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<p>Do founders need to learn coding?</p>



<p>My take: “Yes” if they haven’t started the company yet; “Maybe” or even “No” if they have already started the company.</p>



<p>If a founder can code, that’s fantastic. She can communicate better with engineers, have a better understanding of engineering costs for certain product features, or even build a prototype.</p>



<p>But if the founder already started the company, she needs to spend all her time on building the company. Spending a lot of her personal time learning coding, especially in the pre-PMF stage, can become a distraction.</p>



<p>In my opinion, what’s 100x more important is for founders to know exactly what they want to build and to communicate it clearly. You’d be surprised by how many founders don’t know exactly what they want to create. Some have broad concepts or big dreams, but struggle to translate them into concrete product features.</p>



<p>Some founders tend to think their inability to define and articulate the product concept comes from their lack of coding knowledge. Well, I think this is like saying “I don’t know what kind of house I want to build because I’m not a general contractor.”</p>



<p>So, for non-technical founders in the pre-PMF stage, I’d encourage them to focus on defining and communicating the product concept and features, empowering their technical cofounder or the product team, not spending days and nights learning to code themselves.</p>
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Chang Kim's Homepage

Do founders need to learn coding?
My take: “Yes” if they haven’t started the company yet; “Maybe” or even “No” if they have already started the company.
If a founder can code, that’s fantastic. She can communicate better with engineers, have a better understanding of engineering costs for certain product features, or even build a prototype.
But if the founder already started the company, she needs to spend all her time on building the company. Spending a lot of her personal time learning coding, especially in the pre-PMF stage, can become a distraction.
In my opinion, what’s 100x more important is for founders to know exactly what they want to build and to communicate it clearly. You’d be surprised by how many founders don’t know exactly what they want to create. Some have broad concepts or big dreams, but struggle to translate them into concrete product features.
Some founders tend to think their inability to define and articulate the product concept comes from their lack of coding knowledge. Well, I think this is like saying “I don’t know what kind of house I want to build because I’m not a general contractor.”
So, for non-technical founders in the pre-PMF stage, I’d encourage them to focus on defining and communicating the product concept and features, empowering their technical cofounder or the product team, not spending days and nights learning to code themselves.

Do Founders Need To Learn Coding?

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