Ask HN: Why learn to code when you can rent a coder?

I have a few startups brewing right now. For one I'm working with technical co-founders, and another I'm not. Trying to "rent a coder" for the latter has proven to be much more difficult both short term and long term than having partners who code.<p>First, I had to come up with cash to pay someone. A painful thing to do when you're bootstrapping with no real income.<p>Second, I had to spend copious amounts of time not only writing a technical spec for someone who didn't grok the app but also carefully crafting a contract that would assure that I kept the IP.<p>Third, maintenance has been a bitch. Iterations take weeks instead of days, and I'm never a contractor's top priority.<p>In contrast, my partners are (like me) working for equity, have a deep, intuitive grasp of the product and what it does, and are engaged enough to not only turn around changes quickly, but also suggest improvements themselves.<p>Obviously, there are situations where renting a coder will be one's only option. My experience has been that it's an awkward, painful process.<p>In the future, I would choose to cobble together a non-functional prototype (I'm a UX designer who writes display layer markup) to help me attract a technical co-founder or an investor rather than hire another contractor.

It depends on the type of startup. If your startup isn't completely tech-oriented, e.g. soemthing like Airbnb where the value is in the service provided, renting a coder would probably work, since the technology isn't your core competency. If it is something more like Dropbox, where the value is the technology, you will have difficulty outsourcing that.<p>An analogy is that you don't have to learn everything about cars if you are just driving to your day job. Let a mechanic take care of that, and you can focus on what you do best. If you want to be a NASCAR driver, you should know everything your pit crew knows.

If you are starting a technical company you will need more than a passing familiarity with technology. To be successful as a software company you will need to assess the quality of the code you receive as well as need to know enough to manage a software development project.<p>To think that you can contract a coder and get a company back is fairly naive.