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Knowing how to code is a trap

Hello! 👋

I revived my blog with the goal to write more in 2020 and share unfiltered thoughts and findings on startups and business.

Here's my first article that I've been wanting to write for a while.

It's called "Knowing how to code is a trap" - what do you think? :)

https://bramkanstein.com/codertrap

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    tdlr; People that don't feel confident in investing in their own projects, probably don't have an idea or the execution potential worth investing in.

    here are my thoughts:

    1. Blogs are dead, they came to life in the early 2000's and grew with tesla and musk and lots of other cool people, and were still going strong when pieter levels was going hot, but sometime between the time of casey neistats vlogs (Now also dead) and the time the joe rogan podcast scene got hot (also dying now), it died and now looks dated and vestigial kind of thing to have on a website. (Epitome of my point - youtube whenever they release a new shitty policy do so in a blog, people are like "wdf is this trash, blogs are dumb, they were suppose-to be for people but now you dumb giant corps are doing them and ruining it" and now you have created a negative association and failed to differentiate yourself by doing it.

    Keep in mind - even your idol Pieter has said something along the lines of - whats worked for me, probably wont work in the future, I've gotten too big now, when I was working on my projects I thought all these big companies were jaded and it allowed me to see things differently, and do things in a different way where I knew I could make a better product and now that I'm big-ish I might be jaded in the same way. What do I interpret from that? That the thing that differentiated him was that he thought and did things differently from the competition and what everyone else was doing and that was a big part of his success - blogs were big and different in his day, are they now?

    So the key then is not to do what everyone else is doing to be successful, but to think and do things differently.

    So besides blogs, what else is everyone doing?

    1. Not investing into their ideas (they don't actually build a product - they create fake landing pages and try to measure product market fit before creating a product (which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it)). If you would have asked Henry ford before he built the car if people would have wanted it - they would have said NO. Same if you asked Elon about the Tesla semi/cyberTruck.

    2. I actually think most people actually follow your mainstream advice - they try to create products that they think OTHER people want, that they think there is a demand for (perhaps as measured by initial sign ups on the landing page, or preorders, or some other such dubious method). Their primary motivation is NOT to create products (for the most part), that they really like, that they would use themselves, but rather what they think OTHER people would buy and use. So when considering the question "should I be building this thing?" they don't think about themselves but OTHERS. When you think this way, you make some serious assumptions about the important questions you mentioned:
      "You know what the problem is you're solving"
      "You know who you're solving this for (target customer)"
      "You know where to find these people (acquisition channels)"
      "You know how to talk to them (value proposition)"
      "You know that your solution is the right solution (remember that sticky notes on the sides of computer screens are an alternative to your fancy productivity app)"

    The "truth" is - you are always making educated guesses to these questions, my argument is, your educated guess will always be better if you think about these questions in reference to YOURSELF. Consider yourself as the market, - if I build this, will I use it? If so why? Are there better/cheaper options for me? If there are what could I do differently to make me want to use this over something else?

    When you enter this paradigm shift in thinking - your answers to those questions become more accurate, and you will find that you are a pretty good judge of whats "good" and whats not. If you will use your product - others will too. (This mentality is shared by people like Larry Ellison, Steve jobs, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, + many others).

    1. Knowing to code - Even insinuating that its a waste of time, I think is counterproductive. In the future, people will read code and mathematics like another language (in a couple hundred years it might supplement language itself). You can communicate a much higher density of information in the same amount of code/mathematics, than you can with the words we use now - they are grossly inefficient.

    In fact the greatest barrier to entry for most people now is the incredibly high demand for technically competent people that can create these ideas and their market price is high.

    If I were advising young people - I would say, if your still in school, you better be learning to code, if your not in school and working, your time is probably more efficiently spent at this time focusing on business strategy and becoming a good manager and buy a developer off a freelance site to build your MVP - then test it, then refine and grow. Since you don't have much resources, be extremely discriminating in the ideas you chose to pursue, and pursue those worth investing in.

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      Scanned this and what caught my eye:

      1. " they create fake landing pages and try to measure product market fit before creating a product" > you can't measure PMF that way, not sure what you're saying
      2. "Consider yourself as the market, - if I build this, will I use it? If so why? Are there better/cheaper options for me?" > possible, but depending on "who you are", potentially also very limited. Plus my belief is that you should NEVER look at yourself as the ideal user.
      3. "Knowing to code - Even insinuating that its a waste of time, I think is counterproductive." > that is definitely not what I'm trying to say here ;) to be clear haha.

      Agree to disagree? ;)

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        1. Thats my exact point. In your article you said:
          "I believe that, for most startup ideas (in my opinion 80%+), answering the question whether there's a need in the market, or at least becoming a bit more certain about a need in the market, does not involve building something with code. [and that] you can definitely be 100% sure if you're pursuing something that nobody wants."

        You used Pieter Levels as a source of authority on for proving this point, and yet Pieter levels built MVP's for all his products to test Market fit - which is the only way to accurately measure "Market Need". After he validated his base MVP's he built scalable products.

        This is directly counter to your thesis that you can test market need, and be 100% sure if your pursuing something nobody wants without building something with code! If anything it shows the importance of building an MVP to test market need through PMF analysis!

        1. Considering yourself the main user - even from the perspective of someone else is the best strategy. (Example: If your developing a business encryption service - even though you are not a business, you need to ask yourself - Do I know this business very well, If I was in that position, would I buy my service, what are my other options? what does this product need to be for me to buy it?)

        2. See #1.

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          You and @bramk seem to use different definitions of Product Market Fit, especially evident with the point 1.

          If you'd be on same page about terminology, you could better argue about the real differences in opinions, making this popcorn worthy entertainment.

          Basically, @combition uses product market fit in measure "market demand" way, and @bramk uses it more similarly to Lean, or Y-Combinator clan propaganda: happens causing massive surge in demand, usually years after starting, after lot of hard work, when all pieces click.

          If both of you read each others replies again with your own idea of PMF definition swapped to what the other person actually meant, you'll probably get my point..

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            @HenriNext @jaryl @bramk

            The definition of "Product Market Fit" that I follow can be best described by Gustaf Alstromer here:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ikpoF2GH0

            This IMO is the most rational, logical way to measure PMF. Some of the ways some people "measure" PMF just don't make any sense.

            So for the record: What I was saying is that its irrational to try and accurately measure Product Market Fit before you build an actual product, as the whole point is to try to measure the "value" that people derive from that product - which you cannot do without the product!! I was especially deriding the idea that you can somehow accurately measure "market demand" (in number of sign ups or preorders on a landing page) to simulate "Product Market Fit" (Which is not simply demand) without building an MVP.

            Am I really so inarticulate as to not get this point across? haha

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              The real argument seems to be around how much you can measure before you have a product.

              Your view is "not that much", but others disagree and think that e.g. landing pages can measure "market demand" accurately enough to provide "validation".

              But. Nobody is trying to measure PMF with landing page.

              Because you claim so, everybody agrees on the literal statements you make (~"PMF cannot be measured with landing page"), but many actually disagree on the real underlying argument (~"can landing pages measure real market demand").

              Btw personally I think landing pages are rather useless for measuring real demand, so not arguing against you on that..

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                Agreed with this statement, the main point I wanted to make was the fallacy that a landing page can "validate" you - and that creating a product is a waste of time. Which to me is an antipode of the "truth".

                I think its really important for people to question the validity of measuring "demand" on your landing page to begin with as a "weed out" process for "bad ideas" as the author insinuated you can easily do to 100% of the time.

                I think a majority of greatest products were first created, then demonstrated, only then people realized the unknown need they had for it. If zuckerberg would have created a landing page for facebook before he built the product and tried to gauge interest that way, it never would have gotten off the ground let alone become the company it is today.

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                  Couldn't agree more with you, I wrote a draft for article about that couple of years ago. Which is why it was such a pity to see people misunderstand your point.

                  In the end it seems you actually used same definition of PMF as everybody else, but you exaggerated the stupidity of the "landing page validation crowd" by saying that they they are measuring PMF. Which they are not, thus they denied it quickly, and missed your real point...

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              Oh I am with you on this one, and yeah you can't measure PMF without a product. However, I do think that you can gauge market demand prior to launch, but it will obviously never be as accurate as actually putting a product market out on the market.

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            This definitely looks like a case of people talking over each other. That being said, I think that the term Product Market Fit does imply more than just market demand.

            Perhaps you are slightly misrepresenting what the Y Combinator clan defines PMF as, at least some of them. Here's a couple of videos that I think make the most sense, on what it is and how to measure it:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LNQxT9LvM0
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MABmQhOlmJA

            I do believe that you can use PMF how you want, but as a startup community, there is value is distinguishing it from a measure of market demand, which is a term already known as market demand.

            PMF should imply a lot more than market demand, which can be summarized as do your customers actually continue to pay (money or attention) to use your product.

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              So, the down-voted point I was trying to make was that @combition uses PMF in different way than most others in here, or Lean, or YC clan, which confuses the entire discussion.

              Personally I follow same definition as you and Lean (much more than just 'market demand'), and I wasn't arguing at all about what the definition should be. Just pointing a source of confusion in this discussion.

              About the YC clan, I'm not sure which way you feel I'm misrepresenting them, but some of their PMF definitions are quite extreme. For example there is one video comparing PMF to "falling in love": you definitely know when it happens, if you are not sure then you don't have PMF.

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                Ooh, I didn't know that you could downvote comments on IH, but I upvoted you to bring balance to the force.

                For example there is one video comparing PMF to "falling in love": you definitely know when it happens, if you are not sure then you don't have PMF.

                Was this a recent thing? I do think that the community matured on the definition of PMF, but yeah it was pretty much like that.

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                  That YC video was from Startup School 2016 or 2017, but also 2019 videos of YC CEO Michael Siebel have quite hardcore definition of PMF: more like an "event" that happens and flips a boolean, than a "measurement". Well, it's not important in grand scheme of things. May the force be with you.

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                "So, the down-voted point I was trying to make was that @combition uses PMF in different way than most others in here, or Lean, or YC clan, which confuses the entire discussion." --> yes!

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      I would have to strongly disagree. Blogs aren't dying any more than your other example, Joe Rogan's podcast, or Pieter Level's projects.

      As a matter of fact, between the handful of websites I run, my blogs get upwards of 20-30,000 visitors a month. It's the primary driver of leads and income for our startup. And most of my current sites were started in the past 2-3 years, so it's not like they've been around for a while.

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        what I mean by "dying" is that it might not be the same driver of traffic that it used to be - not that it doesn't work, just that its becoming outdated as too many people are doing it and saturating the market, making it hard to differentiate.

        Casey Neistat -does vlogs and makes them cool, then everyone does vlogs, now they are not cool.

        Joe rogan - does podcasts and makes them mainstream, now everyone does podcasts, and they are not as cool anymore.

        Blogs- Used to be cool, not as cool anymore.

        Its just not very innovative to do what everyone else is doing.

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          SO TELL ME WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO MAKE A DENT? (seriously mister anonymous)

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    I think this is a really hot take, and part of it may be due to some mistaken assumptions.

    Even a genius developer like Pieter knew...

    Pieter wasn't a "genius developer" at all and was very open about the fact that he was learning to code as he went along. The fact that he had some experience at that point enabled him to do something about it when the google sheet caught traction.

    Far from being "a trap", basic dev skills open up an entirely new category potential businesses a person can build and experiment with without outside help. It also tends to build an awareness that such businesses are even possible. (It's particularly striking to me how blind many sales reps are to the repetitive tasks they have to do daily which, if automated, represent highly valuable businesses. More than one times this has actually happened due to someone on the inside having had some dev background!)

    Finally, a lot of great projects get traction in an emergent way. A repo on Github or a free WP plugin get traction in a way the hobbyist author never imagined possible and only then do they see the business potential.

    My one line rebuttal to the title would be, "smugly refusing to learn a broadly useful skill is a trap." I was guilty of this. I was practically surrounded by programmers as a teenager and yet chose not to really develop that skill because I looked down on it and preferred mathematics and literature. Finally putting in the time and effort to pick up the skill in my 30s completely changed my opportunities and was one of the best choices I've made.

  3. 1

    I didn't go through your article carefully but what caught my eyes was:

    The number 1 reason startups fail (42%!) = "No market need"
    And it's a lie! LIE! BIIIIIG LIE!
    Many people are just repeating this over and over again but it doesn't make it a truth.
    Let me explain why I think so.
    First of all, there are thousands of ways to make a product.
    Secondly, there are thousands of ways to present and sell it.
    Nobody has time to try all those combinations. All people tried just several of them and if they didn't find the proper one, they claim "There is no market for my product" or "My product is not right".
    But we have tons of examples when "useless" products find their market, or when a new player squeezed into a saturated market and found its customers.
    All you need are:

    • time
    • some money
    • passion and believe in your product.
      And knowing how to code is a trap just because most of the developers are people-scanners that just don't like to stick to one idea for a long time. And, unfortunately, it's one secret ingredient of success (among several others).
  4. 1

    Nice blog, it helps to keep your feet on the ground.

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    This comment was deleted a year ago.

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      Sometimes you have to build the product in order to validate it - this is the only way to test product market fit. So in essence the opposite of the argument is true, your more likely to be successful if you know how to code and can build an MVP than if you don't!

      There is a logical fallacy in saying that "because 42% of startups fail because there is no market need [...] there is a 42% chance that a given idea should not be built".

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        This comment was deleted a year ago.

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          I agree I think Brams point is that you theoretically could build MVP's to test your market without knowing how to code.

          (And he just attacked the idea of "coding" your idea to try and prove that its a waste of time to code your MVP to test your market when you "theoretically" do it without coding. - A dubious argument IMO).

    2. 1

      haha "Not being very smart" is always a trap, true ;)

      I wouldn't say someone is a fool when they "just build something", it's what you like to do because you CAN!

      And yes of course you can build stuff for fun, that's how you learn the most. This post is focussed (as mentioned in it) on people who are actually pursuing what they've built without any validation (just search on IndieHackers for: "I made this and now trying to find users").

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        This comment was deleted a year ago.

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          I'm so happy to have found this conversation. It's like both sides of how I want to reply to conversations sometimes, depending on my mood. With devil me on one shoulder, and angel me on the other guiding my fingers on the keys 😂

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          "With the availability of no code tools I'm sure there are just as many folk who build stuff and then can't find users." > yes I agree.

          And it's definitely not about code vs no-code. It's more about: if you CAN make it, SHOULD you?

          As mentioned in another comment here, just on IndieHackers alone there are so many people who've made a thing (I'm not talking about a V0.1) and are still wondering where to find the right customers/users.

          To me that's a pity, because you possible build ANY solution as a coder. That's why you need to figure out as fast as possible IF you should even pursue the idea.

          In my opinion this becomes MUCH HARDER when you've already built somethings that is "too big to fail" for yourself.

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