[Udo]

The things that irked me most about this terrible article have to do with the absence of any real product that "startup" has to offer, and when it does talk about making a product it's more a cumbersome afterthought than anything else.

Don't I need a product? Nah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important.

Don't get me wrong, not every founder needs to be able to do technical stuff. But I believe some understanding of what it is that you want to build is essential. If I had a cent for every time some "ideas guy" asks me to think through his entire product for the first time and then build it for a couple hundred bucks I'd have ...more than 20 cents I think. For some reason the same cheapness showcased in the article always coincides with the most clueless people.

[JVIDEL]

The problem with that statement is that it works: I seen plenty of startups with a lot of flare and filler but no product getting some generous seed rounds while the tech guys from another startup despite having an early version of the product get nothing.

Why? because their tech demo was boring to the non-tech investors, while the productless startup had a very clean well-prepared presentation that catches the eye of angels, even if they have nothing resembling an actual product.

Because doing that is easier for most people a lot of startups are born productless and focus almost solely on the presentation and pitch.

[mistercow]

>Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the author's advice about outsourcing, which I think is pretty clearly a relatively smart way to do outsourcing. They are not saying to outsource all of your coding, but to pick well-encapsulated units with a clear spec, and outsource those.

That makes sense, because doing it that way means that you can completely tear out that component and rewrite it later if needed.

[Udo]

You have a point. Maybe it's not quite fair if you just take the paragraph about outsourcing, but it all slides into place if you look at the entire article. Of course, having clearly-defined components is a good idea, and maybe I am somewhat weary from experience with these people. But the overall impression this article leaves just conjures these images up for me.