Learning to Program is STUPID! (or SMART?!)

[CryptO]

SOME of the books recommended to me by a pro copywriter.

However if you want to accelerate you'll need to pay for a mentor

"Scientific Advertising" Claude Hopkins

"Tested Advertising" Caples (4th edition or earlier only)

"How I Raised Myself from a Failure to Success in Selling" Betger

"How to Write a Good Advertisement" Schwab.

"How to Write Sales Letters That Sell" Drayton Bird

"The Robert Collier Letter Book" - by Robert Collier

"Tested Advertising Methods" -by John Caples

"The Lazy Man's Way to Riches" - by Joe Karbo

"Break-Through Advertising" - by Eugene M. Schwartz

"Advertising Secrets of The Written Word" by Joe Sugarman

"Making Ads Pay" by John Caples

Web Copy That Sells by Maria Veloso

The Architecture of Persuasion by Michael Masterson

Influence The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook by Joe Sugarman

"The Elements of Copywriting" by Gary Blake and Robert Bly

"The Ultimate Sales Letter" by Dan Kennedy

Cashvertising by Drew Eric Whitman

"Write to sell " it is written by Andy Maslen

"Influencing Human Behaviour" by H.A.

"Tested Sentences That Sell" by Elmer Wheeler

"Unlimited Selling Power" by Moine and Lloyd.

Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias

Bob Bly's "The Copywriter's Handbook"

How To Make Your Advertising Make Money - John Caples

The Copywriters Handbook - Bob Bly

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook - Joseph Sugarman

Sales Letters That Sizzle - Herschell Gordon Lewis

Cash Copy - Jeffrey Lant

Magic Words That Bring You Riches - Ted Nicholas

Ogilvy On Advertising

Method Marketing by Denny Hatch.

My First 50 Years in Advertising by Maxwell Sackheim.

The Greatest Direct Mail Sales Letters of all Time " by Richard Hodgson.

How To Write Advertising That Sells by Clyde Bedell

Ads That Sell by Bob Bly

Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich-- David Garfinkle

Magic Words-- Ted Nicholas

Robert Collier Letter Book-- Robert Collier

My Life In Advertising -- Claude Hopkins

Bird - Commonsense

The First Hundred Million by E. Haldeman-Julius

David Ogilvy's "Blood, Brains and Beer"

"Confessions of an advertising man"

"Million Dollar Mailings" by Denison Hatch

"The Wizard of Ads" trilogy by Roy H. Williams

Making Ads Pay by John Caples

Method Marketing - Denison Hatch

"How to Write Sales Letters that Sell" by Drayton Bird.

Hypnotic Writing -- Joe Vitale

"The Lazy Man's Way to Riches" - by Joe Karbo

Denny Hatch's Million Dollar Mailings

 

[healthstatus]

I still don't understand why people here want to learn to code!

Spend that time learning to market and write sales copy. Spending 1000 hours to learn to code to spend 200 hours writing an app is STUPID.

Spend the 1000 hours learning to market and write copy, and you can use that skill for the life of the app, plus the life of the next app, and other peoples apps AND it makes you money. Writing code just means you have something, but it won't sell itself.

Here is how it will work if you learn to code:
1000 hours learning to code.
200 hours writing an app.
wait for a sale, wait some more, wait some more.
Spend 1000 hours learning to market and write copy.
sell some of your app
spend 150 hours fixing bugs and responding to support issues because your app is crap because it takes 5000 hours to really learn how to code.
get frustrated and yank your app because of the PITA factor and all the bad reviews of your app.


Learn to market and write copy:
1000 hours learning to market and write code, while that 1000 hours is going on, pay someone that has 10,000 hours of training on apps to write your app.
Start marketing your app immediately.
Sell lots of your app.
Pass any support issues to the developer
Sell lots more of your app.
Create 3 more apps and market the hell out of them
Go to the bank often to deposit checks.

Do you SEE the difference????

 

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[theag]

google guys? coded it themselves.
facebook guys? coded it themselves
ebay guys? coded it themselves
hotmail? coded it themselves
pinterest owners? coded it themselves
microsoft? coded it themselves.
reddit?
slashdot?
yahoo?
paypal?
and the list goes on.

the major owner's wrote the first version/prototypes themselves, before they started hiring programmers.

if you want to make billions upon billions, you better learn to code!
if you are shooting for 6, 7 figures, then programming is stupid.

Thats absolutely right. But the fact that you and others who are pro-code-learning ignore is that all those famous technology founders who coded themselves were programmers BEFORE they even thought about starting a business. They were programmers and saw a need in the market to put their skills to use. Not the other way around as people on this board.

Don't get me wrong, I think programming/web development is a great skill to have as an entrepreneur. I started building websites etc when I was 10 or 11, back when the web was completely different. And this experience definitely helps me in my thinking today. But if I would start today I wouldn't learn how to program, because there are enough cheap programmers available to build a prototype for you. What I would learn though are the big picture concepts of web/app development, tools like mockup-creation, be familiar with the technologies out there (e.g. know what programming/scripting languages exist and what they are used for, understand different database concepts, sql vs. nosql etc). Don't learn programming, but learn how to work with programmers to achieve the results you want.

 

[CryptO]

Learn advertising and team up or pay programmers, it will save you a ton of time and headaches

I am a builder of property in real life (offline world).

Every millionaire property developer that I shake hands with, has never got their hands dirty on a site.

Why do people think building websites should be any different?

The person who owns the property makes the money, not the builder

 

[theag]

Thanks for posting this, I can't agree more!

I always cringe when people write that they want to learn how to code. Its not worth it. It takes too long and as soon as you learned the basics there are 1000 things that changed on the technology side. Learn marketing and sales. Use your time to find a need. Don't learn to program if you want to be an entrepreneur. Even the great entrepreneurs in technology only coded the first prototype themselves and then let the specialists take over.

That said, I think every internet/technology entrepreneur should know about the basic technologies that his business is based on. The people wanting to start an ecommerce empire without knowing how to set up a site themselves are just as bad as the guys wanting to learn programming. This is also vital if you're eventually outsourcing/hiring for the technology/programming part, you won't get what you want/need if you don't have a clue what you are talking about.

 

[Whole Paradigm]

Love ya healthstatus but I disagree,

I'm learning how to code as we speak. Have been for a while now. I love learning this just as much as I enjoy learning about all other aspects of business. Instead of saying that learning something you want to learn is "stupid", perhaps you should say that it wasn't beneficial to YOU. To tell anyone that learning anything is stupid is in fact, stupid, and I know you're smarter than that.

I also enjoy learning how to cook, speak different languages, sew, and a million other things. I'm not stupid I'm enlightened and interested.



All the best,

Cory

 

[EastWind]

google guys? coded it themselves.
facebook guys? coded it themselves
ebay guys? coded it themselves
hotmail? coded it themselves
pinterest owners? coded it themselves
microsoft? coded it themselves.
reddit?
slashdot?
yahoo?
paypal?
and the list goes on.

the major owner's wrote the first version/prototypes themselves, before they started hiring programmers.

if you want to make billions upon billions, you better learn to code!
if you are shooting for 6, 7 figures, then programming is stupid.

 

[healthstatus]

People try and justify learning to code by saying they don't have enough money to pay for app development. (and when I say app I mean any computer/web/phone code). If you learn to write copy, you can sell an affiliate product, or just write good text ads and make enough to pay for your app development.

I made my living for 20 years writing code and managing programmers, I have made a MUCH better living now that I write good copy. I know what I am talking about.

I have a couple of trips coming up, and I already have my sales letters ready to go to sell three different products from my website, these will generate me several thousand dollars of spending money for my trips. Learning to write good sales copy is like turning your computer into an ATM.

 

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[LamboMP]

They learn how to code because they have no capital.

 

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[theag]

I also enjoy learning how to cook, speak different languages, sew, and a million other things. I'm not stupid I'm enlightened and interested.

The difference is, as you say yourself, that you learn coding as an aspect of business. You learn how to code to make money, you learn how to code because you think it will help you in business. This is completely different from learning how to cook or speak other languages. Nobody says that learning is stupid. But to learn programming up to a level where it really helps you, you have to pursue this will 100% time committment, because things are changing everyday in technology and you have to be on top of everything. And if you do that you don't have time to build a business. But it seems like its pointless to discuss this. You have to decide for yourself: do you want to be an entrepreneur or a programmer?

Take a look at this guy who was on here some months ago and now isn't active anymore. Don't remember his name. He learned how to code in Ruby on Rails and built a website for freelancers which looked nice, worked fine etc. Did everything himself and took him a few months to launch. As far as I remember it didnt really work out for him (no updates from him and on his blog for half a year), because not enough people were using the site (big surprise, because there are enough freelancer sites). So he ended up taking a job as a programmer with his new skills. Great. All this learning to get a job. If he had focussed on doing proper research if theres a need for the 100th freelancer site instead of learning how to code he would be in a different situation now, maybe with a successful business. If you want to go that route, sure, go on.

 

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[healthstatus]

google guys? coded it themselves.
facebook guys? coded it themselves
ebay guys? coded it themselves
hotmail? coded it themselves
pinterest owners? coded it themselves
microsoft? coded it themselves.
reddit?
slashdot?
yahoo?
paypal?
and the list goes on.

the major owner's wrote the first version/prototypes themselves, before they started hiring programmers.

if you want to make billions upon billions, you better learn to code!
if you are shooting for 6, 7 figures, then programming is stupid.

and EVERYONE on your list had YEARS of programming experience when they wrote their code. Nobody on the list learned to code their app 3 months ahead of time, then they ALL struggled until they got hooked up with someone that helped them market, either an incubator, VC or marketing partner. I would also highly discount any of your companies over 6 years old, that was the wild west days of the Internet and you could have crappy stuff and people would tolerate it.

BTW Microsoft modified code they bought from someone else, Gates did not write all that code.

For those that are yapping that learning is not stupid but fulfilling, why are you here? This is the FASTLANE forum, if you want to get ahead faster and quicker I am telling you how to save yourself a BUNCH of time and heartache by informing you where to concentrate your time. The odds of anybody over the age of twenty that doesn't know how to code right now, will learn enough code to create a successful app by themselves are huge.

If you want to learn to make money, you focus on the things that make you money, learning to code and writing code is not money making.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I didn't spend months trying to learn those skills, they came along as I had more and more experience in business.

This is exactly how I learned to code -- I didn't sit down and "spend months" trying to learn. I learned by solving each incremental challenge.

is it more important that your webpage render exactly the same on all browsers

If 60% of the internet users can't even read the bullet point YOU added, then yes.

The great misconception you are fostering is that you think the learning process is this:

"I need to learn how to code" = SPEND MONTHS LEARNING.

When it really is:

"I need to figure out how to launch a website" = GET IT DONE NOW = LEARN ALONG THE WAY = SEE WHAT HAPPENS = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN. (Gee, after months of doing this, I actually know the language(s)!)

Every website, no matter how big or small, started SMALL and with just a few pages.

When I started, I knew NOTHING. By the time I finished, I was dangerous. All those skills still transcend today with today's technologies: JQuery, HTML5, CSS, etc. All in all -- I never once sat down and said "Gee, I need to learn how to program- I'd better spend a few months learning." If someone is taking this approach, I'd probably agree to say that the odds are a little worse for success.

 

[The-J]

Programming is a good idea if you want to program.

It's not a good idea if you want to build businesses efficiently.

 

[FastNAwesome]

As this thread goes on and on, I'd just like to point one thing as someone who programs since elementary school.

Programming is a lifestyle, a life choice. Programmers are super geeks. Learning never stops. You gotta love it. Just go to stackoverflow and browse threads a bit until you find a conflict of opinions. You'll see some very harsh flaming there and very burning emotions over "upvote" or "downvote".

Why I say all this? Just to point out that many take "learning programming" too lightly. It got too complex and it gets more complex. There's much more components to it than newb can comprehend. It would be similar to asking "should I learn to build a house". You sure can - I know people who did. Build it on your own (bring friends to help), do the plumbing yourself, the electrity, everything. You can get a decent house that way + bragging rights, and lose a ton of time in the process.

So in general, to make an typical app or website by today's standards all on your own, here's a list of some things
you need to learn, a knowledge set to do it yourself:

1. HTML
2. CSS
3. JavaScript
4. Some server side programming language
5. SQL and database design

Ok, so that's 5 languages - and it's just a bare minimum to make an app or dynamic website.
So when you learn all this, you can make your app that functions but is ugly and non-marketable
because we haven't even touched yet on:

6. Design
7. User experience

But ok, you cover that too, either by hiring someone to do it,
or adding even that to your skillset.

So now your website finally shines on your big nice monitor,
and you're finally ready to do it! You feel proud and start
sending link to friends, just to hear from them "it's not working",
"it's sort of broken", "i get some warning".

Oh, no. We forgot to make sure your website looks and works properly on
all major operating system x web browser type x web browser version combo.
And also on monitors of different size. And on mobiles.

Yes, different browsers, and different versions of the same browser see your
site differently, and have different "skill level" at interpreting your creation.
So you have to take care of:

8. Cross browser and cross platform compatiblity.

Ok, with that out of the way, you're finally good to go, so put your app online and enjoy. Everything
will probably be cool. You don't have to check stats, you'll know when you get big, as your website
will be so hacked and owned in no time! Because you didn't even have a clue that there's a thing called:

9. Security

You didn't cover that. Just made your app work, in belief no one will try to access it in malicious way. But they will. You don't even have to make it. You can have the lousiest site ever, with 1 visit a month. Some automated bot will find your vulnerable contact form, and use it to send 10k spam emails on your behalf, and at your expense. So then will your host hopefully shut down your site and send you a warning, because if they don't you can get blacklisted for spamming.

---

CONCLUSION:

I, who know to program and have even build quite complex apps on my own - plan to delegate programming to someone else as soon as I can as it just takes too much time. Just in the past month I had to familiarize with 5 new APIs, and right this moment I'm learning LESS (extension of CSS).

You can get a strong hold of it, and nothing bad in learning, just be aware that it takes a lot of time, and decide for yourself.

And whenever you get a hold of it, there's something new to learn.

This is why there are front-end developers, back-end developers, database administrators...

Geeks (if any) please spare me tech remarks ("js can also be used server-side" etc.)
I just tried to paint a rough picture that things are more complex than usually perceived.

 

[qhead]

Hehe, this thread made me lol a bit but then I realized that it's pretty obvious that you would think that learning to program is only about learning how to write code. Knowing how to program changes your way of thinking. You start to understand how things actually work nowadays. I would go even further and say that those who know how programming concepts work and are entrepreneurs (important) have it so much easier when it comes to going fastlane. For example, I didn't find a business intelligence platform that is priced in the sane level and at the same time does what I want. So guess what I did. I took few days, took some open-source components, glued them together and now I have BI system that measures EVERYTHING in my business and provides me tools to slice & dice that data to answer any business questions I have. Those few days are worth at least ~35000 euros a year if I compare it to the cost of proper BI system. And you have count the support fees on top of that because you don't know how to use the system. Of course I can hear people say that it can't possibly do everything that for example IBM's BI platforms do and yes, it can't. However it does exactly what I need it to do and when I need it to do something more, I will make it so.

So I would say that you know how to market? Good for you, how many hours you spent on learning to do that? Must have took you a quite few hours to read all those classic books. Great, let me hire a copywriter for few thousand bucks, let him deliver Good Enough copy and then keep optimizing the funnel where it loses the prospect by the numbers. Sorry but I have been in the internet marketing scene for the past 15 years and I can say from experience that there's 13 marketers in dozen that know all the tricks and can provide you Good Enough copy that you can tweak to be perfect - if you know where to look for.

Oh and let's not even talk about how much you can save with SEO and SEM when you know how to automate.

Learning to market is just another skill that you can either use to "drive in the fastlane" or to sell by hourly units, or even better, words. Most people choose the latter option. If you are learning to program just to write iOS app, good for you but keep in mind that producing an awesome app takes a lot more than knowing the basics of programming. You have to understand how to maintain a proper structure to make maintenance possible and all the other stuff that comes when you write something bigger than Hello World. You better have interest of using the programming for other things as well and not just for that one app.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

But I do have to thank you for reminding me again why money doesn't correlate with anything real.

Sorry, but its symbolic to how much value you have given. Money is highly correlated to value.

Just for the sake of sharing can you please tell me the name of your company so I'll make a note never to do business with you or your company.

There's a reason why I don't share anything identifiable about my businesses...

So you call him out on the very thing you refuse to do.

For all you know I could be Richard Branson or Sergey Brin.

After looking at the registration for your account, it's safe to say you're not.

Oh I'm sorry. I didn't realize you made this thread with provocative title and then start to cry when somebody disrespectfully disagrees with your idiotic notions about things you clearly have no experience with.

I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying - the delivery, not so much.

Learning to program is stupid!

Count me in as *stupid* -- I'd rather be stupid and rich, than smart and poor.

In all seriousness, I didn't comment on this thread because I feel it was delivered in an "all or none" fashion -- "learning to program is stupid" is an absolute statement that leaves no room for interpretation w/respect to individual strengths or weaknesses.

It reminds me of the old "Is going to college stupid?" question that gets so heatedely debated around here -- the true answer depends on the person. As qhead mentioned, some people can pickup the nuances rather quickly, others cannot. Some can delegate/lead/outsource better than others.

This is not a "one size fits all" answer, just like the age old college question.

My take.

Hope the two of you take a deep breath and step back from the conversation -- after reading all of it, I think both of you make some very valid points that everyone can ascribe to their personal situation.

 

[CryptO]

Luckily I realised this early.

I study copy, it opens doors. I team with coders.

 

[bigtamale]

But if I would start today I wouldn't learn how to program, because there are enough cheap programmers available to build a prototype for you. What I would learn though are the big picture concepts of web/app development, tools like mockup-creation, be familiar with the technologies out there (e.g. know what programming/scripting languages exist and what they are used for, understand different database concepts, sql vs. nosql etc). Don't learn programming, but learn how to work with programmers to achieve the results you want.

Pretty decent advice here.

I'm new and have no cred but have been in the software as a service business for years. I'd say that I was an entrepreneur before hack but that's only because I believe I was born one. My earliest thoughts were of hustle.

If you some guys are straight up who entrepreneurs think you can survive without technical knowledge just by throwing money at problems, you'd be wrong. Unless you've got a best friend that fills the nerd vacuum inside your soul.

You'll always have faulty (not buggy) code that doesn't do what you originally intended.
You'll always feel like programmers are stupid, and the feeling will be reciprocated (great atmosphere)
You'll have major problems changing gears and replacing this "disposable" commodity.
You'll never have quick bug turnarounds in a live environment.
... and worst of all, you'll always delay shipping code. Which is what gets everyone paid.

Good advice would be to take a weekend and pay a really, really good programmer to give you an intensive training on a LAMP stack (normal hosting environment) and some kind of overview on basic concepts of programming (database connection & interraction, arrays, loops & scraping).

It's completely possible and understandable that you'd leave that training session with a headache in need of a vacation ... but the truth is, you'll have seen inside the black box and will have a MUCH better idea of what all is possible. You'll also be able to communicate better with the people who are building the software that builds your bank account.

... or you can keep spinning your wheels thinking you know better. Your call.

 

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[The-J]

Most of the people on the thread are extremely attached to the idea and not giving as much power to the execution.

You need sales and marketing skills to execute, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The people here act as if programming is the entry barrier to Web businesses. It's not. The entry barrier is getting your message heard above all the noise. The Internet is unique as the entry barrier for building and distribution is extremely low, but the marketing is what kills 99% of Internet businesses. You need sales and marketing: advertising strategies, SEO implementation, social media leverage, networking with the powerhouses in your niche, etc etc etc.

MJ said it best: marketing is the queen of the chess board. Learning programming takes months. Learning it well takes years. Same with marketing. But good luck finding someone to sell your product for you when your product has no track record of sales.

 

[Steve W]

Here is how it will work if you learn to code:
1000 hours learning to code.
200 hours writing an app.
wait for a sale, wait some more, wait some more.
Spend 1000 hours learning to market and write copy.
sell some of your app
spend 150 hours fixing bugs and responding to support issues because your app is crap because it takes 5000 hours to really learn how to code.
get frustrated and yank your app because of the PITA factor and all the bad reviews of your app.


Learn to market and write copy:
1000 hours learning to market and write code, while that 1000 hours is going on, pay someone that has 10,000 hours of training on apps to write your app.
Start marketing your app immediately.
Sell lots of your app.
Pass any support issues to the developer
Sell lots more of your app.
Create 3 more apps and market the hell out of them
Go to the bank often to deposit checks.

Learn to market and write copy:
Have an idea for an app.
Tell the world about it by advertising for a developer.
Watch helplessly as somebody steals your idea, creates a fantastic app & makes a mint from it.
or spend months discussing your app with a developer who's native language isn't the same as yours & eventually give up as you couldn't communicate effectively or discover the developer couldn't really do the job.
or eventually find a great developer & pay them a big chunk of cash (& ongoing royalties or fees if the app ever takes off).
Discover no-one else has that appreciation for your app that you do & kiss goodbye to the aforementioned big chunk of cash.
or find a developer who decides your idea is actually pretty good & develops a similar & better app for him/herself.
or find a developer who decides to put a virus or other nasty in your app to teach you a lesson because you didn't pay them enough & work at McDonalds the rest of your life as your reputation is shot & you now have huge legal fees to pay.

Here is how it will work if you learn to code:
Spend whatever time it takes learning to code while developing your app the way you want it at the same time, creating a system that will allow you to very quickly create other apps.
Have complete control & ownership of your app.
Pay a once only fee to a copywriter for copy that you can use for this & modify as required for any future apps.
Market the hell out of your app.
Sell lots of copies your app.
Tweak your app as required yourself quickly & efficiently scoring major brownie points with your customers due to your amazing response time. Enhance your reputation & use this as a marketing tool.
Repeat as required for future apps.
Sit on a Mediterranean beach counting your money while sipping cold drinks out of a tall glass & bask in the satisfaction of having actually created something worthwhile yourself rather than having to get a more skilled person to do it for you.

 

[healthstatus]

MJ coded it himself, and was NOT a pro. I don't see the point in calling it stupid to learn how to code. In fact, its quite the opposite.

You can be ahead of your competitors because the time it takes to introduce new features and adapt to the markets needs is severely reduced.

I coded my my first project at HRA.net myself, and as a guy that has written code for 30+ years, I can assure you what we got away with in the late 1990's up to about 2003, would not even get a second look today or be tolerated. It was the wild west, no running water and the train had not made it to town yet.

Can we have a show of hands of all the people on this thread that are telling me I don't know what I am talking about that make a full time living off their own Internet business? I have for over 10 years.

Have any of you ever had a bad meal when eating out? Did you then go and train yourself to become an expert chef? Probably not. Since someone posting had a bad experience with an outsourcer that is justification to learn code. How many of you are learning to be tax accountants and lawyers? Because once you learn to program and write this FANTASTIC app that is going to make you money, how the hell will you find anybody that would help you out with tax and legal stuff that aren't going to steal your ideas and put you out of business? Oh right, NOBODY ever has problems with tax accountants or attorneys they are all more outstanding citizens than a good programmer.

Do you hear yourselves yet? I am telling you to quit focusing on the wrong thing and learn how to make MONEY. Many of you watch Shark Tank and what are they always asking, what are your sales?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I just see thread after thread of people saying,

Unfortunately, that's the nature of the beast...

Just like thread-after-thread of "$100 to $100 million in 100 days!" -- it get's really old.

And you know what else gets old? "I want to start a lead generation company!" -- why? Because I did it YEARS ago? FN YEARS AGO.

Also old: "I have this great idea!!! Is it Fastlane!?"

That said, I advocate doing EXACTLY what will work for you. For some, that means learning how to program. For others, it's outsource, delegate, and partner.

And yes, ultimately all entrepreneurs must learn to be market and sell because entrepreneurship is always about selling: You sell to to potential customers, to potential employees, to potential investors, etc ... the "selling" really never stops.

 

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[FloK]

Couldn't agree more. I learned C++ and Cobol I and Cobol II in college. Once I graduated, everything I learned was outdated. I think the point is you want to have highly leveraged skills as an entrepreneur because time is your most valuable asset.

To me the best skills to learn as an entrepreneur are:

Sales: Learn to sell in person, by phone, and through videos. I took a telemarketing job to learn how to sell. And like someone else mentioned, when you know how to sell, you know to create value which can = money.

Advertising: Learn to write ads that get your phone to ring, traffic to your site, emails in your database. Once you have a database, you now have something that can be leveraged.

Money Management: If you can't manage money, you won't stay in business no matter how much you make.

Project Management: Create or buy a system that manages your important projects. Your projects have to either involve creating sales, or managing customers.

Everything else can wait.

You can learn coding AFTER you've started your successful business. Just realize that being a coder is a religion, it's not something you can "use" just so you can make money. You would need to literally eat, sleep, and poop code. Then do it all over again when the new stuff comes out.

I think this is my first post here so I hope I didn't hijack your thread sorry!

 

[Pat]

Take a look at this guy who was on here some months ago and now isn't active anymore. Don't remember his name. He learned how to code in Ruby on Rails and built a website for freelancers which looked nice, worked fine etc. Did everything himself and took him a few months to launch. As far as I remember it didnt really work out for him (no updates from him and on his blog for half a year), because not enough people were using the site (big surprise, because there are enough freelancer sites). So he ended up taking a job as a programmer with his new skills. Great. All this learning to get a job. If he had focussed on doing proper research if theres a need for the 100th freelancer site instead of learning how to code he would be in a different situation now, maybe with a successful business. If you want to go that route, sure, go on.

I am pretty sure he learned to code because the coder he had hired did not deliver.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that everyone should learn to program. It took me years to get good at it and I still have a lot to learn. But outsourcing is also not as easy as it sounds (unless you get really lucky).

If your business requires advanced programming and it's not something you want to learn, then you better have a lot of money to pay your programmer and/or are prepared to give up equity. If not, then you are in the wrong business and you should look for something more suitable for your situation.

Thinking about it, too many people want to succeed online nowadays. I am not going to open up a bakery without any experience in the field. Same should apply to all the wanna be online entrepreneurs on here.

If you really wanna succeed online, you better get some experience in affiliate marketing or somewhere similar before diving in deep without any clue about anything.

 

[DeletedUser397]

I couldn't disagree more.

Comparing coding to writing sales pitches is apples to oranges. They're both skills that are great to have. But to say coding is pointless is to disregard the commandment of Entry. Coding is like that brick wall that will leave 'the others' out. I'm a bit subjective since I taught myself web development when I was in highschool, and despite getting my college degree in business, decided to make a career of web development (all self-taught).

Even if you're not planning on creating an app or some system in 'the fastlane' you can fall back on a solid 'job' with coding, whereas your prospects for sales letters and copywriting are much more slim. The market is saturated with sales skills people. Coding is a very well-paid talent because of the time and effort it takes to learn it. And likewise, you can develop a lot more high value products through it. Whereas copywriting is just a side skill you'll need to market your product... it's hard to create a product from just copywriting etc.

And to hire someone who does know how to code, you should know a little yourself unless you want to easily get scammed or ripped off. But sure if you're business isn't in apps or web related, then sure forget coding altogether. But if you plan to be successful in the app, web-app, mobile dev, digital media industry, etc... you should know some basics... not necessarily know how to code, but know the differences between say html and javascript, different browsers, and other lingo/jargon.

 

[araknid]

This has been an interesting thread. It's taken me more than a week to read all of it.

I'm a software engineer, having taught myself coding 5 years ago. I don't regret it one bit (pun not intended).

The OP is right on a lot of counts. Marketing and sales are universal skills: nearly every product or service needs marketing and selling. Not all products are software.

"Build it and they will come" rarely happens. In "Zero to One" Peter Thiel talks a lot about how important sales and marketing is. PayPal shook up a massive industry, they apparently had world-class software, but got started by a viral marketing tactic: offering people money to sign up, targeting the market of eBay power sellers.

I also think that a lot of software guys/girls have a natural bias towards coding, just because for us we can be like the apocryphal man with a hammer, where everything looks like a nail. We naturally neglect the marketing and sales because we think the value is in the code. Or we ignore non-tech opportunities.

On the other hand, pure marketing people who don't focus on their own "productocracy" and who sell someone else's product may not be fully in control anymore (thus violating CENTS).

My point is, having multiple skills is important.

But I don't think it's one or the other. Learning coding wouldn't prevent you from learning marketing/sales along the way. It's a false dichotomy.

Here are some business benefits of learning coding:

• You are often at the bleeding edge of innovation
• You are primed to see opportunities to innovate and automate, in the tech field or otherwise
• You learn to think in a "systems" way: examples include single points of failure, feedback loops, bottlenecks
• The jobs are well-paid, and normally cushy. I've never been asked to work overtime. I work from home. People treat me well. My salary is great (though here in the UK probably lower on average than the US). Therefore, I have capital and time to throw at my own endeavours.
• I can spin up an MVP, landing page, or app very quickly for almost no cost
• Learning new fields in tech becomes even easier with experience/skills
• As Naval Ravikant pointed out in the video posted above, if you are competing against someone who is outsourcing, you can iterate at least 10x faster than them and probably 100x cheaper. There's less communication overhead, security risk (see caveat below) and financial risk
• Dustin Moskovitz also pointed out in a video in the "How to Start a Startup" series that you may have more chance of becoming wealthy by joining an early stage startup and getting equity, compared to starting your own startup. Though probably only holds true in places like SF. Point is, you have more options for the fast lane

The thing is, had I read the OP before teaching myself I may have been put off! Then again, I was so determined, so maybe not.

However, another thing I agree on with healthstatus is that most people underestimate how long it takes to learn.

Like any other complex skill, it takes time. It takes years.

And here's the thing: the deeper you get, more you realise how vast the field is. Software is a subset of computer science. And web dev / app dev is a subset of software.

Sure, you can learn how to put an "<h1>" element on a page or code "var a = 1 + 2" pretty quick. After a year, spending hours every day teaching myself, I just about got a job as a junior dev. Even now, years later, I'm in awe of what I don't know.

To make a full-featured SaaS, you need to at least know a little bit about command lines, databases, web servers, design, SEO, accessible HTML, security, etc. Outsourcing could help here. If you are crap at design, hire a designer. Or buy your own templates.

I don't want to put anyone off though. If you really want it you'll learn. You can be productive and competent before being a master. But still be realistic, patient, and think long-term.

Don't buy into the BS that a minority of people are naturally good at coding. That's a fixed mindset: read "Mindset" by Carol Dweck to see why. People can learn almost anything if they are committed enough.

But do most people want it badly enough to keep going through the endless crashes and bugs (because you missed a comma), hours of being stuck on a problem, and realising how much there is to learn? Only some.

Finally, here are some tips to those who are determined to learn:

• Make sure you have a decent understanding of security and vulnerabilities: you owe it to your users. Don't run your own server if you don't understand OS security, use something like Heroku or another platform-as-a-service. Use a battle-tested framework like Django, Rails etc instead of writing your own web and database framework (unless it's a learning exercise). If you don't, you will probably get SQL-injected, and it will suck. Likewise, use front-end frameworks like React to avoid XSS vulnerabilities.
• I found courses (Udemy, YouTube) easier to use at first compared to books, but find out how you learn best
• Have a strong preference towards doing. Don't study from a book all day. Make silly projects to teach yourself, make mistakes
• You will encounter literally thousands upon thousands of bugs and errors on your journey. You will get stuck on problems for hours. Welcome to programming!
• Understand the basics of computers and computer science at least. Nowadays, you can program without knowing too much (because the languages are at a higher level) but it helps
• Learning web dev is a good place to start, since SaaS is still a good business model. HTML and CSS are the easiest - though they are not real programming languages. Learning JavaScript is useful, since it is used exclusively for front-end, is used for React Native (cross-platform mobile apps), NodeJS (used server side) etc. It's not the perfect language for beginners though - Python may be better. Doesn't really matter: after you learned the first one, others just get easier

Long post, but hope this helps someone!

 

[theag]

I am pretty sure he learned to code because the coder he had hired did not deliver.

Yea, I think you're right. But thats not really a reason to learn coding. It just shows that you need a certain level of high level technology knowledge to judge who you are hiring.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that everyone should learn to program. It took me years to get good at it and I still have a lot to learn.

Very happy to finally hear this from somebody who is actually a TRAINED programmer.

But outsourcing is also not as easy as it sounds (unless you get really lucky).

If your business requires advanced programming and it's not something you want to learn, then you better have a lot of money to pay your programmer and/or are prepared to give up equity. If not, then you are in the wrong business and you should look for something more suitable for your situation.

Absolutely right. The way it should be is: Idea -> High level technology knowledge -> Cheap MVP prototype -> Proof rough product/market-fit-> Hire programmer for equity (unrealistic) or get investment based on prototype and hire programmer (more realistic)

Thinking about it, too many people want to succeed online nowadays. I am not going to open up a bakery without any experience in the field. Same should apply to all the wanna be online entrepreneurs on here.

If you really wanna succeed online, you better get some experience in affiliate marketing or somewhere similar before diving in deep without any clue about anything.

I completely agree. Most people on here that want to start a web or app business have absolutely no idea what it involves and start with the wrong things. They read about outsourcing in some success-story or book and quickly hire somebody and send them a few instructions about their idea. Sometimes this works, most times it doesn't and they give up.

 

[dknise]

So the issue is specifications and product management.

I recently made a post urging people who want to run a software company but don't want to learn any code to at least read a book or something on software requirements. This forum's idea that you don't have to know ANYTHING about your product is insane. I keep hearing and "hire a good team to do it," but truly innovative projects, like Lgallion said, that will provide big market value aren't cheap. To develop a truly good product could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a team.

Also, I'm one of the only people here that's been to a programming interview. You know who the stupidest people to interview with were? Recruiters. They knew absolutely nothing about software and therefore shouldn't have been hiring for software. How do you know what languages your programmer needs to know if you don't know what languages are available? If you expect to just toss that to any developer and let them decide, you just killed your entire product.

NO! You learn to sell. Then you can sell the idea to prospects, investors and startup incubators, and get the financing to get an experienced team to do it the right way.

You can't learn ALL the things that you have to have a fundamental to do a project these days. User interface design, database design, code, server software, webserver, cacheing, cloud computing, DNS redundancy and more... When MJ, Amazon, eBay and all the examples people want to throw out there, it was the wild west times of the Internet. We are way passed that.

Show me. Prove it. Who's out there starting hugely successful software companies with a limited budget and can't read a single line of code? I'm not saying become a Bill Gates or an expert in it... but at least be a Steve Jobs at it. He wasn't an amazing coder, but he knew enough so that he knew who to hire, what he was looking for, and how to tell them what to make.

This whole "I'm too lazy to learn anything about a product I want to make and everyone else can do it all no questions asked" is the most absurd thing I have ever, freaking, heard, in my entire life.

The types of clients you guys on the forum who are touting this are a software developers worse nightmare.

Sincerely,
- A professional software developer.

 

[azntitan]

Hi guys. First post here..wanted to chime in with my story, hope it adds some value.

I was 22 fresh out of college, working at a job I hated, and saw the programmers on my team had more autonomy and in general took way less bullshit from anybody. Also around that time Facebook was becoming huge and I knew the internet was the way to go. i came up with this huge vision of a map that could track where people were at all times, and it was really poorly-thought out (i was a complete amateur) and I had zero hope of ever coding this thing. Anyways I started to learn and it was freaking hard. I started and stopped a few different books and courses but finally learned enough to get a full time software dev job. Did that for a year and realized i would never be in the top 5% of developers. You really do need a certain brain and while i can be above average at it, i wasn't the geek type coder whio could program all night and be happy with what i was doing.

I still had ideas for websites i wanted to make though so I kind of kept at it. A year later i put out my first website, it was a shoe review website but I had zero idea how to market it. It probably could have done OK over time if I knew how to copywrite or drive users to the site but again i knew nothing and had no one to help me (millionaire fast lane didn't exist back then i don't think). So i gave that up.

This has gone on for ten years. Over that period i have learned many programming languages, put up a few websites, outsourced one, and finally invested 2 years of my life to learning iOS development after it had already gotten hot and the app store saturated. I took 4 months to make a dating app (cuz it was my passion. wish i had remembered the lessons from the Millionaire fast lane) with zero market research in an incredibly competitive dating app space dominated by tinder.

Once I released my app and then decided to take a look at my competition I knew i was toast. My idea was not original, the design was shit, and like 10 other competitors with basically similar idea had no users either, they also had way bigger pocketbooks than broke me.

So, yea failure. I read Rob carraway's story on instagif and lots of posts on indiehackers and then read MIllionaire Fast lane again for the second time (i'm a slow , stubborn learner) and now I think the ideas are finally starting to sink in.

This is what my opinion is about this thread's topic:

Learn enough to program ONE website or app (based on whatever idea you have).
invest only up to 3 months to do this if it's your first time programming.
The reason is like some other posters have said: you need to know enough to know s to the hell you are talking about when you hire programmers. You will be taken more seriously and you can better specify the product for them to build.
This is all you need IMO. All my time spent learning programming beyond that first 3 months hasn't been useful to me. I'm still broke and unemployed because i didn't learn to SELL and I didn't learn marketing.

BTW Zuck's first version of facebook was very bad , CODE-wise, but it succeeded because of product market fit and because he could throw out an MVP. Knowing enough to hack something together is a good skill to have but don't go overboard with learning computer science principles for 4 years unless you're sure that's what you want to do.

IMO the most important key to join the fastlane is finding markets. It's like finding a gold mine hidden in the mountains or learning to find where oil is hidden underground. Once you find that niche the money is practically yours. even if you screw up with the marketing and execution you will still end up a millionaire if you find a big enough mine or oil deposit.

So that's my story, maybe it should have been in the introduction section but i'll make a separate post there, hope it helps anyone out there still on the fence.

BTW I'm on the road, just hit Denver if anyone is willing to meet up and exchange ideas please let me know.

 

[qhead]

So where exactly do you stand with your opinion?
Of course its the best possible situation if you know both the technical and marketing side. But thats not feasible for those starting out. So for somebody new its best to learn the high level concepts of both (what you call the new way of thinking) and hire specialists for the nitty-gritty stuff.

But hey, maybe thats too easy to say for those of us who already have this high level knowledge of both. I still stand by my opinion and recommend this way of approaching it.

I say it depends on what your intentions are. If you are planning to run software based business, you really have no other choice than to learn programming. You don't have to be a great programmer but you have to be able to provide clear specifications. Nothing is more annoying and ridiculous than a business man who can barely use his laptop telling what he wants app to do. I know this from experience because once I worked closely with a programmer who had to deal with those people every day. Then those same guys curse that the programmer delivered "shit" and it doesn't work like he imagined. Well no shit, the programmers are not mind readers. Sorry about the rant but that's the way it works with people ordering software who have no idea what they are talking about except that they have this awesome idea about an app that is a mix of Angry Birds, Wikipedia and Facebook.

If you are planning to run a marketing company that deals only with planning marketing, then you need to learn about marketing obviously. However exception to this rule are affiliate marketers and so called internet marketers. They need to know a bit of programming or they will be scammed to death in the outsourcing markets.

The bottom line is that you need to know what you are asking your system to do. How can you ever expect to run a system that generates this mystical wealth if you don't even understand your own product? Personally I decided a long time ago to dump the hope and guess game so I run all my businesses by numbers. For example in my content business my BI solution provides me KPI per contractor based on how the content was received by the readers based on outsourcer's salary, hours spent and search engine rankings achieved with the target keyword. There's more metrics in that KPI but I think you get the point. The system automatically drops contractors that provide content that doesn't work at any level.