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Ask HN: Career change advice, should I learn to code

7 points by havoc2005 ↗ HN
Ladies and gentlemen,

   As an idea and business guy, should I learn to code?
I've been in the IT security field for 4+ years, I have a college degree and I have been working in IT since I was 13, starting out as the guy you went to when anything went wrong involving a computer. I've been interested in the startup scene for several years now and have been attending events as well as getting involved with my local startup community. The last event I went to was TechCrunch Disrupt NYC and I will be at this years upcoming DCWeek.

My passion is in entrepreneurship and I've always been the business guy. Currently, I have a political analysis news site, a small IT consulting firm and I still work a regular 40 hour job.

The first step into getting deeply involved in startups for me is going to be just getting a job with a startup and quitting my current job working for the government. I don't know what I can offer a startup besides working as a business developer but I will take anything I can get as long as the company seems like one where I can learn a lot and grow in.

After that, I was thinking of learning to code. Should I bother with becoming a developer? Will it make or break my dream if I choose not to and just stay the business route, hiring other people to develop for me? Or do you guys believe that me not learning to code/becoming a developer will have a huge negative effect on my goal?

13 comments

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gerds
Learn to code. Even if you're not going to be the tech guy at your startup, you'll understand the tech guy much better, you'll be able to hire tech guys more effectively, etc.

Just do Learn Python The Hard Way or anything like that related to your field (C if you're doing hardware).

havoc2005
Great, I was considering going straight into Python or even Rails.
civilian
Yes, Python. Even as a business guy I think you'll find some small ways to use programming-- like being a baller with parsing & generating excel spreadsheets.
dkersten
I would also highly recommend learning Python. It is among the easiest languages to learn, yet is also flexible and powerful enough to do real work of almost any kind. It also has libraries for pretty much everything. Python also lends itself greatly to quick, one off scripting tasks, glueing programs together or otherwise automating stuff you wouldn't normally consider writing a program for, so I agree that you will find plenty of tasks where programming will be helpful, not to mention that understanding some programming concepts will help you better understand what other people, eg, on your team, are doing.
josephmosby
I'm doing similar contracting work in DC and still find tons of opportunities to use Python, even though it's not required for my field. Even as the business guy, you have to do a lot of your own business logic tasks (Excel dashboards, scorecarding, etc) - Python makes them all a lot easier.

If you want a way to wet your feet in the startup community, come to one of the two Startup Weekends coming up in DC. One's at Georgetown and the other at the Microsoft building in Friendship Heights. It's low commitment from you but still a way to meet people and maybe make something happen.

havoc2005
I will definitely come to Startup Weekend. Thank you for the reminder.
bazookaBen
i'd start with http://www.codecademy.com/ , to try to feel the waters with JS before going into Python
havoc2005
thanks, I've taken two semesters of Java, php/mysql, etc in the past so I should be able to get it down fast.
havoc2005
Thanks guys, I'm jumping right into it.