Seeking advice from programmers for non-programmers
edw519: Great questions, Dan.  Thanks for bringing them here.An overwhelming majority of the time spent on a software startup is at the terminal, coding.  If you're not doing that, then you damn well better be bringing something else of value, a lot of value, to the table.  Things I'd be looking for...- Specific domain knowledge.  You gotta be the guy who says, "No, no, no, that's not the way you do <...> in this industry.  You do it this way.  And you sell it this way."- Our customers' industry contacts.  You gotta be opening doors for us while we're busy coding.- Analysis, design, testing, implementation.  You should be very proficient at all the stuff on the Systems Development Life Cycle that's not coding.- Operations.  You should good at running the business while we code.  This could include many things like accounting, marketing, selling, order processing, help desk, legal, etc.We programmers are not dummies.  We are working on the critical path, but we recognize that a whole lot of other stuff has to happen in order to be successful.  And we want to be successful, which is a primary driver.  Can you do that other stuff?  Great.  If not, you need to find some way to add value.And don't forget, ideas != value.  We all have a million of them.  What else ya got?