[crewtide]

Great article. I learned to code in my 30s, and about six months later the full meaning of it dawned on me: I could make any of my crazy ideas happen myself! No need to find someone else, no need to wait, I could just do it. It was awesome.

[rollypolly]

The problem with working on your own is getting things done in a reasonable time frame.

Sometimes opportunities are fleeting and you need a team of people to succeed while the getting is still good.

[jreeve]

I agree.

A secondary problem with going it alone for coding your MVP is that you don't amass skills at the same rate as someone who is working full time as a programmer.

You can learn quite a bit more material if you are under the gun to get changes made for clients who are paying you, and this can be multiplied when you are working with other people who know more about solving programming problems.

For what it's worth, I aspire to be the "technical founder" for a couple of startup ideas that I work on, but I quit doing other things with my one-man-shop media business.

My strategy (as someone who programmed in HS/College and quit for a decade, and who is now moving from being a wordpress hack to owning a more diverse set of programming tools to solve the problems I am give) has been to find work as a freelancer for a progressively higher-level agencies.

Even though ultimately my goal is to have the tech chops to realize my vision (and working for other people is a sideline to that), it doesn't hurt that I've been making a really good living programming for other people while learning how to do a diverse set of technical tasks.

This plan, of course, has taken me two years so far, and I have budgeted another two years for the same path.

If your time frame is short for a real product, indeed: "you need a team of people to succeed while the getting is still good".

[WalterSear]

I disagree. Ideas are cheap. Experience is valuable.

The way to tackle large problems is to tackle enough small problems to build the experience and track record you need, not 'find-someone-to-pay-me-to-hire-someone-else-to-do-it'.

[nikcub]

so, did you?