Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by joeyspn 2145 days ago
Learning to program will give you resilience. As a founder you are "the last resort" of the project. You will find yourself in this scenario many times and it's better to not depend on anyone.

When it comes to starting up, resilience and determination are much more important skills than outstanding programming skills. Or at least that's what experience has taught many of us.

Nowadays you can do a lot with few resources thanks to no-code tools [0], try to keep it simple and reduce LoC as much as possible. If you need a backend, tools like Firebase/Netlify/Saasify [1] are enough to build an MVP and get the ball rolling. And of course, do not try to build something that has 0 demand, just try to build the MVP that meets the demand you have identified and then take it from there.

[0] https://nocodelist.co/

[1] https://saasify.sh/

1 comments

As a founder you are "the last resort" of the project. You will find yourself in this scenario many times and it's better to not depend on anyone.

So glad you said this. Applies to other kinds of ventures, not just software.

I learned this lesson the hard way in my first venture. Co-founder flaked, left me swinging in the wind.

Vowed to start something new on my own as a solo founder where I could at least prototype and iterate early versions AND revenue was coming in the door from the beginning. This enabled me to hand off things that tested well to contractors and grow that way. Goes against YC "you must have a co-founder" dogma but it works.