Suddenly, lots of people wanted to leave their jobs, found a startup and "build a platform". I shut down my company a few months before the peak of the startup frenzy in my country. However, I still see a risk for technical co-founders there: the ability to establish connections, sell and leverage a valuable network has to be made clear before a partnership can be established. I made my attempt at founding a company without a co-founder possessing such "soft skills", and I believe failed primarily because of that. > Having a co-founder who could actually build relationships, have good product vision, and most importantly SELL were crucial. None of these things require technical background or hamfisting a no-code solution. The enterprise customer was so excited for the solution, they paid for a pilot based solely on the requirements. One startup I joined, the co-founder had sold the product as a set of requirements. Already have letter of intent to buy or other commitment to pay for a product that solves some problem if B2B. Managing those is a full-time job and as a founding/sole engineer, it's a poor use of time. You really need to know what you're doing with marketing and social media. Consumer and e-commerce are really, really hard spaces. OR have proven track record of marketing. If you're building B2B SaaS, being connected to the people that will actually make the decisions will make your life a lot easier. Have high level industry connections (C-level, VPs, IT decision makers). Already identified and quantified the price for removing some friction or cost from that process/flow. Most interesting problems require understanding some process or flow of information, documents, money, etc. Having done this a few times now, it is more clear to me what I want from a non-technical co-founder:
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Even getting calls to talk to potential customers in some spaces is difficult without the right network or know how to get connected to that network. I'm building two right now ( is one).Įxcept for the rare cases where you have something that's an instant hit, doing anything that's B2B SaaS is incredibly difficult without warm intros. I've built my own systems from the ground up. I've built systems from the ground up at other VC-backed startups. I have built systems from the ground up used by big corps. This also jives with my experience as a technical founder.
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(I'm sure there are technical co-founders who see the role differently, and maybe more like a junior programmer hired to grind code and knock off sprint tasks, but that's not the holistic technical co-founder role that I see.) And they should know that I'll bring a comparable pile of abilities and appreciation of difficulty, including some things overlapping with theirs, some things they don't understand, and some things they don't even know are things. That's a ton of work and skills to develop, I know I don't understand all of it, and probably there are entire abilities some individuals have that I don't even know exist. I want a non-technical co-founder to have skill and appreciation for: domain, product, business, and fund-raising. I see tons of inquiries that say something like "turn prototype into product", and that activates a lot of likely-seeming guesses about their product thinking, tech debt burden, and how they see the technical co-founder or first hire. Not all technical co-founders want to hear that. The idea is good, but I know how much I need your help." > "Non-technical founder needs technical founder to help turn crappy prototype into product. So willingness to begin the work yourself makes you MORE attractive. The non-technical co-founder's humility is going to limit unreasonable demands. The non-technical co-founder is willing to put elbow grease in. The fact that there is a prototype makes it much more likely that the idea isn't just vague handwaving. Why are technical people more receptive to that? Besides, there is a huge imbalance of supply and demand.īut potential technical co-founders are much more receptive to, "Non-technical founder needs technical founder to help turn crappy prototype into product. And honestly, the stereotype of "non-technical founder needs technical co-founder" is some asshat with no real clue who will make their partner miserable. There is nothing more frustrating than a non-technical cofounder who underestimates what technical work requires. There is nothing to give you appreciation for what a technical person brings than trying to walk a mile in their shoes. I can hear the "But, but, but." Wait and hear me out. A poorly coded and shitty prototype that fits what you want is massively better than a polished application that isn't what you want. Contract out particular bits if you need to. Start trying to do the technical work yourself.
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