Coding vs Business Skills

That's true, but it's not like learning to code a little makes all your business knowledge fall out of your head. And the point of learning to code isn't that you'll now be the CTO, it's because founding a successful tech company is hard, let alone founding one when you don't know the difference between Java and Javascript. You can still be the business guy, but now you understand at least a little of the core of your business. Not to mention that if you're just a business guy with an idea and n

Programming talent and skills do not translated into business talent and skills. And vice versa. It does not even translate into an idea doable by just two guys that can sell well and is not easily doable by other two guys. How many such products does exist?

I think one of the biggest failures of developers is thinking that tech means anything when launching a business. Tech that works is table stakes. If nobody knows about your product then it may as well not exists, from a business perspective. If you want to start a business, the marketing and customer acquisition strategies are as important (if not more important) than the tech. Someone has to make sure your potential customers know your solution exists. It can be the founder or it can be a VP o

If you aren't interested in marketing or sales, find a person you trust as your co-founder who would be good at it, and get them to do it. Sales will eat you alive unless you have a passion for it. This may be a generalization, but most developers don't have the skin for sales since failing = moving on to a new project instead of refining the sales process until they lock the customers in.

Why don't you just learn to program? It is not that difficult and in a startup everyone needs to code. Engineers learn business skills all the time but it is strange that the reverse is not true.

you either know how to sell or you don'tin my experience someone who programs usually can't sellhire a marketing expert from your industry

A lot of programmers do not like or do it because they simply see no value to it. It's not that they don't "get it." They do. The problem arises when they decide to build a business. Their apathy towards marketing ends up killing their startup. A business is not the code but it's marketing. And programmers fail hard with that reality. That's why patio11 says that a programmer who can market is an unstoppable force. It's true.

The best technical people aren't always the best to start a business. The goal is to make money not have perfect code.

Allow me to clarify the "only an idea" issue. Ideas by themselves are not worth very much. They are just a starting point, and they usually change as the business evolves. Successfully building out a project requires many things. Programming the backend is just one part of it. Another crucial, often overlooked, piece of the puzzle is effective marketing. As a developer I would love to partner with someone who had zero web skills but was a tenacious salesperson, the kind that didn't take n

any developer who wants to build a business is becoming a marketer, full-stop, otherwise you’re just a hobbyist. marketing encompasses all of the functions of bringing a product to market and repeatedly exchanging it for money, including figuring out and developing the products/features people want and finding all the people who might want it.marketing, not development, is business. if that’s scary, it’s worth reconsidering your appetite for starting a business. luckily, th