Learn or outsource? where's the right balance...

[relientmark]

What's your advise for someone who can't program, although wants to build an online business.

I have a technical (network/security) background and have recently taught myself perl for a side project. I'm also learning php basics to fix a whole.

There is a difference between stumbling through perl/php to fix a problem, and building an successful web application.

The obvious answer would be to partner with a programmer, that aside.

Should I be thinking of learning/outsourcing? With offshore pricing so competitive this would seem the option if I can manage the process.

Concerns: In the YC application, this is flagged as a concern (http://news.ycombinator.com/s2011form).

"Was any of your code written by someone who is not one of your founders? If so, how can you safely use it?"

Concerns: I could pick up RoR or run with PHP, although learning from scratch my code is going to be messy and sometimes completely wrong. I accept this is part of learning to program, but my goal is to build a business not become a programmer.

Paying for outsourcing isn't an issue.

Has anyone got experience or advise I can learn from to get the right balance?

Cheers

M

[jackbean]

"but my goal is to build a business not become a programmer."

I believe there's your answer. Outsource for the former, learn for the latter.

[finebanana]

In outsourcing, how do you prevent the Winklevosses-syndrome from happening to your project? Of course you want someone with The Zuck's coding ability but it's pretty hard to measure greed

[jackbean]

I think Fb/Winklevosses situation is an outlier, very unlikely to happen to you. I don't know the size of outsourcing market, but its probably pretty big and as far as I can tell there isn't overwhelming evidence that outsourcing means someone else will steal your idea and get rich off it.

Besides how much did they get from from the lawsuit anyway?

P.S. I freelance and I'm glad to sign a NDA before starting, not that I need one to stop me from stealing their ideas. First I don't really care. Ideas are great, but they need lot of work to make it happen. Two, my projects list (like almost any other programmer's) is full of stuff I'd try if I had 36 hours in a day and needed no sleep.

[relientmark]

Do you have any thoughts on the concerns from YC?

[jackbean]

The first time I applied as a "non-technical" founder, needless to say that didn't work. YC seems to have a bias towards hackers (don't quote me on this, but I think they've only funded one non-technical founder project ever), and probably rightly so.

You could always try to learn php or Rails (I'd recommend latter since that's what I do for a living and fun these days) and apply to y comb. Like you mentioned you don't want to become a programmer, so are you motivated to spend weeks, maybe months hitting your head against the wall?

Or you could validate your idea and build your business in that time. Get something out asap, sell like hell and maybe if it works out and apply again (you'd probably be one of the few with a proven model and market).

If I had the option back then to outsource I would've gladly done so. That said I wouldn't trade learning Rails, then Ruby for (almost) nothing else.

This isn't a cut and dry question, can't get any more specific than this. Hope that helps a little better :)

[relientmark]

Cheers for your thoughts.

[jackbean]

Glad to help. Care to let us know which way you're going?

[relientmark]

I'm going to learn RoR... I'll let you know in 3 months how I'm going...