Getting into the tech scene when you have no skills

I think the first thing people should ask themselves is: Why are you trying to get into this scene without any skills?<p>In the last 10 years Silicon Valley and startups in general have attracted a mush of people who bring little or no value to the table. I'm not talking about business/product types or MBAs that might at least have some experience and maybe some contacts and financial know-how. No, its the kind of people who for no other reason are thrilled by the celebrity-esque world of high-flying startups that might come with free lunch/dinner/beer, parties, and items found in The Social Network.<p>People should learn some product and marketing skills at larger, non-startup companies first before taking sweat equity or low/no pay at a startup. Also make contacts at meetups and learn the finance side of things. THEN you will have less of a problem "Getting into the tech scene", skills in hand.

I don't mean to be a dick but this is completely devoid of content. It boils down to IF you don't have technical skills, THEN develop them OR meet people who don't care that you don't have technical skills that will hire you.<p>Further I fail to see how someone wanting into tech would be better reading a bunch of PG essays than actually, y'know, learning to code. Unless I'm not taking the title seriously enough, and the goal is only to get into the tech SCENE (as in social), not a technical job.

If you don't have skills, can you bring experience? Many start-ups try to disrupt existing industries. If you understand how an industry works and why it's vulnerable to disruption, you can join forces with technical people to become that disruption.<p>You should still learn to code though :-)

"Do work for free" is the worst suggestion I've heard in a long time. Your time is valuable; it should be to you and it should be to the person you are working for. Even if you aren't getting a monetary remuneration for your services there should be some kind of compensation, and you should be clear – at least in your head – what it is. Never – ever –work for free. It may seem like a good idea but its not.

I have to give the author credit–I like his approach much better than poseurs who drop into the scene and start running workshops or being mentors, all while never having actually built anything or attempted a startup.

Adam Savage of the Mythbusters once gave a talk on problem solving and how he went about acquiring the skills he has :<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhAt-7i36G8" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhAt-7i36G8</a><p>While the talk was about a different industry, the lessons are still applicable to tech and pretty much most other fields.

My gut answer to the title of this post was "acquire skills." I don't know that this really deserved a post all on its own.<p>Personally, I really disliked the "crash conferences" part.

A list of people who got into the tech scene without tech skills:<p>1. Julia Allison - she tried to cheat her way into a fundraiser and despite that ended up on the cover of WiReD: <a href="http://gawker.com/284123/an-east-coast-hustler-tries-to-cheat-a-fundraiser" rel="nofollow">http://gawker.com/284123/an-east-coast-hustler-tries-to-chea...</a><p>2. Nick Starr - my cousin who is a cop is still interested in talking to you for laptops that were stolen that you are selling.<p>3. Hermione Way - I honestly wanted to work for you as a coder because you had entrée into all these "cool" parties, but despite <i>now</i> having an app that gets 100,000 photo uploads a day (Via.Me) I'm still not cool enough to work for you? WTF?<p>There isn't a scene to get into. Instead there is a long standing list of problems that have existed since the beginning of computer science. Read Knuth or something similar if you don't know which these are. Either you are on board for solving those problems or your real interests lie elsewhere. Decide which you are.

I don't think this article gets it quite right.<p>I think non-technical people that do best stumble into the tech scene - rather than want to get in. By this I mean if you want to make it anywhere - especially in a world where you have none of the technical skills needed to actually build anything - you have to LOVE it. And that love comes from a deep and not-too-well-understood place within us. The kind of place which is not very easy to access with the cognitive part of your brain that lets you create the sentence 'I want to get into the tech scene now - but I know nothing - what steps can I take?'.<p>I am (sadly) non-technical (for now (but learning!)) - an Economics graduate who was on the path to investment-bankdem - but I couldn't help myself but be part of the tech scene. Some old colleagues from a hedge fund I interned at wanted to start a community for motorcyclists and, as I was young and more tech savie than them, they asked if I wanted to help out. It was (and still is) SO much fun thinking about how someone could use things - have an enjoyable experience, gain value, and try to find a way for us to extract a little value too. That is such a beautifully complex challenge to think through.<p>Our budget for the build was £25,000 - which is how much I thought it cost to build a website - so my plans for my own ideas had to go on hold - as I didn't have that kind of cash. Then a friend told me he got a website built in Romania for £2,000 - I can afford that!!! I designed my first website in microsoft word - from top to bottom - and sent my files over to Romania, greatly confusing the web agency who had never received 30 microsoft word files as the basis to build off. I was learning Spanish in Spain at the time and happened to meet an awesome German graphic designer. He took me through my designs and showed me why they sucked, and he told me about a program called InDesign. I came back to England and learnt that.<p>Since then I've won prizes for tech entrepreneurship, worked in a company that existed to build other tech companies, built a team of 6 around one of my core ideas, and learnt a little front end code myself. I would love to say - the rest is history - but now I am learning how to execute on ideas. Something which I have not yet done well enough.<p>But the point is I couldn't help any of this. And I think if you have to force yourself to read PG, or it is a 'I want a job', not a 'I want to build what's in my head!' mentality that makes you write your first piece of code - then maybe the tech world is not the place you really want to be.

Well one strength you have already would be in user testing as your mind is infetted by the `how would a computer do this best` approach towards interfacing with users.<p>You could start by looking and reviewing and spotting bugs in many programs out there, will help build a resume and also at the same time perk your interest into what tech scene angle you wish to start heading down. Be it codeing, design, testing, support, managing, selling, testing, providing. That is without even looking at the market area's within those feilds which could be anything from games, web, plant, automation, planes trains and automobiles, or washing machine spin cycle control systems. Many area's within area's. Tech is such a large feild and this is just the basic computing stuff. Designing new solar panels, specialist clothing, you see what I mean, such an open subject.<p>Two things I would advise keeping in mind. What are you good at and what do you like. It is a fine balance and to do the things you like you might not earn as much and work all hours bluring the lines between hobby and work. You could focus on what you are good at and treat it as work, have more time and money to focus on those hobbies and pet projects and get better quality time doing them how you enjoy them. It is extremly rare to fully combine the two, even then it will not be all the time. You can spend a long time chasing that end-goal and end up becoming disenjanted with what you enjoy. So a fine balance is advisable and by all means learn your own balance. Being mindful of that will help you be more objective and happier in the long run. Dreams can become nightmares, don't spoil the dream. So tread slowly, but firmly and you will know what you are good at and what your are not, so even if you descide to go another direction all together. You would of learned good foundations for any path forward.<p>So my suggestion in short - levridge your skill you have now and that is you are the perfect user, so testing/QA would be a great start and one you can define. You will then know which area of tech you wish to focus upon, though will gain the eye for detail early on which is handy in all walks of life.

Step #1 for how to get into the tech scene is read a boatload of nontechnical articles?

It's easy, just tell them you're into "UX".

I think if you have no skills the best way to get into startup is to get rich first and become an angel investor! I believe there are more high probability ways to get rich than starting a startup.

I agree everybody should know the basics of HTML/CSS to become what I call "semi-technical", even if you're not attempting a startup. You might find you have an artistic flare for digital design, and suddenly become that much more marketable.<p>That being said, why would you want to found a startup if not to build something cool and get people interested in it? If that's not your natural passion, it's no coincidence you don't already have skills a technical company would find valuable.

Since when was having skill a prerequisite to being in IT? I have interviewed, and sadly worked with, way too many people who had no clue how to do their job.

The OP mentions hustle - probably the most important skill of all. One good way to get into the startup scene is to actually start something, yourself.

I've always been wary of the online programming sites like codecademy and the like, because when I did Rails for Zombies I realized it never shows you how to set up an actual Rails application nor how Git and Heroku work. Are all the tutorials similar in that they baby you?

I would categorize user testing under 'Design Skills' (UX Design), as well as CSS and HTML (Web Design). Design might be a third type of role, that is neither technical, nor business.

Surprised they didn't add "start dating startup people" to the list. After all, technology is all about learning to be a good groupie.

No technical skills? Read hacker news.<p>Brilliant.

I would add understanding of social media too. It has become a must since past few years to have a substantial online presence. Personal branding is something that will take you a long way ahead. You can crash parties only once in a while, but in social media space, you can have real-time one-on-one interactions with almost anybody anytime!

No skills? No problem.<p>If you flunk the interview, try challenging the interviewer to a dance-off. If you win, the job is yours!