Elisha Tan, a non-technical founder, shares insights for non-techie entrepreneurs on whether they should learn coding, the benefits of doing so, and essential resources to get started. Having struggled to find a technical co-founder, she emphasizes the importance of understanding programming to improve communication with developers and contribute to product decisions. The document provides practical learning resources and encourages founders to fake proficiency while building their first MVP.

1. hey I just founded a tech startup...
OH SHIT I CAN’T CODE
@elishatan

2. What you’re gonna hear
• Should you, the non-techie founder,
learn programming?
• What should you do before learning?
• What and how should you learn?
• Will learning pay off?

3. Who’s this person?
I'm Elisha Tan. I did Psychology in NUS, graduated in 2010
and did social media marketing at a couple of startups. In
late 2010, I was accepted at the Singapore Founder
Institute and I founded Learnemy, a web application that
finds you instructors for anything you want to learn.
I am proficient in MS office and Paint, which
enabled me to create the picture you see
on the right.

4. What’s the story?
• Spend about 3 months looking for
technical co-founder cluelessly
• Got into a service partnership with other
founders
• Quit my job
• Did my mockups

5. Forever alone

6. Should you, or should you not?
Should Should not
• If you outsource, you can’t • It will take long for you to
tell if you get bullshit. be proficient in coding.
• You can’t hire for a job you • Too much time spent
don’t know.
• You should know your
product.
• You give programmers
respect, and you’ll give the
right impressions.

9. Roadmap
Decide
to code

10. Roadmap
Decide Fake your
to code MVP

11. Before you code...
Learn HTML and CSS so that you can fake it till
you make it
- http://www.w3schools.com/
- http://css-tricks.com/
- http://colorschemedesigner.com/
- Rentoid

12. Design is hard
You want to be a great artist...
“Good artists copy, great artists steal” -
Pablo Picasso Thatʼs what he said

15. Firebug is your best friend
http://getfirebug.com/

16. Other sites
• Learn about design
• http://uxmag.com/
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
• http://www.danlockton.com/dwi/Main_Page
• Testing

17. Roadmap
Decide Fake your Decide a
to code MVP language

18. You are going to be very confused
over what language to learn.
Python is so AngularJS is
easy to learn! Look at him, RoR powerful and easy to
he learned Django in 3 is easy to learn and the Use
weeks! syntax is beautiful! PHP. Because Facebook
uses PHP.

19. So learn whatever from anyone who’s
willing to lend a helping hand.

20. Ruby on rails
Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl
http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book
Ruby On Rails 3 Beginner To Builder 2011 by Richard Schneeman
http://ontwik.com/ruby/ruby-on-rails-3-beginner-to-builder-2011-week-1-2-3/
Rails for zombies by Envy Labs
http://railsforzombies.com/
Rails guides
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/getting_started.html

21. Demo

22. Bonus
Things I wanted to tell you but didn’t know where it fit into the presentation
• Join google groups
• Start a blog
- Remember your SEO

23. Thank you!
@elishatan
www.Learnemy.com