and you'll realise this is a desirable skill. Start from there.

akerl_ 11y ago
~"Don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job, just know that your job makes you better than these other people with a different job"
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Don't define yourself by your job, but recognize the unique skills it gave you and use them to your advantage.
  - wwwarsame 11y ago
    Yes!
- y4mi 11y ago
  > ~"Don't make the mistake of defining yourself by your job, just know that your job makes you better >> in understanding and handling people > than these other people with a different job" you can't ignore the middle, as that is the defining part of his sentence. every sentence is hypocrisy if you remove important parts
  - rickhanlonii 11y ago
    > ~"You can't ignore the middle, every sentence is hypocrisy."
- galfarragem 11y ago
  This is related with English language itself (and most languages as far as I know). For example if you say that in Italian doesn't make sense: Io sono architetto. // I am an architect You must say: Io faccio l'architetto. // I make the architect (job) Disclaimer: I'm not a linguist neither an Italian native. More accurate comments are welcome.

richardboegli 11y ago

MS Access - Learn it first! Why? The first few reasons that come to mind: 1) To quote a friend of mine, “If a 50 year old boilermaker can work it out, then anyone can.” 2) MS Access will more than likely be installed on your computer at work. 3) Almost all "startup" type programs will need databasing of some sort. 4) It has macros and modules (VBA - Visual Basic for Applications) 5) As you start to learn Visual Basic for Application you can use this to potentially automate things at work as it available across Word and Excel. Read these to get started: Database basics [1] This article provides a brief overview of databases -- what they are, why you might want to use one, and what the different parts of a database do. Database design basics [2] A properly designed database provides you with access to up-to-date, accurate information. Learn the structure of an Access database [3] Becoming familiar with the tables, forms, queries, and other objects in a database can make it easier to perform a wide variety of tasks, such as entering data into a form, adding or removing tables, finding and replacing data, and running queries. [1] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Database-basics-2C57449A-4232-44BD-B090-EF01058ED1F1 https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Database-basics-2C5... [2] https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Database-design-basics-eb2159cf-1e30-401a-8084-bd4f9c9ca1f5 https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Database-design-bas... [3] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Learn-the-structure-of-an-Access-database-6A95097A-F95C-45BF-BE9B-A3F8D7D61C1D https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Learn-the-structure...

halflings 11y ago
This is... some pretty weird advice. Learn MS Access first? Really? First, it's just a database system coupled with macros. That's not the most important thing you'll want to learn if you want to build a startup. The frontend and/or backend logic are the most interesting, not "macros" to run on your database. Then, VBA is pretty horrible for a beginner and he's probably going to want to deploy his service at some point (and MS solutions are not exactly the easiest to deploy for a beginner)
- richardboegli 11y ago
  > This is... some pretty weird advice. Learn MS Access first? Really? Yes, really. He needs to learn the fundamentals. Read my post again and see the points I made. > Then, VBA is pretty horrible for a beginner and he's probably going to want to deploy his service at some point (and MS solutions are not exactly the easiest to deploy for a beginner) I've was able to deploy an MS Access database on Sharepoint in about 5 minutes.

amirouche 11y ago

I'd like to say that everything about coding is not startup. There is a life for code outside startups.

zongitsrinzler 11y ago

Hey Mohamed. I am interested in how someone who is not an engineer/investor/etc even came to hear about Hacker News?

TeMPOraL 11y ago
If I were to guess - reading news lead to getting interested about startups, and reading about those led him to YC and HN. But there's an alternative way people from various fields may end up here - HN discussions are sometimes top results when googling for some niche, not necessarily tech-related topics.
rootdiver 11y ago
I am not Mohamed, but about 5 years ago i also was a police officer in the Middle East.My hobby always was Programming and hacking from age of 13 so i have visited Hackernews on a daily basis until i quit my job and started to work as a Web developer for 1/4 of an average pay rate. Fast forward 5 years and i am in a much better place now and i never look back. I never did this before because i always thought that all the people that work in IT are way smarter than me and have all sort of degrees that i could not handle. Thank you HN :)
pknerd 11y ago
He seems interested in startups. Google would have redirected him here. Beside that, popular startup sites often quote HN in articles.
morganvachon 11y ago
Not the person you asked, but I can relate: I worked in law enforcement for 14 years, many of those as a jail officer. I've been a "hardware hacker" since I was a kid, and it's more or less what I do for a living right now, but I don't have any formal education in it so it's been nearly impossible to find a really great job in the field. I came across Hacker News many years ago on one of the other tech sites I frequent (probably OS News). I'm actually considering going back to law enforcement (again, in the jail) as it's steady employment with great benefits, and plenty of time off to work on side projects.
11y ago

felixrabe 11y ago

Hello Mohamed. I'd be very interested to hear about your journey starting today, whatever you end up doing, whether you persevere (what I hope) or not, no matter. Would you start a blog someplace and post a link here so we can be part of your adventure?

Alex999 11y ago

All i can say is "Best of Luck"

sidcool 11y ago

Good luck dude. I am sure you will rock. Independent of the outcome, your journey is going to be glorious!!

dr_hercules 11y ago
how do you know?
- sidcool 11y ago
  Experience.
wwwarsame 11y ago
Dude!! You are an awesome human being!
- sidcool 11y ago
  :)

greens231 11y ago

Hey Mohamed, My name is Kabir Narain. I started programming in Jan 2014 and recently launched my first app (www.almostfamous.club). Start by making simple websites or apps for the phone that you use. Its daunting at first but in around one year you should be feeling pretty confident of yourself. My email is 1119231@gmail.com Mail me if you need any assistance. Good luck! PS- i did not go to college or attend any programming courses so believe me, you CAN do it! (i was training as a sea navigator on board merchant ships before that)

pknerd 11y ago

Please create a blog and share your progress with outer world. It can help you alot!

atroyn 11y ago

Hi Mohamed Your goals are admirable, and I think you're on the right path. Do you have some product or company idea in mind already? The one piece of advice I'd like to give you is, there's no need to rush. There will be plenty more YC intakes, and you'll have tons of good ideas - learning to execute on them by trying a bunch of different stuff is the best way to get there, and to do that you need to give yourself time to learn.

wwwarsame 11y ago
Hi atroyn, Thank for your feedback. I have two ideas in mind. One is about a process I would like to streamline using technology at my current job, and the other one deals with ESL and learning a new language. Many of the ESL or learn a language methods out there are so boring, and I think I have a way to make it less boring and actually learn something. I had this problem when I wanted to learn French. You can sit there and repeat all the French words until the cows come home, but it will be no use to you when you want to converse in real life situations. The idea is about learning a new language in a way that is engaging, not learning from a CD and tucked away in your bedroom.

dheavy 11y ago

Good luck Mohamed. With your perseverance I'm absolutely certain you'll make it!

darrellsilver 11y ago

Hi Mohamed – what bootcamp are you joining?

wwwarsame 11y ago
Hi Darrell, I am joining The Firehose Project on Sept. 21st, 2015.

naveensky 11y ago

Hi Mohamed, Good luck for your journey. It would be really exciting to know more about your journey, I hope you will have time to maintain blog or post more here :) Again, if you need any tech help, feel free to ping me at @naveensky (twitter) or email in my profile :) ATB

wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you. I will tackle setting up a blog and writing my first blog post sometime this week. Thank you for the offer. I will be in touch.

Snesker 11y ago

Please think of your dignity and the quality of the board when you post asinine garbage like this, 'Mohamed'.

radcam 11y ago

From Mohamed to Mohamed, i own my iOS app and i can help you with anything iOS. i teach iOS and Swift to non-programmers and CS graduates. I'm not in the U.S. but if you ever need anything hit me up on Twitter @moubarak

geektips 11y ago

Hi Mohamed , all of the people here given you great advice on the language to learn and tools to use. I think this will be helpful for you https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev

wwwarsame 11y ago
Amazing. I've added this to my collection of web dev favourites. Thank you.

daSn0wie 11y ago

Intelligence doesn't matter as much as you think: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html Comparing yourself to others is always a losing game. Compare yourself to where you were when you started this journey, and you'll see that you've come pretty far. Get ready for the rollercoaster (emotionally) ride, and good luck!

tete 11y ago
Sadly money appears to matter though: http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/ http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-... However, doesn't mean you can't simply ignore that and just go for it.

cekanoni 11y ago

Fingers crossed for you man, have a fun learning this is nice motivation.

downandout 11y ago

Before you do this, consider the following question: would you rather spend your time learning to build the Uber app, or learning the skills to build Uber (the company)? Those are two truly different skill sets, and the latter is far more rare and valuable. The ability to raise money, build teams for a variety of functions, budget, and execute on an audacious vision is far outside the realm of most software engineers. Unless coding is truly your passion, hire someone or find a technical co-founder. Spend your time learning how to plan and build stable, scalable businesses and teams. Your goal should be to build an organization that can employ all of the software engineers necessary to carry out the vision for your business - not to be able to write all of the code yourself.

taofu 11y ago
Great distinction that is often overlooked. Could you / anyone elaborate on the key skills required in building a company? (aside from the oft-mentioned virtues of hard work, focus, and perseverance)
- downandout 11y ago
  There are just a few general things: 1. The ability to curate a clear vision for the company and its path to success; 2. The ability to take that vision and turn it into an an actionable, real-world plan, with clearly defined roles for any staff necessary to execute it; and 3. The ability to sell the company's vision to others - investors, employees and customers/users.
krisdol 11y ago
As someone who can already build the app, how do I get the skills to build Uber the company?
- joshmlewis 11y ago
  By doing and creating value. The premise of starting a company is simple, solve a problem that ideally you and others have which in return creates value enough that they'll pay for it. It's a million times easier said than done, and execution is the most valuable part of any idea because it's also the riskiest and most difficult part. Social apps have slightly different economics but the premise is the same.

dr_hercules 11y ago

How about working as an employed programmer first - learn from colleagues - and then after three years reconsider founding a company. I mean sorry, but if you worked so far as a jail guard then you probably don't have enough experience for you ambitious dreams yet. Honestly though ... this text seems so generical and naive that I have trouble believing its authenticity ...

joesmo 11y ago
I don't think the experience is necessary. He wants to found a company not be an excellent engineer. That means as long as he can get a prototype out, it doesn't matter if it's all spaghetti code. It's startup code and it will be shitty. He can then hopefully raise money and hire people with at least a few years experience to build things out properly (hopefully). I've seen successful startups started by people who could barely code or taught themselves to code to build the business just like the OP is describing. Sure, the code is shitty and there's no architecture, but once you're making money, who cares? This explains the shitty code found at most startups, but if it's temporary and a way to get somewhere, I definitely see its benefits. If this was a proper system, meant to live on for years, that's different. Hopefully the OP will have enough wisdom to realize when it's time to switch between the two mindsets. Most startup CEOs don't (even if they started out like the OP because they quickly get disconnected from engineering), and that's the real problem, IMO, but by then you've already started a company and raised money.
- Mahn 11y ago
  Very important point here, and often overlooked. Real world runs on shitty code, people like Zuckerberg didn't spend his early facebook days discussing on message boards what is the best javascript framework or the best way to build testable code; he shipped, put it out there and attracted people. It was most likely spaghetti code as Zuckerberg did not have any prior professional experience as an engineer, but it worked.
- dr_hercules 11y ago
  he worked in a prison you funny person ... what qualifies him to found tech company? right - nothing! and spaghetti code that turns useful requires even more experience to maintain.

ai_ja_nai 11y ago

Good luck!

Alex3917 11y ago

That timeline would be doable, but Spring 2019 wouldn't be bad to shoot for either. Here is an alternate 3.5 year plan: - Year 1: Learn to code full time. Later in the year, start applying for jobs as a developer. - Year 2: Get a job as a full stack dev. Devote nights and weekends to improving your development skills as much as possible. - Year 3: Get a cofounder, and work nights and weekends on your project. - Year 4: Go full time, and work for 6 months to launch the product and get enough traction to do YC. The problem is that if you don't spend any time actually working as a developer, you'll be limited to only doing very simple projects. And also, it's much more likely to work if you can find a cofounder and work with them part time for a while before going full time. As someone else already said, you'll also need the skills required to create a good product and build a good company, both of which are entirely different.

leesalminen 11y ago
This plan is very similar to my current path. I ended up taking a couple extra years on "Year 2" to really hone my skills.
wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you Alex. This is very good. Two years may not be enough as I am starting from scratch, so I may just consider this.

kaa2102 11y ago

Congratulations! The journey is long and challenging but totally worth it. Approach the startup world with the intellectual curiosity of a visitor in a foreign country. There are some great ways to learn how to code. Instead, I've found it beneficial to Learn How to Do X to Accomplish Y. There are numerous programming languages, APIs, platforms, devices, technologies, methodologies, etc. Focus on the X that helps you do Y. Udacity, Khan Academy, Coursera, and W3Schools.com offer a great start (some are free) for programming. A good start is learning front end development: HTML, Bootsrap. CSS, Javascript. Find some like-minded individuals. You can join tech meetups, Google Developer groups, etc. Good luck on your journey my friend! Keep building!

zyngaro 11y ago

I agree. HN is really unique in the web landscape. A lot of smart and nice people here. It's a great community that inspired you to take that challenge and that's amazing. Good luck.

justmaintain 11y ago

Become an entrepreneur instead. You work in a jail, possibilities for content creation in such environments are endless.

sureshn 11y ago

I urge you to read this article before you decide to take the entrepreneurial plunge http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?utm_source=parCM http://qz.com/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-...

wwwarsame 11y ago
This is very interesting. I don't have the pedigree mentioned in the article that, according to the article, leads one to Startup success. So, should I just give up or keep going?
- weston 11y ago
  Just read your own quote earlier in this thread: "By learning to code, my desire is to get to a stage where: a. I can converse with tech people who have been at this their whole live, b. gain the proficiency to build the mvp, c. become a team member with attributable skill set when company is formed, etc. Hiring someone is inevitable down the line, but I need to create the map for him/her to paint first." Ignore that asinine article. Don't judge your success based on whether you started a startup or not. Base it on what you wrote above: Learning to code, having technical conversations, and being a better person than you ever thought possible.

iamgopal 11y ago

Find a problem that you know deep enough and needs to be solved, not to be mistaken for idea or solution, and work around it to build sustainable solution.

onassar 11y ago

Eid Mubarek Mohamed. Reach out if I can help with anything product/tech related :)

wwwarsame 11y ago
Eid Mubarek to you too. I am grateful for the offer and will reach out to you when I get my thoughts together!

EGreg 11y ago

Mohamed - I would recommend learning about basic software engineering practices but NOT building your own app. It takes years to become good enough to do that successfully. Instead, learn how to hire and manage developers, especially overseas developers on upwork.com (formerly odesk), how to share equity (read Slicing Pie book) and most of all how to design the user experience, and market yourself to investors (create an online portal for investors that works on mobile and desktop browsers.) Use invisionapp or something similar to show your app to others, and iterate THAT. Your first customers are actually investors and developers!

wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you. This is good. I will definitely take this into consideration.

zalzane 11y ago

> This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place! Rule 1: Don't confuse intelligence with experience. Technological and critical thinking skills can be learned by everyone given enough time and effort. A lot of people dismiss any possibility of becoming technically minded by saying "only smart people can do that", even though they have the potential to gain the same skills.

maqbool 11y ago

Good luck Mohamed.

wwwarsame 11y ago

Mohamed here.... Wow. Seriously? I wrote this after coming back from work, and went off to sleep (it was around 2AM). I don't know what to say, but thank you to all for taking the time to respond and upvoting this thread. I have never expected this to happen. I will respond to each commentor who specifically asked a direct question as time allows, but for now, I will jot down more about me and why I have the career that I have. To start, I earned my BSc in Public Health and Safety. After few years in the field, I became disgruntled with my career choice and felt miserable going to work each day. I felt trapped in a rat race full of fake smiles. I had to decide that I will either do this for 30 or so years and retire, or just leave. Well, the decision was made for me and I was fired...ahahah. I wish they could also fire my student debt. The annoyance I felt working in such environment where I was not being challenged enough and not learning much was oozing from every pore on my body, and managers could smell it. Fast forward, I went off to Africa for vacation and the basic life necessities we enjoy every day such as clean water, electricity and food safety were non-existent. Everything in many parts of Africa are run by NGO's. There were rules that prohibit people from planting their own food! The NGO's want to supply you the food from their end. Being self sufficient is not part of the game for these NGO's. Anyways, I could go on forever about the dire situations in Africa and the corruption from within the nation and from outside agencies, but it will be too long for one post. Fast forward some more, and I came back home. No job. No savings. My cousin told me to apply for a corrections job. I got it. And guess what? I love it. I use my natural verbal judo skills and empathy to get the job done. It is scary, but ultimately, you either get yourself in hot water or stay out of the hot water as a jail guard. I chose the latter. Long story short, I really enjoy my job and there are multiple ideas and what if's I come up with when I am there. I was always around entrepreneurs. The best entrepreneur I know of personally is my mother. I learned from her the idea that create something people want. In her case, it was order what people want. I always wondered why my mother would order only ladies clothing and jewelry and perfume for women only. Why not men? Because my mother understood these women and their inherent need to change clothes all the time, and she satisfied this by purchasing everything they needed as a wholesale from Middle East. She never bought even once what men want. She stuck to her believe and made a lot of money doing it by satisfying her core customers: housewives. I think we can all learn from people in our lives that made a silent contribution to push you to entrepreneurship, and for me, it was my mother. I have declared this little blurb last night because I can't stand being the idea guy anymore. I have countless ideas, but I understand the need to learn and become a sufficient partner when I do find a co-founder. The idea I will work on with the online coding bootcamp is from my workplace. I would like to streamline something so redundant that I do every day using technology. There are multiple things I could work on, but I have to start from somewhere first. Off to work for now, again, I will respond to direct questions from certain commentors. Again, thank you.

Axsuul 11y ago

Good luck Mohamed! There's nothing stopping you :)

wwwarsame 11y ago
This is medicine. Right here. When a total stranger believes in your dreams!

Rogerh91 11y ago

Welcome Mohamed. "This place is overwhelmingly full of smart people, and I sometimes feel out of place!" Don't feel out of place. You may just be suffering from Dunning-Kruger effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect The smartest people for me are those who can drop all pretensions and learn as much as they can. You're well on your way.

wwwarsame 11y ago
I heard about this effect before....great read. I am absorbing as much as I can!
makeset 11y ago
The Dunning-Kruger effect is grossly overestimating one's own skill. I think that's the opposite of what you meant.
- girvo 11y ago
  They probably meant Impostor syndrome[0] instead. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
  - daragh99 11y ago
    I have thought about and battled with impostor syndrome a LOT! So much so that I wrote this incredibly long article about it. I hope it's useful. http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness-meditation-stopped-me-feeling-like-a-fake/ http://www.geekmindfitness.com/mindfulness/how-mindfulness-m...

Cblinks 11y ago

Hey Mohamed! I doing a coding challenge where I'm building 6 apps in 60 days. Take it one day at a time. The smartest person in the a game isn't always the person who ends up winning. The person who doesn't give up usually wins. You should check out codeschool.com. They have great courses.

wwwarsame 11y ago
Thank you. I'm on Team Treehouse at the moment for Web Dev track. I will check out codeschool too.

ghufran_syed 11y ago

My daughter and I were in the same position around 18 months ago. Neither of us knew any coding, but we wanted to do a startup. I have an mba and another professional degree and wanted to do a startup, so in theory, I could have tried to find a tech cofounder, but in the end, felt I would be in a better position if I learnt to code. As usual, paul graham says it better than I can, "anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year. Since a successful startup will consume at least 3-5 years of your life, a year's preparation would be a reasonable investment. Especially if you're also looking for a cofounder." I would advise against the bootcamp (unless it's free?), you don't need one as long as you have one or two buddies who code, who can advise you on what to learn and help you when you get stuck, the response to your post suggests that you will have a lot of people who would be willing to help! It might be a good idea to put an email in your HN profile, make it easier for folks to get in touch. We started with python (udacity cs101), lisp/scheme using the free 'simply scheme' book ( https://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html https://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html ) together with learning some of the tools like unix command-line/vim/git, then a course on web programming (udacity cs253), while she was doing college full-time, and I was working full-time. We then started learning rails and working almost full-time on the startup around Oct 2014, and launched v1 of our web app in March 2015. Still working on getting more customers :). Don't be in too much of a rush to leave what you do now: I think it's definitely a good idea to have a 'day job' that pays the bills, while you work on little projects that are interesting to you and help you learn the various technologies, you may well find one of them turns into something a lot bigger. We also applied to yc (unsuccessfully), which may have been good for us: I think the value of the advice they can give is high, but I now think it's kind of a waste of the opportunity if you're not raising money at the end. We are still figuring out 'what users want', and in hindsight, raising money would have been both difficult to resist, and a terrible idea for us at that time. Most of the advice yc gives is 'open source', for example, paul graham's essays and books, jessica livingston's book, the yc startup school etc, so you don't need to get into yc to learn what they have to say. I now think that the best time to go through yc would be after you've internalized what they teach, have made something users want, are growing, and now need funding so you can grow even faster. I think YC fulfilled a different role in the early days when it was so small, but is now so competitive, it's best to think of it a bit like hiring an investment bank when looking to IPO. In theory, they take a chunk of equity in exchange for good capital markets advice that will get you a much better valuation: as far as investment banks go, this is usually self-interested bullshit, but I think would be an accurate description of the value of yc. Best of luck, and get in touch by email, it would be good to chat!

SoftwarePatent 11y ago

Welcome! With your background you might be interested in the YC startup Pigeon.ly. Maybe you could apply to work/intern for them to gain experience. http://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-focused-on-serving-the-us-prison-population-joins-y-combinator http://blog.ycombinator.com/pigeon-dot-ly-yc-w15-a-startup-f...

ragavans 11y ago

Hellllloooo

wwwarsame 11y ago

EDIT...... As suggested, here it is.... Blog at FAVORTEXT.com. I've used Wordpress to generate this blog. It looks weird and things are out of place, but I will tackle this bit by bit as time goes on. This is where I will jot down my journey on learning coding, business development and going from an idea to an MVP prototype. I wish everyone here who took the time to respond a glorious and wonderful life.

trg2 11y ago

I would take these two free classes: 1.) http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ http://startupclass.samaltman.com/ 2.) https://www.coursera.org/course/startup https://www.coursera.org/course/startup

wwwarsame 11y ago
Hi trg2, I am already taking No. 1, and will now add No. 2 to my favorites. Thank you.