Why I learnt how to code (as a non-technical founder of my first startup)
In 2015, I was given the task and opportunity to build out an idea I had pitched - it was a crowdsourcing platform for odd jobs. I faced one major issue - I was a non-technical founder. I knew nothing about how to build what I was pitching. Here were the stumbling blocks as a non-technical founder that eventually pushed me to learn how to code.
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Imposter Syndrome
As a non-technical founder, my imposter syndrome compounded. I was meeting with investors and other startup people, pitching an idea that I didn’t know the first thing about building. I felt like a fraud, selling pure imagination and convincing them (and myself) that we can make it into a reality. -
Not Knowing What You Don’t Know
Talking and connecting to other software engineers, I realized how deeply complex, complicated, and challenging was the thing I was trying to build. Building an app was the core expertise I needed to run this startup. At the very least, I needed a team that could cover the skill gaps we needed to execute. They had to be part of the team, as their incentives should align with our startup objectives. -
I Couldn’t Find A Technical Co-founder
A co-founder should be someone that you’ve built a connection with and trust. Co-founders are business partners, when you go into a startup, it’s like entering into a relationship. I soon learned that the term “idea man” was derogatory within startup circles. Ideas are worthless without proper execution. -
I Couldn’t Afford Real Software Engineers
Throughout the whole process of talking to several engineers, many declined equity and instead offered to build my app for a certain fee. This was my introduction to the high price of building software. I spoke to other founders in the scene who have burned through investor money by hiring contractors. I also spoke to founders that have built MVPs with cheap “nightmare contractors.” The tactic for most playing the contractor game with a tight budget was to gamble your chances. If I wanted to be building startups in the long term, I had to avoid the contractor game altogether.
If you’d like to read more about the story of Why I Learnt How to Code (As A Non-technical Founder Of My First Startup), you can read it here on my blog: https://adamthewan.com/blog/startup/why-i-learnt-how-to-code/
Pretty cool Adam. I'm a coder so usually when I'm ready I get into business with someone else that is a non coder although I'd consider something with another coder, I've never actually done it. If I did it with another coder I'd probably want to do something like just you focus on front end and I'll do back end, etc. Usually when non technical founders approach me with an idea, I never am interested in equity in the deal because they typically have never done a startup and don't understand enough about the concept or the process and want to offer too small of a percentage. They usually also don't listen to my principals of getting it out to market as quickly as possible and not worrying about it being perfect or meeting their visual standards etc. They don't understand what are critical features and just nice to have's and they start trying to control the actual software process, something they typically have no business messing with due to lack of experience and knowledge.
I think the true differentiator is one's experience in tech and startups, instead of coding skills. In my current startup, I work with several non-technical people. Due to their experience in tech (either UI UX, or a former tech startup founder), they are able to speak the same language and have a better understanding of what goes into building software. This makes ideation and strategy much easier.
Yeah I agree, being a software engineer and working with so many other programmers, I've met some super smart programmers, but most are clueless when it comes to startups. They focus on things that don't matter for starting up a company and they fail. It's not always the smartest coders that make successful startups, it's those with experience in the startup space and realize that the same process they use for coding at their corporation doesn't apply when just a tiny team. I have conflicts working at companies as an employee since I've been in the startup mindset for so long now since the other programmers don't think the same way as me.
Hi Adam --
Read your article, I'm actually in the same boat. Graduated in mechanical engineering also :-)
I do a lot of programming (fullstack). If you're looking to build a team or onboard someone, was wondering if you wanted to get in touch?
That's so cool!
Sure thing, feel free to DM me on my Twitter account @adamthewan1. Can talk there :-)
And how did you achieve that?
Since I am also in learning phase.
Hey there! Here's what I used (bear in mind, this was almost 5 years ago, so your journey might be different).
Resources I used: I started out with freecodecamp.org and completed the entire frontend course. Then I just start to build my project with the skills I learnt. I would google, use StackOverflow, and YouTube anything that I didn’t know or was confused about. If I needed to know how to achieve X or Y, I would google it. Chances are someone’s answered it somewhere on StackOverflow. Learning what to search for to get the answers you need is a skill that you’ll need to learn.
Time commitment: pretty much full time for 3 months. I know that’s pretty hard commitment for some, but I would suggest to at least do 1 or 2 hours a day. The trick is consistency, as it takes time to get familiar with code itself.
Specific coding skills: I had to learn full stack development in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve. I started out coding with Meteor and MongoDB. But I don’t recommend this stack today, I would suggest to go with React and Firebase if you’re starting out.