Post: #1

I strongly suggest Paul Graham's blog for people looking to get into startups:

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

It is already widely acclaimed as being a great site. I posted this in the event some guys were unaware of it.

I may have posted this, but I gain a lot of value from Stanford's entrepreneurship lectures:

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/

Post: #2

PG's essays are the reason I've been self-employed for 3 years. anyone who wants to start their own thang needs to read every word Paul Graham has written. twice.

news.ycombinator.com is a great resource, as is mixergy.com (some paywall content, but great stuff on the site and on itunes as well)>

(04-17-2012 03:08 PM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  I strongly suggest Paul Graham's blog for people looking to get into startups:

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

It is already widely acclaimed as being a great site. I posted this in the event some guys were unaware of it.

I may have posted this, but I gain a lot of value from Stanford's entrepreneurship lectures:

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/

Post: #3

Good post, Redacted. Were you involved in a tech startup?

I find that most readers of Paul Graham's stuff seem to be in that area.

Post: #4

sure am. it's been a 3-year project that's now finally starting to see some revenue. we work with gaming and finance, doing ecommerce analytics. its what has allowed me to rock the mobile lifestyle.

Post: #5

Love Paul Graham’s articles. Only downside is, as you alluded to, there’s a limit to what you can apply from his essays and YCombinator if you can’t write code.

Post: #6

so learn to write code you lazy prick. i did. it will be the most valuable skill you will ever learn and I'll suck a dude's cock if i'm wrong!

Post: #7

(04-18-2012 11:52 PM)redacted Wrote:  so learn to write code you lazy prick. i did. it will be the most valuable skill you will ever learn and I'll suck a dude's cock if i'm wrong!

As disturbing as that is, I love your enthusiasm, man. lol

How'd you learn?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #8

<?php

x=1;

if (x==1) {
echo "hello world";
}

else {
echo "goodbye world";
}

?>

there. i wrote your first PHP script for you. you can build an empire with these two concepts. go hit up google and act like you got some sense.

(04-19-2012 01:53 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(04-18-2012 11:52 PM)redacted Wrote:  so learn to write code you lazy prick. i did. it will be the most valuable skill you will ever learn and I'll suck a dude's cock if i'm wrong!

As disturbing as that is, I love your enthusiasm, man. lol

How'd you learn?

Post: #9

(04-19-2012 01:57 AM)redacted Wrote:  <?php

x=1;

if (x==1) {
echo "hello world";
}

else {
echo "goodbye world";
}

?>

there. i wrote your first PHP script for you. you can build an empire with these two concepts. go hit up google and act like you got some sense.

(04-19-2012 01:53 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(04-18-2012 11:52 PM)redacted Wrote:  so learn to write code you lazy prick. i did. it will be the most valuable skill you will ever learn and I'll suck a dude's cock if i'm wrong!

As disturbing as that is, I love your enthusiasm, man. lol

How'd you learn?

Well, no shit, Pete-smoker. Any a-hole can do a Google Search - it's filtering through all the crap and pre-sells to find a great resource that's either free or worth paying for that's a challenge.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #10

exactly. you learn by knowing how to search for things. 99% of the stuff you'll ever want to do in software has already been done for you, and done right. it's more a matter of knowing how to string together components than building a castle brick-by-brick.

you need to be able to filter through the crap. just google PHP tutorials and read through a few. seriously, this is how it's done.

Post: #11

Right on, Man - will do. Definitely time to start doing my own code rather than depending on others.

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #12

Even if you don't intend to code anything big understanding the basics will get you very far. It will be easier for you to spot and hire good programmers and manage freelance developers. You will also find it easier to attract skilled tech cofounders if you understand their craft.

Here are some resources -

/thread-9020.html

Post: #13

Caligula is right. Ultimately, none of the stuff we have in production right now was hand-coded by me. IT's open-source or my pro did it. But, I knew what to look for, what questions to ask, and when he talked shop with me, I understood. My prototype was essential in showing my new engineer what I wanted, with the explanation that it was really rudimentary. He just loved that I came to him with working code and a UI that helped him understand what I needed.

software is just one big series of conditionals. at their core, these amazing machines only think in 1 and 0, so if you can distill your problems down to a series of yesses and nos, you can code it....eventually!

Post: #14

(04-19-2012 01:20 PM)redacted Wrote:  software is just one big series of conditionals. at their core, these amazing machines only think in 1 and 0, so if you can distill your problems down to a series of yesses and nos, you can code it....eventually!

This is another reason to learn. It will help you be disciplined when mapping out the logic of whatever you're building.

Non-programmers often come up with a mish-mash of features and things they'd like their app to do. If you understand programming you're more likely to think things through and come up with better, more structured workflows and logic.