Ask HN: Biz folks learning how to hack? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Biz folks learning how to hack?

6 pointskseven9 comments

It’s funny when I think about the topic of my question now.

Traditionally, engineers, hackers and techies would seek to pick up managerial skills to advance their carrier, well at least in stupid boring-suited-corporate-fortune-1000.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe leadership skills are indispensible for founders. However, the rapid development of technology and internet is pushing the other way around – Biz folks learning to hack.

It’s been pushing me since awhile now, and before jumping off the cliff, I really would appreciate your help in where and how to start climbing up with a bag of programming/hacking skills.

A bit about myself, I am from Algeria. I am not entirely a “suit” person, but my focus has been on leadership, management and language- teaching throughout the past 7 years. I co-founded a social start-up of an international student organization.

Funny enough, I first joined university majoring CS but then later switched to statistics – don’t ask me why, I have no idea how I made that decision, I guess it was because I started to be attracted to business and leadership. Any way my 1 year CS at university allowed me to gain some knowledge in Pascal algorithms and math.

I am not seeking to learn hacking simply because I have to but rather I want to – It is beautiful to have that ability to help build the pr- oduct you have in mind (YC folks make a strong point here).

I do have 2 business ideas, and I am thinking of approaching 2 of my techie friends to possibly apply for the upcoming YC summer batch but I am more heading towards bringing the idea to life first then apply next times to YC, allowing myself to gain some hacking skills.

So Hackers, how should I start this journey off?

Merci d’avance

P.S: programming skills I am looking for tend to be around web development.

I think the "be your own CTO" advice for non-techies starting out with just an idea is always solid. I had a similar programming background to you and for over a decade I was working on the business side of things, successfully launching product from sales, marketing and business development roles.

However after having technical co-founder issues twice I recognized I needed to learn how to, at least in the early days of testing an idea, be my own technical co-founder. How to hack the initial stages of an MVP together in order to test things out.

I learned Ruby on Rails back in 2010 and haven't looked back since. It's easy to pick up and there is so much good information out there on how to learn you can quite quickly, if you're smart and committed to doing so, build up from being an absolute beginner to a reasonable intermediate-level programmer able to put out a functioning minimal viable product.

It won't be perfect, and you'll want to bring in the star programmers later. But it's not something you'll ever regret.

A simple analogy which you may appreciate as an Algerian. As an English speaker if you go to Paris and only speak in English you won't find a Frenchman who understands a word you say. If you attempt your best French, however poor, you'll find people talking back to you in English and willing to help. Same with engineering talent. Every engineer is approached all the time by non-technical people with "an idea" who "just" need it implementing by a techie. Unsurprisingly these approaches don't get taken up often. However if you have a product that is viable and working and now needs making better, more scalable, more secure, you have something that you can engage other engineers in.

Thanks a lot, I very much like the analogy :) You covered it all.

To add more, even if you have star techie co-founders, it doesn't make much sense to be that business person with no understanding of programming, not even the basics. And even if the business requires enterprise sales.

Practically, it would affect brainstorming at early start up stages for example.

If you re going to start today, just learn javascript and nodejs. Like thar you will only need to be manipulating 1 language in addition to html and css to pump out webapps. Look into node's express framework. It's great for bootstrapping apps.

Thanks a lot, I guess I need to start first with HTML and css

There are many good paths to take, and I'd avoid discussions about the "right" language to start with. Pick any language and run with it. If, down the road, you need to use a different set of technologies, then that time will come. But right now, it's time to learn. If you decide to learn Ruby, feel free to email me if you need any help getting started. It's my HN username at gmail. Good luck!

Thank a lot. Ruby seems like a good language to start with. I will certainly email you, thanks again.

I tried to email you. I got a delivery failure. HN username@gmail.com right?

adelevie at gmail

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but as a business-side person with an interest in "hacking", I find Codecademy to be extremely valuable. You can learn all kinds of programming languages there.

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