"Learn to be a developer in X weeks" seems to be really popular, with Starter League, Codecademy, Dev Bootcamp, and tons others in Chicago, NYC, SF, Washington DC.
I have been considering starting a course geared towards helping non-technical get their startup off the ground. Many first-time, non-technical entrepreneurs have notions that they NEED a CTO or they assume that just having "good ideas" is sufficient, but there are a ton of valuable skills that non-tech founders can bring outside of code that make them both:
- able to launch startups without a partner
- VERY attractive candidates for developers to partner with.
I've taught several classes to help non-technical entrepreneurs get their startups off the ground, and I'm interested in getting feedback and gauging interest in courses to help non-technical entrepreneurs get off the ground quickly, and start making revenue online.
I'm considering both:
- an extended, full-time coaching program where students are coached and guided by other entrepreneurs who have successfully launched and made money online -- this would be very hands on and it would have to be a very small group of students (and it would likely be pretty expensive, but would definitely give students the hands on experience of applying what it takes to launch their own startups on their own)
- a classroom setting to introduce the concepts (cheaper, but much more reliant on the students actually following through and applying the concepts in the real world)
I'm interested in trying to do this as early as this summer and would like to get feedback, criticism, and gauge interest from people who might be interested in either.
A lot of these valuable skills are missed by non-developer founders who write them off as "stuff for the other guy" when they're easily within the range of non-programmer.
Some of the syllabus topics I'm mulling over are:
Basic Skills
1. Register a domain and set up DNS
2. Setting up Google Apps for Domains to receive email on your domain
3. Setting up Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools
4. How to set up a Wordpress blog / What sorts of plugins are available?
5. Setting up an online shopping cart (hint: Shopify)
6. Payment processing (you want to make MONEY online, right?): Paypal, Stripe
7. Practice: Set up a landing page and drive traffic to it and collecting emails (Wordpress, Launchrock, Instapage)
Useful Background Knowledge
8. How the internet works -- do you know what happens when you type “www.google.com” into Chrome? Knowing how information is shuttled around the internet is just sensible and it helps you understand how to fix stuff when its broken and who you need to hire (it will also make basic deployments more intuitive for you)
9. How do web apps work? You need to know the difference between languages (PHP, Python, Ruby, Java), frameworks (Rails, Django, Ignite, arguably wordpress/Joomla/Drupal), separate front end/back end/aesthetic/UI skills (javascript/jquery/node.js), deployment infrastructure (EC2, Heroku), in order to know who to hire and where your problems are, what you should be paying
Useful Mockup Skills
10. Wireframing tools (balsamiq), envisionapp
11. Basic photoshop skills
12. Basic HTML/CSS -- Non-technical founders still need to learn this stuff. It’s easy and it puts you head and shoulders over other CEO’s and you’re not helpless in the early stages. It might feel like "code", but it's an easy intro, you can figure it out if you actually try, and it'll make you way more awesome.
Metrics
13. How to use Google Analytics
14. Other tools: SEOMoz, HitTail, SerpIQ, Quantcast
15. What other metrics should you track, why do they matter? (vanity metrics, mixpanel, funnel analysis, metrics for pirates)
Advertising
16. Running Adwords campaigns (Homework: practice campaigns for non-profits)
17. Other advertising channels -- What are you choices? When should you use what? Facebook, Linked In, Reddit, Stumble Upon, display advertising on sites?
18. Retargeting: Just do it
SEO
19. SEO primer -- how Google works
20. Penguin/Panda
21. SEO practice: Make a keyword rank
22. Blogging for your business: SEO value, case study: Buffer App
Email and Social Media
23. Your own email should be served by Google Apps for Domains
24. Social media marketing -- Twitter, Linkedin, & Facebook strategies
25. Mailchimp: running email campaigns, best practices
Validation and Hypothesis Testing
26. How to look for keywords -- estimate market size using keywords -- how many people are searching every month?
27. typical conversion and click through rates -- if 100 people hit your landing page, how many will bounce? how many people open your emails? how many click through? just averages... so people have a ballpark.
28. Split testing -- optimizely -- a lot of non-tech people don’t even know ABOUT split testing, much less have experience split testing things, instapage
29. Business idea validation - whats the fastest, cheapest way to find out if your idea has legs?
Good Habits
30. Good practices -- managing email, ticket systems for tasks, make sure your develoeprs are using version control, writing tests, external code audits
31. develop good habits for running a company -- written to do lists, daily/weekly goals, pomodoro, timeboxing
Outsourcing
33. How to hire freelance developers on odesk/elance
34. What/when to outsource
35. How to effectively manage offshore assets
