Nai: Congrats for taking the plunge. Getting a faux internship will be immensely helpful. 18 months ago I did the exact same thing, begged a startup to let me work for them for free. Having someone who is invested in your success, interested in making you better, available for you to turn around and ask questions makes the process way faster.
18 months later, I still suck, but most importantly, my mentors taught me how to learn on my own, where to look for documentation, what sorts of problems to look for. I'm definitely not a 'hacker' in the way you're talking about, and every time I think I know something, I get slapped back to reality, but the REAL satisfaction is being able to just keep making forward progress. To be able to sit at a terminal and feel like your startup's destiny, YOUR destiny is in your hands is immensely empowering and a far cry from waiting and hoping your developer is on the same page as you.
One piece of advice, which I still struggle with: don't try to bite off too much. There's a compulsion to understand the entire codebase before you commit to that host startup's project. Don't. Figure out heat you want to get done and just try to understand a tiny corner of that codebase in isolation, then fix it. Keep doing that and you'll eventually have covered the whole codebase.
It's a long journey going forwards, but you'll look back and it'll seem like time has blasted by. Having good mentors in your startup will make all the difference.
18 months later, I still suck, but most importantly, my mentors taught me how to learn on my own, where to look for documentation, what sorts of problems to look for. I'm definitely not a 'hacker' in the way you're talking about, and every time I think I know something, I get slapped back to reality, but the REAL satisfaction is being able to just keep making forward progress. To be able to sit at a terminal and feel like your startup's destiny, YOUR destiny is in your hands is immensely empowering and a far cry from waiting and hoping your developer is on the same page as you.
One piece of advice, which I still struggle with: don't try to bite off too much. There's a compulsion to understand the entire codebase before you commit to that host startup's project. Don't. Figure out heat you want to get done and just try to understand a tiny corner of that codebase in isolation, then fix it. Keep doing that and you'll eventually have covered the whole codebase.
It's a long journey going forwards, but you'll look back and it'll seem like time has blasted by. Having good mentors in your startup will make all the difference.