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I must have been stuck in the HN bubble too long because I'm really surprised that there's non-technical entrepreneurs trying to start technical startups. How d

I must have been stuck in the HN bubble too long because I'm really surprised that there's non-technical entrepreneurs trying to start technical startups. How does that even work?

ghostbrainalpha 11y ago
Almost every company will eventually need great salespeople. A great salesperson with a great idea, can recruit developers to implement the idea. It's rare, but I've seen it happen.
- BurningFrog 11y ago
  But how does the salesperson tell the good developers from the bad? That's hard enough even for us in the game.
  - frozenport 11y ago
    >>how does the salesperson tell the good developers from the bad? By reading the linked article?
  - oneweekwonder 11y ago
    Well my bet is he give the guy some contract work, and see if he delivers. How you interact with him and how he explain technical problems to you. Then look at the quality of the product he built.
  - angersock 11y ago
    You don't actually need a good developer to build an MVP to sell--you just need a good enough developer to prop up the cardboard cutouts long enough to raise enough funding to hire the right people and get referrals.
  - PeterisP 11y ago
    I've seen a bunch of products that were initially built by developers who were totally inexperienced at the time and not particularly good even after all of that - the codebase was a total mess, but if that initial version had the core features and somehow works by magic of ducttape, babysitting the production code and manually fixing data when it gets broken, then it can get rewritten more or less properly after the concept is proven and the business can hire better (and more) technical people.
    - BurningFrog 11y ago
      But who hires the better people? Presumably the previous not-so-great programmers, who are now VP of Engineering. Or do you fire those guys?
  - skygazer 11y ago
    Whether this is an effective technique or not, I think they look for people that at seem to really understand the pitched idea, and specifically don't say it's impossible. Probably a similar search technique any of us would use when navigating an opaque bureaucracy looking for help.
michaelpinto 11y ago
It may not be the stuff of unicorns, but there are quite a few niche markets where you might have someone who knows the problem space inside-and-out who may not be a coder. I've seen niche software that does everything from manage a farm to inserting those annoying mini-flyers into monthly mailed bills that you get from utility companies.
fit2rule 11y ago
I think the Peter Principle has a lot to do with it personally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle I've learned to never work for someone who can't do your job, and that includes "Founders" and "startup people".

I must have been stuck in the HN bubble too long because I'm really surprised that there's non-technical entrepreneurs trying to start technical startups. How does that even work?

ghostbrainalpha 11y ago

Almost every company will eventually need great salespeople. A great salesperson with a great idea, can recruit developers to implement the idea. It's rare, but I've seen it happen.

BurningFrog 11y ago
But how does the salesperson tell the good developers from the bad? That's hard enough even for us in the game.
- frozenport 11y ago
  >>how does the salesperson tell the good developers from the bad? By reading the linked article?
- oneweekwonder 11y ago
  Well my bet is he give the guy some contract work, and see if he delivers. How you interact with him and how he explain technical problems to you. Then look at the quality of the product he built.
- angersock 11y ago
  You don't actually need a good developer to build an MVP to sell--you just need a good enough developer to prop up the cardboard cutouts long enough to raise enough funding to hire the right people and get referrals.
- PeterisP 11y ago
  I've seen a bunch of products that were initially built by developers who were totally inexperienced at the time and not particularly good even after all of that - the codebase was a total mess, but if that initial version had the core features and somehow works by magic of ducttape, babysitting the production code and manually fixing data when it gets broken, then it can get rewritten more or less properly after the concept is proven and the business can hire better (and more) technical people.
  - BurningFrog 11y ago
    But who hires the better people? Presumably the previous not-so-great programmers, who are now VP of Engineering. Or do you fire those guys?
- skygazer 11y ago
  Whether this is an effective technique or not, I think they look for people that at seem to really understand the pitched idea, and specifically don't say it's impossible. Probably a similar search technique any of us would use when navigating an opaque bureaucracy looking for help.

michaelpinto 11y ago

It may not be the stuff of unicorns, but there are quite a few niche markets where you might have someone who knows the problem space inside-and-out who may not be a coder. I've seen niche software that does everything from manage a farm to inserting those annoying mini-flyers into monthly mailed bills that you get from utility companies.

fit2rule 11y ago

I think the Peter Principle has a lot to do with it personally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle I've learned to never work for someone who can't do your job, and that includes "Founders" and "startup people".