How do I enable the console without it popping up on startup?

I wanted to enable the console, so I Googled how to do it and found that I could do it by putting -console in the launch options of the game. I did that, but now the console opens every time I start Dota 2. Is there a way to have it open if I push `, but not whenever I start the game up?

Yes, you can do that.

Go to …\Steam\SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\dota\cfg\ and create a new file called autoexec.cfg next to config.cfg, so it won't get overwritten. Open it and add a line that says con_enable "1". That will enable the console even without adding -console to the launch settings.

Alternatively, you could add hideconsole to the configuration file to hide the console after it pops up, but I recommend the first method.

Put +con_enable 1 into your launch options. The + makes it untouchable for the autoexec. It's the most elegant solution for your problem.