How to Start A Startup If You're Not A Developer

Class 4: Distribution

Summary:

Product is built/being built -- here are some things you can do to get distribution

Slides:

• The Other Stuff

Class 3: Basic Tec Primer

Summary:

What happens between you entering a request on your web browser and the screen displaying a web page?

What are: Ruby, Python, PHP, Django, Rails, Ignite, Cake, Javascipt, HTML, CSS, JQuery and what do they do?

Slides:

• Recap
• Scanned PDF Slides, courtesy of Priti

Class 2: Bulletproof Specs

Summary:

Talk about specs, recommend tools for creating specs, walk through examples of specs, spec creation workshop

Slides:

• Recap, Comments from Session 1
• Bulletproof Specs

Homework

1. Complete your spec for an existing website
2. Create a detailed spec for the project you want to build
3. Craft your own version of a hiring job posting for a message board [time: 1 hour]
4. Post your job posting on oDesk or Elance (If you're feeling adventurous) [time: 1 hour]

The specs sound deceptively easy. Rest assured I will do my best to follow your specs and create absurd results. I'm excellent at misinterpreting seemingly clear instructions, and your developer will be too.

Class 1: Intro + How to Find / Hire Contract Developers

Summary:

Hiring developers is hard. Developers aren't jerks, they're human, and they're solving hard problems. Here are some things to think about when interviewing/selecting candidates. We closed with talking briefly about specs.

Slides:

• Introduction
• Hiring Contractor Developers

In the workshop I describe a job posting that I've used in the past.

Here it is: Sample developer filter

Homework

1. Write a "Make a peanut butter jelly sandwich" spec [time: 20 min]
2. Write a "How to tie your shoelaces" spec [time: 20 min]
3. Craft your own version of a hiring job posting for a message board [time: 1 hour]
4. Post your job posting on oDesk or Elance (If you're feeling adventurous) [time: 1 hour]

The specs sound deceptively easy. Rest assured I will do my best to follow your specs and create absurd results. I'm excellent at misinterpreting seemingly clear instructions, and your developer will be too.

Your objective is to create an absolutely unambiguous, impossible-to-misinterpret, step by step instruction of how to do the tasks. We should be able to deliver it to any english speaking person and all products that result will either (a) be a peanut butter jelly sandwich in our vision, or (b) have clear evidence that they did not follow a specifically outlined instruction.

Note that this also implies that we could give the task to 10 people and get back 10 indistinguishable final products.

Submitted Homework Assignments

Peanut Butter & Jelly

Shoelaces