Also because if you have to ask, you aren't going to make it. The only way to pull your weight as a non-technical co-founder is to already have lots of connections with money, and if you have that, engineers will already be beating a path to your door. If you don't, you're going to fail anyway, and your inability to find an engineer to co-found your company is the least of your problems.
There are really only two jobs in an early-stage startup: engineer and money man. If you're not building the product, and you're not bringing money in the door either, you're not helping. "Idea guy" is not a job.
This idea that only the tech matters and you can't pull weight without being on the tech side irks me to no end. Sales, marketing, product positioning, feedback gathering, and investor relations are all often more valuable than whatever the tech team is up to. That programmers so often shrug this off is simple arrogance.
Sales, marketing, product positioning, feedback gathering, and investor relations are all often more valuable
I think you're absolutely right. But so is the person you were replying to. Becuase you know what _isn't_ as valuable as any of those things? "Having a really good idea that I think could make a lot of money."
And that's what a lot of people think, I have a great idea, all I need is someone who knows how to program to implement it (shouldn't take very long), and we're gonna make lots of money!
(Actually, I'd challenge the 'product positioning' as a useful thing to bring, because it is too easily confused with "Having a great idea." But sales, marketting, investor relations, actual market research, actual evidence-based feedback gathering -- sure.)
I'm not saying that only the tech matters. I'm saying that in an early-stage startup, only the product and the money matter. The tech only matters to the extent that it enables building the product. Sales, marketing, product positioning, feedback gathering, and investor relations can all be separate jobs later, after you have enough money coming in to support that specialization. In an early stage startup, if you're not building the product, you need to be the money person, so you should be doing all of that, and you need connections to do it well.
If you're a non-technical co-founder, the primary value you bring to the business is the people you already know, who have money. It's not your ideas and it's also not your visual design taste.
The only way to pull your weight as a non-technical co-founder is to already have lots of connections with money,
Is this really true? Hustling is a valuable skill, too. If you're bootstrapping, you don't need endless connections to people with money, you just need customers. So a non-technical business guy, in theory, just needs to be willing to hustle in order to contribute to certain kinds of enterprise.
How would you even bootstrap without a product to sell? If you have actual paying customers, that means you at least have an MVP built. A list of leads doesn't count, you have to convert them to bootstrap, and to convert them you need an MVP. If you're a non-technical bootstrapper you should probably be looking at an employee or freelancer rather than a co-founder to build your MVP.
In other words, "it's the money, stupid." If you're a non-technical founder with just an idea and no existing funding or paying customers yet, that is why you can't find a technical co-founder. No good tech talent is going to work for equity in a bootstrapped business, because equity is worthless without the
"hockey stick" growth trajectory you're shooting for when you take funding.
Groupon was started with a one - page wordpress blog. Now they have around a thousand engineers. You don't HAVE to have a tech co - founder to build a startup.
You don't have to have a tech co-founder to build a startup if you can build the MVP yourself. I'd go as far as to say that if the technology component of your MVP is just a Wordpress site, then you probably shouldn't have a tech co-founder.
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Also because if you have to ask, you aren't going to make it. The only way to pull your weight as a non-technical co-founder is to already have lots of connections with money, and if you have that, engineers will already be beating a path to your door. If you don't, you're going to fail anyway, and your inability to find an engineer to co-found your company is the least of your problems.
There are really only two jobs in an early-stage startup: engineer and money man. If you're not building the product, and you're not bringing money in the door either, you're not helping. "Idea guy" is not a job.
This idea that only the tech matters and you can't pull weight without being on the tech side irks me to no end. Sales, marketing, product positioning, feedback gathering, and investor relations are all often more valuable than whatever the tech team is up to. That programmers so often shrug this off is simple arrogance.
I think you're absolutely right. But so is the person you were replying to. Becuase you know what _isn't_ as valuable as any of those things? "Having a really good idea that I think could make a lot of money."
And that's what a lot of people think, I have a great idea, all I need is someone who knows how to program to implement it (shouldn't take very long), and we're gonna make lots of money!
(Actually, I'd challenge the 'product positioning' as a useful thing to bring, because it is too easily confused with "Having a great idea." But sales, marketting, investor relations, actual market research, actual evidence-based feedback gathering -- sure.)
I'm not saying that only the tech matters. I'm saying that in an early-stage startup, only the product and the money matter. The tech only matters to the extent that it enables building the product. Sales, marketing, product positioning, feedback gathering, and investor relations can all be separate jobs later, after you have enough money coming in to support that specialization. In an early stage startup, if you're not building the product, you need to be the money person, so you should be doing all of that, and you need connections to do it well.
If you're a non-technical co-founder, the primary value you bring to the business is the people you already know, who have money. It's not your ideas and it's also not your visual design taste.
Is this really true? Hustling is a valuable skill, too. If you're bootstrapping, you don't need endless connections to people with money, you just need customers. So a non-technical business guy, in theory, just needs to be willing to hustle in order to contribute to certain kinds of enterprise.
How would you even bootstrap without a product to sell? If you have actual paying customers, that means you at least have an MVP built. A list of leads doesn't count, you have to convert them to bootstrap, and to convert them you need an MVP. If you're a non-technical bootstrapper you should probably be looking at an employee or freelancer rather than a co-founder to build your MVP.
In other words, "it's the money, stupid." If you're a non-technical founder with just an idea and no existing funding or paying customers yet, that is why you can't find a technical co-founder. No good tech talent is going to work for equity in a bootstrapped business, because equity is worthless without the "hockey stick" growth trajectory you're shooting for when you take funding.
Groupon was started with a one - page wordpress blog. Now they have around a thousand engineers. You don't HAVE to have a tech co - founder to build a startup.
You don't have to have a tech co-founder to build a startup if you can build the MVP yourself. I'd go as far as to say that if the technology component of your MVP is just a Wordpress site, then you probably shouldn't have a tech co-founder.