mgirdley

17 ms·

31.
by mgirdley 12y ago
As a San Antonio VC (GeekdomFund.com), I hope you come back.
32.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Founders should choose the correct location that gives them the maximum possible advantage. If you're selling to the oil industry, build in Houston. Finance, NYC. And so on. Sometimes geography doesn't matter, so a small fishing t
33.
by mgirdley 12y ago
They'll likely just get a career school designation from the State of CA like other bootcamps.
34.
by mgirdley 12y ago
CS creates computer scientists. It doesn't necessarily make good programmers. You can't compare this to CS. The model in a year-long bootcamp (which is what this is) is vastly more expensive to operate than classic CS education.
35.
by mgirdley 12y ago
It'll be interesting to see how many of the "Gap Year" people never make it to college. About 1/3rd of our code school's graduates are fresh out of high school and using it as a complete replacement for college.
36.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Just tonight my father-in-law's new TV required a HDMI cable. He suggested RadioShack. I said "I'm going to Target. At RadioShack you have to talk to people." The days of high-touch service are over.
37.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Running a coding school (Codeup), I get this email all the time from recruiters: "Dear xyz, I've been hired to fill this not-so-great job THIS WEEK and we want this crazy exclusive unicorn skillset that about a dozen people in the
38.
by mgirdley 12y ago
The Seqway had similar amounts of mystery and hype years ago.
39.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Neat. How is this different? Trueability.com comes to mind.
40.
Ask: Are US companies willing to hire engineers from Mexico with TN visas?
5 points by mgirdley 12y ago|3 comments
41.
by mgirdley 12y ago
I recommend people hiring bootcamp grads to sit them next to a senior dev. There's 1-2 times a day that 5 minutes of mentoring will save them hours.
42.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Cool. Come down and see us at Geekdom if you'd like.
43.
by mgirdley 12y ago
In my experience, this works for only a very small minority of people. Most everyone else is lacking self-teaching skills or motivation to teach themselves enough to be hireable.
44.
by mgirdley 12y ago
There's an argument to be made that the vast majority of developers are underpaid in the US.
45.
by mgirdley 12y ago
I agree that CS+English is better than English and a BA in English is better than nothing. The problem is that the skills from an English degree itself aren't in high demand by employers.
46.
by mgirdley 12y ago
The reality is that most custom web applications aren't more than CRUD. No advanced math concepts are required beyond algebra level stuff.
47.
by mgirdley 12y ago
They want to work things that are used by real people. If they can help the world be better and get to see their work being used, that's a plus. Many are stuck in what they consider dead-end careers like retail or customer service. The
48.
by mgirdley 12y ago
If bootcamp grads are "doing it right", they'll keep developing and evolving their skills.
49.
by mgirdley 12y ago
If you look at the open dev job postings, experienced developers are where the shortage is. Companies hire bootcamp graduates to take workload off of the experienced (3+ yrs) developers plates. Interestingly enough, if you look at job posti
50.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Disclaimer: I run a bootcamp in San Antonio called Codeup. While the media paints the camps as "get a great paying job", I see more people wanting a more meaningful life. They've got an expensive degree in English or somethin
51.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Click TESS -> Basic: http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/process/search/ Enter "Sourcery".
52.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Given the name "Sourcery" is already trademarked in IC009 (tech goods and services), it'll be interesting to see if they get to keep using that name.
53.
by mgirdley 12y ago
#0: Put your engineer(s) in the same room as an unhappy customer.
54.
by mgirdley 12y ago
The best thing is to insist your tech employer interview female candidates. Speak out if they don't. The NFL has the "Rooney Rule" that has been instrumental in generating more african american head coaches. Make your company
55.
by mgirdley 12y ago
If you go the MS/BS route, you need find time on the side to actually learn to program. It doesn't happen in the coursework. Disclaimer: I run a bootcamp in San Antonio.
56.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Another route: Go try to build something. Anything. You'll find things that are broken very quickly and can easily be the seed of a new business.
57.
by mgirdley 12y ago
One route: What are you most passionate about? What do you see "broken" in the world and want fixed? (I'm passionate that higher ed is a great idea poorly implemented, so that's my startup's focus.)
58.
by mgirdley 12y ago
Check out the new traction book by Gabe Weinberg et al. Tl;dr: run lots of little cheap experiments and see what works. They also run through the 19-odd ways startups generate awareness.
59.
by mgirdley 12y ago
I disagree on the ^H's. In practice, AWS and SoftLayer spent as much or more time with the 2013 class than the Rackspace people did. I don't know about 2012 though...
60.
by mgirdley 12y ago
I went through a similar experience recently. My solution: 1) Find a place where startup people hang out (in San Antonio, there's a co-working space designed for this called Geekdom). Startup people are rarely found in big companies. 2

More ›