I decided to learn to program as it would be great to be able to come up with a product myself instead of hiring somebody else to make something for me. I built something that made me money in my first year, but not too much, and I know it can be easy to come up with a simple MVP for an app.
Since this is probably a skill I'm going to abandon in the next few years, I wonder if there's any sort of advice for someone in my situation. What sort of thing should I learn so that I make my code more readable for future coders? Or am I even wrong in just learning for the sake of building an MVP and not depending on other people. How is coding going to help me be a better founder, a better boss, and to better set the vision?
I can easily picture myself writing code for another 2 years, in which point I will have hopefully started my thing.
If so, why not continue writing code?
If your goal is to hire people to write code, ask yourself if you are capable of doing it better.
Nobody is better able to cut through the bs in software these days than you, the business owner, and your customers-- the ones who pay you to survive.
i think being somewhat educated about tech and programming can be a help as a founder, but only to a certain extent.
and even if you're a techie, you won't necessarily know how to be a good manager of an outsourced project.
i've learned a bit over the years, but am still a newbie.
i've never seen a single quality article, here or at any other site, that talked about HOWTO outsource a project well.
other downsides to being a techie is that you start paying attn to tech instead of solutions to problems.
way i see it, you build something, then you find/hire someone to help you take it over, maintain it, improve it, fix it, expand it, throw it away and build again, whatever.
if you built some site that was becoming successful, and it was complete trash that nobody could work on, or it just coudln't scale enough, or whatever -- then you've got a great fucking problem on your hands -- you've got traffic and/or a business -- most people never get that far. now just do what is necessary, including throwing away what you have at that point if you have to.
other advice -- you'll burn out on programming one day and won't want to do it ever again, and it will jump on you and you'll be like, 'shit'.
so, i would suggest waiting around to form some SUPERBUSINESS might not be the best stategery.
if you care about maintainability of your code, then that puts you in the top 1% of contractors.
the sum-up -- being a techie, on the whole, is probably a small advantage over not being a techie.
there are just too many examples through history of people who did not do things because they thought they couldn't be done technically. it's like that saying goes, 'a little bit of knowledge is very dangerous' -- something like that.
better boss? i'd argue to read up on anarchism. that'll help you keep your eye on your humanity and that of others. which is 'better' in one sense. but if you mean 'more effective' -- i don't know.
ditto on 'founder' and 'vision'.
on the question of tech, i always think of this video: