I believe things change quickly once you have a prototype and you need to start to sell (to customers) or start to create channel (with partners). I think it is also wrong to divide the world so neatly into one that is technical and one that is not. My experience is in a startup, everyone is technical. Some focus entirely on technology and some can cross over to non-technical activities (sales, marketing, business developmen, etc.) which are still quite technical but have a non-technical outcome. Startups that are consisted of only technical people who can't find room for a "non-technical" person is probably more focused on building "features" than "products".
Lol. Very true. I am a coder, but on my startup I am not coding. It is because my partner's skills far surpass mine at programming and my skills at online marketing, sales and pr outweigh his. So I am focusing on branding and awareness while he focuses on the nit and gritty code. It is a great relationship. But we are also best friends and have worked on projects together in the passed.
That's pretty similar to my startup. When we're both working solely on code, he outproduces me at least three to one. I've written plenty of code in my life, and I still write quite a bit of code, but my priorities are mainly support, packaging, documentation, marketing, website maintenance, etc. while he builds the products. Mostly those are still technical skills, however...and when we bring in a third person later this year (not really "founder" status, but plenty of equity and a salary), it will be another technical person to help off-load some of the support and handle some of the ongoing UI and design work. Though I may hire a part-time assistant to deal with the books and such before then, but no serious equity will be involved. The fourth real hire will be an enterprise sales person who will see mainly commission-based compensation with some equity so that the long-term health of the company has some sway on their decisions. Those hires will probably come pretty close together.
But every company is different. Companies building much smaller web apps that require a lot more marketing, sales, PR, and evangelism than ours does could probably make use of a non-technical person much earlier in the process.
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Yes. But you might have a hard time convincing technical people that there is room in their tech startup for a non-technical person.
I believe things change quickly once you have a prototype and you need to start to sell (to customers) or start to create channel (with partners). I think it is also wrong to divide the world so neatly into one that is technical and one that is not. My experience is in a startup, everyone is technical. Some focus entirely on technology and some can cross over to non-technical activities (sales, marketing, business developmen, etc.) which are still quite technical but have a non-technical outcome. Startups that are consisted of only technical people who can't find room for a "non-technical" person is probably more focused on building "features" than "products".
Lol. Very true. I am a coder, but on my startup I am not coding. It is because my partner's skills far surpass mine at programming and my skills at online marketing, sales and pr outweigh his. So I am focusing on branding and awareness while he focuses on the nit and gritty code. It is a great relationship. But we are also best friends and have worked on projects together in the passed.
That's pretty similar to my startup. When we're both working solely on code, he outproduces me at least three to one. I've written plenty of code in my life, and I still write quite a bit of code, but my priorities are mainly support, packaging, documentation, marketing, website maintenance, etc. while he builds the products. Mostly those are still technical skills, however...and when we bring in a third person later this year (not really "founder" status, but plenty of equity and a salary), it will be another technical person to help off-load some of the support and handle some of the ongoing UI and design work. Though I may hire a part-time assistant to deal with the books and such before then, but no serious equity will be involved. The fourth real hire will be an enterprise sales person who will see mainly commission-based compensation with some equity so that the long-term health of the company has some sway on their decisions. Those hires will probably come pretty close together.
But every company is different. Companies building much smaller web apps that require a lot more marketing, sales, PR, and evangelism than ours does could probably make use of a non-technical person much earlier in the process.