Every so often I do some consulting on internet tools, optimization, and early-stage entrepreneurship. Today, I had the pleasure of sitting down with a beautiful woman, a college entrepreneur, trying to start an internet service. The difficulty for her and her partner? Finding a partner with the programming experience they lack.
It’s tough to enter the internet space without having coding experience. I myself have been learning PHP on the side so I can personally build all of the ideas in my head. However, that lack of experience should not, by any means, stop you from realizing your dreams of building your idea to fruition. While I do suggest learning some code so you at least understand what can and can’t be done with PHP, Ruby on Rails, or whichever language you choose, you’re going to want someone with the experience and skill to get it done. Yes, you could outsource your idea to a firm to build it, but you’re not going to get the same passion and commitment to the project and to the customers as you will have.
I gave her a few resources for finding a non-programming partner, and I wanted to share a few of them with you. Almost all of them are actually links from YCombinator’s Hacker News, but you’re not going to be disappointed with the conversations and advice given in the links below. Also a quick thanks to the Startups Wiki YC Archive for most of the links.
- What should a Striving non-programmer do?
- Can Hackers (aka Coders) and Non-Hackers Cofound?
- Keeping and Recruiting a Hacker as a Non-Hacker
- Finding a Co-founder (out of the three sites he lists, partnerup.com is the best)
- Best sites for finding good web programmers?
- Any suggestions on places to find good freelance developers?
- How to hire a Computer Programmer
And as a bonus (and because I love Ittybiz),
- 32 Must reads for home business success (I don’t care if you are starting a home business or not, all of the rules still apply).
Hope this helps some of you!
– Ben
