Founders from Non-IT/Programming Backgrounds
hga: My advice is to read the literature; that's what I did when I quickly realized the limitations of my initial high school programming class (punched card FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1130 in 1977).That plus mentoring by the more experienced for a few years got me to at journeyman level in less than a decade.  More reading, thinking and developing got me to master about two decades after I started.