[flyosity]

The thing that always gets me is that "idea guys" seem to assume that "developers" can't get ideas, like it's a skill that only a select few can possess. Guess what? Everyone has ideas, and being a developer is great because we can actually build our ideas.

[raganwald]

If I may be the lone dissenter...

Could it be that there are many business people, some of who have ideas but no ability to execute, some of who can execute but have no ideas, and a very few who have ideas and can execute on them?

And like wise could it be that there are many developers, some of whom have ideas but cannot build their dreams, some of whom can build but have no ideas, and a very select few that have ideas and can build them?

If these two suppositions are correct, then there are some pairings of business person and developer that can work, including a rare business person who has an idea and can execute on the idea, and who needs a developer who can build but doesn't have an idea?

Of course there's some symmetry here, there are going to be developers with ideas and who can build. They will be looking for business people who don't have an idea of their own but who can execute.

[Travis]

I don't disagree with your statements -- their is definitely a spectrum of each type of cofounder.

However, out of the spectrum of idea guys, one signal I look for is their desire to pursue their idea. One great way to do that -- teach themselves to code.

It doesn't mean that their ideas aren't any good. But at a glance, if someone has an idea that they believe in enough to teach themselves basic skils... well, then they become more than just an idea guy.

Someone who is unwilling to teach themselves basic programming has no business in a web startup.

[raganwald]

+1!

When discussions about interviewing and hiring come up, I always like to remember that these things are strategies, and false negatives are simply a cost of doing business. While I'm sure we can find of some great businesspeople with good ideas who didn't teach themselves some simple programming, a strategy of only working with those who did is probably still an excellent filter that will get rid of far more false positives than trip over false engatives.

[truthseeker]

Absolutely correct. As a developer, I am willing to work with idea guys as long as they can show their previous work. Success or failure, it doesn't matter as long as they hustled enough to get something done. Just like I am willing to show my technical skills with a portfolio, projects etc.

[mgkimsal]

agreed, and take it a bit further - a developer who is unwilling or unable to teach themselves the basics of business - delivering on time, understanding customer development, financial terms/concepts/ramifications, etc - has no business in a web startup.

[true_religion]

I don't think its always a matter of unwilling as at times being unable.

When I was in university, I was a TA/Tutor and found that even upper level CS students have trouble coding. There are many cases where the students understood the upper-level concepts behind say networking, or DFA minimization but couldn't produce simple Fizzbizz level code.

The problem wasn't apparantly with their intelligence (as they could annunciate and expand on the concepts they were taught in class), or their rationality (they made it through the Discrete Math weedout), or even their determination (they worked hours upon hours outside of class)....

So now I'm one of those who believes that sometimes no matter how hard you try, there's a switch that won't go off to make one a 'coder'.

That said, I think a business guy should at least try to learn coding if his idea demands doing a lot of it to start with.

[Travis]

I don't believe that someone who is capable of founding a business cannot learn web programming. Flat out don't believe it. Much of the time, you hardly need to write code as much as think logically and build a product.

In fact, if it turned out that someone wasn't able to code, I probably don't want them as a co-founder because I don't think they are smart/determined/focused enough to run a business.

[falcolas]

Personally, I'd rather work with someone who knows their limits over someone who does a half-assed job (through lack of talent or ability). If only because I'd have to then later clean up said code.

I'll back this up with an anecdote. At a relatively small company I used to work for, the CEO was someone who used to code, some 17 years ago. However, he recently decided that he knows enough about coding to act as the lead developer for that company's flagship product. He then proceeded to drive development into the ground, arguing over the merits of using malloc instead of calloc, globals over locals, and the beauty of goto's.

He successfully runs several multi-million dollar companies, yet his smartest move was stepping back out of the development lead position, and back to that of managing the company.

Did knowing how to code get him where he is today? Ultimately, no. His business savy and contacts did that.

[Travis]

In a startup, if you "know your limits", you almost certainly aren't going to accomplish as much as you can.

In an office environment, different roles are much more important.

It also means that he was able to learn to code, but not to the standard that your product required.

[MatthewPhillips]

Personally I don't want non-programmers coding. It's a waste of both of our times. I want them to be excellent at whatever else they're bringing to the table. If content deals are necessary, I don't want to have to worry about that, I want the idea guy to lock those up for me so that I can just implement it. I want them to help our product go viral on twitter, or get prominently placed in app stores. Those are two things I hate having to do working solo projects.

[marknutter]

In this case, it's really irritating to hear someone play devil's advocate, because you know as well as the rest of us do most of these "ideas guys" don't offer much in return. If they had real domain specific knowledge, big time connections, or heck.. even capital, that'd be a different story. But let's please be honest here - self proclaimed "ideas guys" are looking for free or dirt cheap labor.

[raganwald]

I'm sorry you're irritated, but have a little empathy for business guys. Have you ever tried to hire a programmer? It seems like sturgeon's Revelation applies: 90% of everything is crud, and 99.99% of the self-proclaimed anything-guys (business, ideas, programming, investing, whatever) are full of it.

[marknutter]

Interesting perspective. Let's agree that 90% of everybody is full of it :)

[raganwald]

Speaking for myself, I have established 90% as my lower bound :-)

[turoczy]

The thing I never get is this… If the idea is so amazing, then you should be able to find funding to hire incredible developers to build it. If it's not that amazing, but you're convinced you're creative, then use that creativity to find the developers you need.

"Idea guy seeking developer" usually means "I think I have a get rich quick scheme."

[drzaiusapelord]

Excellent point. I'd also add that most good ideas are hard to recognize. Imagine trying to sell dropbox "Yeah, its like free backups meets FTP. Not sure how we're going to make money" or Facebook "Its the new myspace/friendster!"

A lot of the success is in things like marketing, good UIs, implementation, beating the competition in features, strong partnerships with other companies, creative new solutions, good policies, and lots of luck. The idea guy can't help you with any of that. The devil is in the details, not in the big idea. Most "big ideas" are plain to see, its some kind of technical or creative specialization that helps you rise past your competitors.

[zeemonkee]

A "business person" may be a domain expert in a vertical market. They may have an idea that requires an insight that only comes from years of working inside an industry that a developer, unless they have also worked in that industry, will simply not have. Furthermore the "business person" will be able to network in that industry.

[btilly]

I've seen this happen.

I've seen people claim that this will happen.

Based on what I've seen, the odds that the claim is accurate in any particular case are very low.

[jerf]

I think this is the black swan of the unsolicited ideas. Do they exist? Sure. I'm sure there's at least one out there. But it's not a case that everyone who wants to talk about swans has to spend a lot of time accounting for. Usually the unsolicited idea is "Clone $BIG_NAME_SERVICE for $500" with an optional rider of "specialized in a fully, profoundly unspecified manner for some set of people".

[drzaiusapelord]

Except "business person" has no idea how to market applications, what works with online marketing, and how to effectively communicate what the application does. Let alone how to sell apps commercially to skeptical deep pocketed IT buyers who ask questions regarding such "arcane" things like HIPPA or SOX or assurance or compatibility with large enterprise solutions.

His big contacts file is useless because his domain is in selling real estate not selling real estate apps.

[zeemonkee]

Generally I've found domain experts to have a healthy respect for other professions, including developers. I'm not talking about the caricature Craigslist mouth-breather with the awesome let's-clone-Facebook-for-$200 idea.

Sure, the real estate seller may not know about apps, but they do know what works and what doesn't work in the real estate market, what the potential legal issues may be, and where the pain points are. I've never worked in real estate, so I don't.

I suspect that's why so many pure-developer run startups are either things that only interest other developers (project management tools and the like) or things that "everybody" knows about, e.g. yet another Twitter client or social networking thingamajig. There's a ton of cash in vertical markets we don't touch because we don't know the right people in those industries to partner with.

The successful businesses I've worked in(startups that went on to achieve success, or already successful small to medium sized businesses) have all been in vertical markets - from forestry to tourism to retail marketing. You couldn't have built these on developer savvy alone. That may go against the HN philosophy that software developers are the be all and end all of startups, but the reality is that most successful businesses need teams of people of different backgrounds.

[fauigerzigerk]

That's absolutely right. And even if it sounds slightly outlandish here, I think, that's how most businesses are actually created.

[marknutter]

Yeah, but then a 50/50 split would make sense, not the 10/90 or 2/98 that they typically ask for.

[sdizdar]

Isn't idea guy actually domain expert which understand certain problem in a area like nobody else? She or he could be a medial doctor, maybe veterinarian, maybe small business owner, maybe cook, etc. Idea guy does not necessary need to be business guy which means that idea guy might be also a geek - and matching two geeks from different field is a big challenge.

[spencerfry]

Ideas are easy, yes, but executing on ideas is difficult. Very difficult. Often developers need to spend their time working on production and don't have the time to follow through with the other aspects of the business. That's why founding teams do the best and often those successful founding teams are made up of one "idea guy" to see the vision through.

[tacoe]

"...seem to assume..." is an assumption in itself. You're describing people that don't believe others can get ideas. That's not describing idea guys -- that's describing asshats. If you can't tell asshats from good idea guys, you've got a problem.

[sidmitra]

The idea guy has its own place in the market. It is the reason why there're so many consulting firms in the first place(including mine)!

Some people genuinely believe in their ideas, enough to pay someone else to do it(not in equity ofcourse). And those are usually the people whose ideas work out in the end.

[Raphael_Amiard]

> And those are usually the people whose ideas work out in the end.

I got the impression that in the tech world, those who succeed were those who did learn how to realize their ideas by themselves, or at least have an idea about how to realize them.

But then, i may be biased.

[sidmitra]

>realize their ideas by themselves

Agreed. But "realize" could mean developing it themselves, or finding another way. Here i was assuming the idea guy can't code himself out of a hole, and realizes that shortcoming.

[nhangen]

That's what I've been doing, and though I'm still very unhappy with developer churn, being able to hire and fire at will is convenient. It's just very hard to find someone that doesn't have a project mentality and is prepared to do great work.

[Tichy]

If you have such great ideas, then why aren't you rich? (Assuming only poor developers get approached by idea guys)

[lhnz]

Actually, I know a heck of a lot of developers who don't have very many ideas. They come into work, do what they are told to do and then go back home to watch TV...

[wtracy]

... and these idea people have automatically weeded those developers out by looking for people on GitHub.

Maybe they need to be looking somewhere else?

[lhnz]

That's actually a good point. Certainly don't look for programmers who already enjoy coding their own ideas, look for programmers that are solely motivated by money and couldn't care less about your idea.