I went through a similar program in San Francisco - Devbootcamp. They are opening a sister program in Chicago. I went on to a 6 month apprenticeship at Groupon, and am now accepting a position at Hashrocket.
Some feedback - depending on the starting level of the class, 4 weeks is INCREDIBLY short. Taking a look at our class (Devbootcamp #1) - over 75% of the class went on to take dev jobs in some capacity with a $80k average salary...I don't know the validity of those marketed numbers. However, we put in 8-10 weeks. I wrote a HN post after that class "334 Hours of Ruby on Rails" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3794069). Weeks are compounding...I don't believe you can really hit your stride in just 4 weeks without prior ruby experience. This would be a great introduction class - but job ready, I'm highly skeptical. Apprenticeship ready - sure.
If you want more than just a taste of Ruby on Rails - I would take the leap and try to get into one of the Devbootcamp classes in Chicago or San Francisco. I've also heard good things about Hacker School in NY.
Not speaking for Shereef...but, he mentions that the spring cohort was incredibly motivated. Accepting anyone willing to pay the fee would really take away from the power of the program. I don't know if that was Shereef's plan, but the spring class motivated themselves and each other. It was an infectious environment to be around others who were determined to bang their head against the wall until they broke through. If the class was not pre-filtered for these qualities - it would have been a very different atmosphere.
This kind of made me laugh. I've used RentShare before - and I'm pretty sure Chris Toppino isn't a made up name. Nicely done.
It's a waste of emotion to get angry over misplaced advice. I would say advice is a waste more often than not. Yet, people are compelled to hand it out. The advice that you're talking about is a selfish act. "I haven't spent any time thinking about this...and I probably won't think about it much again...but I really want to help in this moment, and I want you to appreciate me." The advice is not based on "arrogance and presumption of idiocy". They haven't thought about your perspective on the matter at all. It's too big of a problem, and would take too much time to give it that much thought.
They don't give a shit if you follow the advice - rather, they prefer you thank them for their "interesting" perspective and say you'll give it some more thought. Why not allow that to be your reaction, rather than fury???
I started using Boomerang last summer as I had so many emails that were getting lost in the mix. It was like having a personal assistant always reminding me to follow up.
Excited that you have moved on to a calendar assistant as well. It's definitely where I struggle the most. Looking forward to using the product.
Absolutely. The cool features like remind me if there is no reply in the next 2 days has been one of the many features I use everyday. I have recommended this to so many folks now.
Well, first - what you described isn't a chicken and egg problem..it doesn't actually relate to this situation at all. Those are pros and cons of having a co-founder.
There are a ton of reasons why a co-founder is a pain. However, the positives far outweigh any negatives...the stage of the company doesn't matter. Disagreements are valuable. The workload is simply unmanageable on your own. The road to success / failure can get really lonely without a co-founder.
Building a successful company is unlikely. Building one without a co-founder...odds just got worse.
> However, the positives far outweigh any negatives.
I'm solo-founding my own start-up right now, and I find that I agree with this statement as a general rule, but I find that it is advice that should be given based on personality type.
That said, I think there are ways to minimize the negatives by "out-sourcing" some of the co-founder responsibilities.
A. Motivation
I have a couple of friends who are just curious about the start-up process. They've been involved from day one, if only passively, and are just curious about what I'm building so it gives me someone to share my latest modification/addition with. That way I don't feel like I'm building in a vacuum.
B. Work Sharing
This is, for me, the hardest part of being a solo-founder -- the vague feeling that if I don't do something, it's never ever going to get done. It gets to be an amazing burden. Lately I've taken to using outsourcing sites (like, oDesk) and just assigning small relatively unimportant tasks. ("Design a confirmation email", "Turn this data into a chart using two or three libraries"). It's easy to say "Well I could just do that", but then spending $30-$50 to just not have to worry about it, gives you the feeling of stuff getting done with out you.
C. Idea Evaluation
You can still talk to your friends/peers about any given aspect of your idea, and its execution, and even if they haven't been involved in the ins and outs, it doesn't mean their input is useless. Sometimes, I would imagine, you get more honest feedback from someone who doesn't have a financial stake in what happens. It removes much of the emotional component of an argument and allows you to just talk about it intellectually/theoretically. I find that I'm actually more receptive to feedback when I don't feel any sense of obligation to hear that person out.
D. Accountability
Do what smokers do. Tell your three closest friends that "by this weekend, I'll have [x] working."
Anyway, just rambling. Of course if I had a co-founder they might tell me to stop commenting on HN and get back to work, so maybe I'm invalidating my point as I go.
You're right, it's not chicken and egg, it's choosing between pest and cholera, I'll edit. Thanks
In principle I agree with you on all your points but do not underestimate deadlocking situations in later stages. They will come, the overall situation will change a lot after time passed and thus the relation between the co-founders. And regarding successful single-founder companies: there are a lot, there just not welcome by VCs due to several reasons.
> The workload is simply unmanageable on your own.
Disagree. You have the power to choose what the workload is as a sole founder/bootstrap. You choose the feature set. You choose what's in the next iteration. You choose how fast or slow to go. You choose your cash burn, if any. You choose how many hours to put in. You choose.... I could go on but I think you see the pattern. Anyone telling you these choices don't exist has made an incorrect assumption somewhere.
1) Unless you're Instagram - a big startup will cost you much more than 2 years of life. The monetary price probably doesn't matter much as you will have acquired funding.
2) I also think the expected value of any given random point on the "startup dartboard" is smaller than the values you threw out there.
That all said...my interests align with yours. Hitting singles is more attractive than swinging for the fences. Goals change though...Rocket Lease may be a safe bet on your part. If traction picks up and it becomes an undeniable juggernaut...I don't think you or anybody else wouldn't take the "big startup" ride.
I think it best not to make decisions solely based on monetary risk/reward. There are many free resources out there...agreed. However, I have developed my own tight community of junior developers, many who will go on to be intermediate and eventually senior level developers. I have an entire network of mentors who are already senior developers. I'm taking interviews for junior dev jobs. I just learned how to code 2 months ago. Good luck spending 300+ hours in front of a computer in 2 months AND building up a network this large. I don't know what monetary value to put on that...it will vary from person to person.
Devbootcamp doesn't make sense for everybody. It made sense for me. I would rather learn how to program with a pair or several pairs than sitting in my room learning from a book and the internet. I've tried that already. It's not for me.
We were encouraged to take a daily reflection on what we did that day. I kept a general journal of what I was learning. By week 3, I started logging hours specifically on a notepad and in excel. Really awesome how much ground we covered as a class in that short time.
