Advice for entrepreneurs learning just enough code to build their MVP's?

[JahvonCreamCone]

Hey guys, hope this post finds you all in good health. (Wealth too ☺)

The month of March is approaching and I plan to spend it learning enough code to create a MVP of some of the many ideas I have.

I don't want to be a programmer. I just want to learn enough so I can create a MVP, get customer feedback and validation, then I proceed from there.

With this knowledge, I'll know exactly what my site needs, and how to properly instruct other devs that come on board. Plus I won't be overcharged for simple things due to lack of knowledge.

I have absolutely no knowledge of code, But I plan to start with Ruby on Rails.

I would love to hear some your advice.
- Things to do,
- Things to avoid
- What helped you
- Mistakes you made when you started and how to avoid them...ext.

I loook forward to hearing from you guys

 

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[twdavis]

Udacity
Khan Academy <----Their courses are all fantastic
CodeAcademy
TeamTreehouse <-----Real Deal

 

[BigBrianC]

You may want to try Python. Very good as a first (web) language. Very much like English. Codecademy has good tuts. Also make sure you fully understand the language well enough to create your mvp, otherwise youll waste tons of time and effort.

 

[mt_myke]

I don't want to be a programmer. I just want to learn enough so I can create a MVP, get customer feedback and validation, then I proceed from there.

"I don't want to be a surgeon. I just want to learn enough so i can do this guy's bypass, then I proceed from there."

A MVP is still a fully functional product, albeit minimal. It's no easier to make than the full-fledged product, the full-fledged product just takes more time - but time spent exerting the same amount of effort as the MVP, and requiring the same skills.

I have absolutely no knowledge of code, But I plan to start with Ruby on Rails.

You're not going to be able to learn to code up a MVP in a month. Programming is one of those 10,000 hour things. What you can do is get top-down experience with various platforms and see how far you get. What I mean more concretely is to try out various things, from a completely managed wordpress.com site to getting a virtual private server and installing the platforms from scratch. Take a lot of notes along the way. Unless your MVP is literally something like a blog or forum or shopping cart you won't be able to do any custom coding, not if you've never coded before. What you can do is figure out what's available, see how you feel about it (by attempting to use it), and find out what you don't know before hiring devs to make your MVP.

 

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[Journey2Million$]

I dunno why you guys make programming sound so hard. I learned the C language in a week (studying all day for 7 days) and I learned a bunch of other languages such as dbase, basic, fortran, and forth in a short time too. But assembly language took a few months to learn and C++ was difficult to get used to. I heard people say it takes about a year to get used to C++ because it's object oriented, which makes it awkward. I know some web programming languages are based on C. Javascript is based on C. I programmed a simple memory game with Javascript. You don't need freaking 10,000 hours to learn how to program in one language.

 

[BigBrianC]

I disagree with @mt_myke wholeheartedly. It is a million times easier to learn to program a specific thing than to learn to program in general. It's not like the surgeon example, it's more "I'm going to learn to build a bridge over my creek" versus "I'm going to learn engineering". For example, an instant messaging service. Learn sockets, communication, input/output to a server, a few misc things, done. You can learn how to do those things, hell, you can copy and paste enough and not have to actually write any code. Believe it or not, there are freelancer "software developers" who do nothing more than copy and paste to make a half-assed solution and ill-informed people pay hundreds and thousands of dollars to these buffoons.

 

[mt_myke]

Learn sockets, communication, input/output to a server, a few misc things, done.

He's never programmed before. He wants to have a MVP in a little over a month. Sure, he may be someone that can pick it up in a week - but if he was he'd probably already be programming. It would be an exceptional individual who could go from never having written a single line of code to understanding and implementing a modern internet app a month later. If someone like @Journey2Million$ had asked the same question, after giving his background, I would have given a different answer.

Anyway there's a huge multi-year flamewar about this topic on a gold thread called "Learning to program is STUPID!", OP should definitely skim that as it covers a lot of the issues and beliefs.

 

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[BigBrianC]

Sure, but you don't know his product, his background, etc. It's entirely possible and I've seen crazier.

 

[mt_myke]

Sure, but you don't know his product, his background, etc. It's entirely possible and I've seen crazier.

From the original post:

"I have absolutely no knowledge of code"

That tells me quite a bit about his background, and I already said if his product exactly fits into the model of a blog, forum, shopping cart etc. then yes he may be able to do it. As for the guys who can pick up coding in a week and have a MVP 3 weeks after starting from nothing - they nearly all started programming in their youth. It's possible, but not probable, in my experience.

 

[BigBrianC]

It'll depend on how much work he can put in in a month. The guys at coding bootcamps (the biggest damn scams in the world) don't do anything other than put in a hell of a lot of time and pay a ton of money. if he can put in a month of doing nothing but programming and working on it, it's extremely possible, maybe even likely. And of course its a linear relationship of time spent and product quality/progression

 

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[mt_myke]

It'll depend on how much work he can put in in a month. The guys at coding bootcamps (the biggest damn scams in the world) don't do anything other than put in a hell of a lot of time and pay a ton of money. if he can put in a month of doing nothing but programming and working on it, it's extremely possible, maybe even likely.

It could be!

And of course its a linear relationship of time spent and product quality/progression

Nope, it is most definitely not linear at all. That's the problem with software, if it's 99% done but missing one crucial thing it's basically worthless. Many examples of software that has caused millions in damages because it failed due to a single wrong 1 or 0. If a house isn't finished but the framing and roof is done you can still camp out inside and get partial shelter, or store things out of the rain in it. If your webapp works 100% except for the part where it shows the user the final result - or sends in their order - or the images of the products are missing - it's worthless, it can't be used at all.

 

[Journey2Million$]

These days I prefer to learn new stuff through tutorial videos from Lynda.com and youtube. Easier and more fun than learning from books. I haven't tried to learn programming from videos, but if I have to do web programming in the future, I will definitely try it.

 

[BigBrianC]

It could be!



Nope, it is most definitely not linear at all. That's the problem with software, if it's 99% done but missing one crucial thing it's basically worthless. Many examples of software that has caused millions in damages because it failed due to a single wrong 1 or 0. If a house isn't finished but the framing and roof is done you can still camp out inside and get partial shelter, or store things out of the rain in it. If your webapp works 100% except for the part where it shows the user the final result - or sends in their order - or the images of the products are missing - it's worthless, it can't be used at all.

Yeah definitely, I understand the point you're making here, but I was more thinking of "once it's reached final product"/"how done it is". The example you're using should be handled in the debugging time frame, which is still part of the time required in the development process. To be honest, debugging is, in fact, the hardest part of making a program and especially for beginners

The more we talk, the closer we get to being on the same page.

 

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[mt_myke]

These days I prefer to learn new stuff through tutorial videos from Lynda.com and youtube. Easier and more fun than learning from books. I haven't tried to learn programming from videos, but if I have to do web programming in the future, I will definitely try it.

There's also coursera. The programming courses are from undergraduate CS programs, so they are for career programmers. That may not be the best way to go for someone who just wants to crank something out as quickly as possible. On the other hand, they're free, and if you expect a lot more coding in your future then you'll get a solid foundation on which to build future skills on.

 

[marklov]

Why not pay someone else to do it?

 

[Digamma]

I dunno why you guys make programming sound so hard. I learned the C language in a week (studying all day for 7 days) and I learned a bunch of other languages such as dbase, basic, fortran, and forth in a short time too. But assembly language took a few months to learn and C++ was difficult to get used to. I heard people say it takes about a year to get used to C++ because it's object oriented, which makes it awkward. I know some web programming languages are based on C. Javascript is based on C. I programmed a simple memory game with Javascript. You don't need freaking 10,000 hours to learn how to program in one language.

Yeah, sure. You made a memory game, you must be an expert programmer. Dunning Kruger effect, I guess.

 

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[Sisyphus]

Check FAQ, lot of good info there