[physcab]

I think you are best served by diving head strong into a programming language in order to make your idea a reality. When you struggle, get on mailing lists and forums. Go to Hacker meetups. Hang out at your nearest school's computer science lab. Contribute as best you can. Through that you will build connections and then you will be at the point of asking them to join you. However, if you have money, there are plenty of willing programmers who would be quite interested. What's your idea? How do you plan to differentiate yourself where other music startups have failed?

Disclaimer: I'm a programmer at a music startup.

[CSunday]

Disclaimer acknowledged.

My start up idea doesn't have anything to do with the Record labels, but it does have everything to do with bringing artists and fans together, and allowing artists to control their own careers instead of signing their souls away to record labels.

I plan to differentiate myself from other music startups by NOT having anything to do with the 4 big labels or their music, but instead bring new talents to light!

[physcab]

That's an interesting proposition. Let me shed some light on the process from what I've learned over the past year.

- Artists are all about distribution. For artists to want to effectively "sign" with you, you have to present them an avenue for distribution that is better than the current channels- Youtube, MySpace, Facebook, direct sales (Record labels and ITunes), and current music startups like us.

- For fans to want to be interested, there has to be a value proposition for them. Sure they want to be connected with artists, but there has to be something in it for them. We thought that by having millions of free streaming music would do it, but even then its STILL hard to get fans to commit.

So I don't know what you have in mind, but you have to keep your mind on distribution. And just a word of caution--if it involves anything revolving around distributing music, be prepared for lawsuits. :)