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Comment on Ask YC: Can a startup entrepreneur not be a coder?parent

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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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