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SaaS: How important is coding knowledge in starting a SAAS business? Should I start by learning code or just get started on the idea? Book suggestions?
SP
SP
Stefan Pretty, Advice on Bootstrapping Lean Businesses that Grow answered:

This depends, but first stop for a minute and consider this.

I'm a big believer in bootstrapping. So I always say, do more with less if you can.

Before you even consider coding, maybe you just need to validate your business model first using a lean approach. I would suggest seeing if there is a market for what you want to build: try collect emails, or measure the number of clicks on a site. Plenty of options to build websites and landing pages without ANY coding experience. Then once validated, this question becomes more relevant. If you're there then read on with my answer to your question:

It really depends on if you have a budget or not to hire developers, otherwise you're going to have to give away a large chunk of equity for a co-founding CTO to do the work for you.

It won't hurt to understand the basics of programming to better help with communication either way. This I would recommend. Start with HTML / CSS to get some milage under your belt with something simple. Javascript if you're feeling bold.

Learn to code is continuous, you never stop learning. So make sure you're focusing on your strongest skills. But if money is tight and you can't raise money (which I don't recommend if you don't need to) then try build relationships with developers and see if you can find a match made in heaven and make them your technical co-founder to work with you.

If you want to learn, check out codeacademy.

Hope to see your product soon!

Stefan

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