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4 Comments

How do I break into startups without going back to pay for an IT education?

I have no prior knowledge in tech, but I'm interested in creating a startup, without having to go back to university and spend a lot.

How did everyone get into tech startups? I have no IT background but have a degree in design and hold experience in social user experiences of digital interfaces.

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    I highly recommend learning to code. It's tremendously empowering and rewarding. It's not easy and can be a bit frustrating, but I'm confident that most people can learn if they stick with with it. No need to become a professional software engineer. But just the basics of the web, HTML and CSS, then JavaScript, will get you a long way.

    All that said, you don't need to learn a ton about coding to start a startup. Coding is helpful for building a product, and for understanding the market if your customers are developers. However, you still need to do some combination of idea validation, sales, marketing, distribution, pricing experimentation, etc to build a successful business. That's where you come in.

    One route is to just get really good at that stuff. Not only is it necessary in and of itself, but it makes you far more attractive to someone with technical chops who might join you as a a partner. As others have mentioned, there are plenty of businesses you can build online without having to code a product at all. You could've created Indie Hackers, for example, and taken it very far without writing a line of code.

    The last point I'll make is to remember that startups are 90% learning on the job. No matter what you study in advance, you're going to be tossed into the deep end and need to learn a lot, because nobody has ever built a business exactly like yours. So in many ways, you can't start learning until you start your business.

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    What kind of start up are you trying to build? You might be able to make something with Bubble, it's a popular no code platform.

    It really depends on the complexity of your project.

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    Hi Richard, it's not about the code or the tech ! it is about the business. What you need to fo first is flush your idea- make sure there is a market for it here are some key questions key to help you with it :
    What is my business model?
    Who is my target market?
    What is the total size of the market opportunity?
    How do you plan to scale the company?
    What is my path to profitability?
    What is your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?
    What metrics are you going to use to measure success?

    once you have those nailed you can think of building - you can look into co-founders, No code platforms or hiring dev shop.

  4. 1

    It all boils down to what @chuckgreenman said. You first need to decide on what type of service you are looking to provide.

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