#3: Butter’s co-founder and CTO, Adam Wan, reckons with the curtailed circumference of possibilities one can find oneself in, without the right technical skills and reflects on why he eventually decided to go all in. (Source)
Not Knowing What You Don’t Know
Talking and connecting to other software engineers, I realized how deeply complex, complicated, and challenging was the thing I was trying to build. I was way over my head.
With their guidance and advice, I started to map out ways on how to tackle this issue. I was mostly trying to figure out the architecture for how the app would run. However, the gap between understanding basic things like “frontend” and “backend”, and actually planning out a product launch is huge.
I was still unable to estimate deadlines and resource allocation accurately. I was unable to innovate properly, as my ideas were not informed by any technical foundation, but from just pure imagination.
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I Couldn’t Find a Technical Co-founder
Firstly, a co-founder should be someone that you’ve built a connection with and trust. Unfortunately for me, the tech and startup industry was very distant from my social circle. I didn’t know many software engineers, and those that I did know were acquaintances at best. I didn’t have a Wozniak that I could trust and hole up in a garage with.
Secondly, due to my inexperience and naivety, I was not a very attractive candidate as someone else’s co-founder. Co-founders are business partners, when you go into a startup, it’s like entering into a relationship. At the time, I didn’t have the entrepreneurial or startup credentials or experience yet.
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I Couldn’t Afford Real Software Engineers
Throughout the whole process of talking to several engineers, many declined equity and instead offered to build my app for a certain fee. This was my introduction to the high price of building software.
The investment that I had received would only get me to a version 1 of an MVP - this was a very risky transaction and went against the advice I was receiving about building startups. The advice being, you should position your startup to be able to develop and reiterate your product as many times as possible based on user feedback. It meant that I needed the flexibility to build ten different MVP iterations, not one.
I spoke to other founders in the scene who have burned through investor money by hiring contractors. I also spoke to founders that have built MVPs with cheap “nightmare contractors.” There didn’t seem like a middle ground, cheaper contractors have a high risk of failure, and competent engineers know their worth (and are already rewarded by the market, so they don’t need you).
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What coding has done for me
Almost five years later, learning to code has opened up for even more opportunities than I had anticipated. I was able to build my initial startup idea as originally intended. After my first startup failed (in Q3 2016), I started doing software consulting on the side. Over the next three years, I was also able to work with many exciting projects along the way.
The reason I love startups is that I loved building out ideas and concepts. To me, programming was an art of problem-solving that required critical thinking skills and creativity. Software became a method of expression, a canvas for me to scratch that “wouldn’t it be cool if” itch. It empowers me as a maker and a builder to be independent. If you’re a non-technical founder and you resonate with my story, perhaps it doesn’t hurt to give yourself a few weeks to learn how to code. It may just change your life.