Here are my observations as an initially non-technical person working on a relatively technical side-project that requires the help of others:
1. Non-technical people (myself included) often have a bit of a complex about being non-technical. They are well-steeped in the YC/Stanford/Valley zeitgeist and believe their project won't be taken seriously if it doesn't have legitimate engineering talent on the founding team. Depending on the product and the team's growth strategy, this may or may not actually be true.
2. I would posit that fear of not finding a technical cofounder (FONFATC, I just coined an acronym) is really three related, but distinct fears:
a. Fear of not being able to get the MVP / beta / 1.0 versions built.
b. Fear of not being able to raise money to grow because VC's won't take your team seriously if you don't have a technical cofounder.
c. Fear of not being able to recruit good engineers as you scale from, say, 3 people to 15 people. (The reasoning being, good engineers are going to have doubts about working for an organization that doesn't have a technical cofounder; both in terms of not wanting to be supervised by people who don't understand the technical fundamentals and in terms of working in a non-engineer-centric culture).
3. Non-technical people in some cases spend more time trying to find/recruit a technical cofounder than they would have to spend to learn the necessary technical skills to build a basic MVP. Not 1.0, ready-to-ship-to-paying-customers product, but MVP. Getting technical people to join your project is a less painful proposition once you have a product, even a crappy one.
4. Technical friends might not be willing to join your project as a cofounder, for reasons including: you can't pay them the salary they want/need; they're working on their own thing; they don't want to quit their sweet job; they think your idea is dumb. Even in these cases, you can get a lot of help from them if they are in fact your friends. They may not be interested in getting on your cap table, but they'll probably do a monthly code review with you if you ask nicely.
Comments
Here are my observations as an initially non-technical person working on a relatively technical side-project that requires the help of others:
1. Non-technical people (myself included) often have a bit of a complex about being non-technical. They are well-steeped in the YC/Stanford/Valley zeitgeist and believe their project won't be taken seriously if it doesn't have legitimate engineering talent on the founding team. Depending on the product and the team's growth strategy, this may or may not actually be true.
2. I would posit that fear of not finding a technical cofounder (FONFATC, I just coined an acronym) is really three related, but distinct fears: a. Fear of not being able to get the MVP / beta / 1.0 versions built. b. Fear of not being able to raise money to grow because VC's won't take your team seriously if you don't have a technical cofounder. c. Fear of not being able to recruit good engineers as you scale from, say, 3 people to 15 people. (The reasoning being, good engineers are going to have doubts about working for an organization that doesn't have a technical cofounder; both in terms of not wanting to be supervised by people who don't understand the technical fundamentals and in terms of working in a non-engineer-centric culture).
3. Non-technical people in some cases spend more time trying to find/recruit a technical cofounder than they would have to spend to learn the necessary technical skills to build a basic MVP. Not 1.0, ready-to-ship-to-paying-customers product, but MVP. Getting technical people to join your project is a less painful proposition once you have a product, even a crappy one.
4. Technical friends might not be willing to join your project as a cofounder, for reasons including: you can't pay them the salary they want/need; they're working on their own thing; they don't want to quit their sweet job; they think your idea is dumb. Even in these cases, you can get a lot of help from them if they are in fact your friends. They may not be interested in getting on your cap table, but they'll probably do a monthly code review with you if you ask nicely.