"* Two is learn to code enough to bang out a prototype -- this will also make you a better engineering manager if you can appreciate the technical craft and can empathize with engineers. And there are tools like Balsamiq that can help create reasonable mockups that can convey your idea without writing code."
I've always been confused by how this is meant to help - could you explain further? I've always been a technical founder, but I've never had any idea how to find a technical co-founder - as you correctly say, good technical people will have their idea they're excited about! So I'm always skeptical that "make a prototype" would work to convince anyone, but perhaps it would - is there some hidden pool of good engineers who exist in some weird fugue state of "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", outside of, like, 1st year CS?
I can talk about something completely different– I'm a writer, and I work with visual designers. They much, much prefer it when I can give them a terrible sketch of an idea rather than a lengthy diatribe about what I want. Because it's far easier for them to apply their design sensibilities to a crappy sketch than to a cloud of words.
Similarly- I don't think it's "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", but more of- "Show me something that I recognize immediately as a really good idea, even though it's kind of crappy in execution."
Pixar uses a structure known as a braintrust to delicately examine works-in-progress. The braintrust is composed of some of the best storytellers of our generation who take a supreme effort in understanding the director's intent before offering suggestions.
What's most incredible is that this feedback from the world-class cabal is merely suggestive and the director has the power to reject changes. The braintrust is aware of the danger of heavy-handed feedback squashing the soul of the product.
New ideas are delicate and brittle. What starts off as a ugly, tangential feature later grows up to become a fundamental part of the final product.
Comments
"* Two is learn to code enough to bang out a prototype -- this will also make you a better engineering manager if you can appreciate the technical craft and can empathize with engineers. And there are tools like Balsamiq that can help create reasonable mockups that can convey your idea without writing code."
I've always been confused by how this is meant to help - could you explain further? I've always been a technical founder, but I've never had any idea how to find a technical co-founder - as you correctly say, good technical people will have their idea they're excited about! So I'm always skeptical that "make a prototype" would work to convince anyone, but perhaps it would - is there some hidden pool of good engineers who exist in some weird fugue state of "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", outside of, like, 1st year CS?
I can talk about something completely different– I'm a writer, and I work with visual designers. They much, much prefer it when I can give them a terrible sketch of an idea rather than a lengthy diatribe about what I want. Because it's far easier for them to apply their design sensibilities to a crappy sketch than to a cloud of words.
Similarly- I don't think it's "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", but more of- "Show me something that I recognize immediately as a really good idea, even though it's kind of crappy in execution."
I'm reminded of what Jong-Moon Kim wrote about Pixar movies: http://jiggity.com/kitchen.html
That way you can demonstrate that you at least know what you want a finished product to roughly look like and do.