I'm a non-technical(*) cofounder in the process of starting a company. While I haven't committed to a single cofounder yet, I've had little trouble getting conv

I'm a non-technical(*) cofounder in the process of starting a company. While I haven't committed to a single cofounder yet, I've had little trouble getting conversations with technical people that are serious about the idea and have reasonable backgrounds. Some have actively come to me unsolicited. I obviously can't say for sure why that is, n=1 and all, but here's where I see my differentiators compared to the other nontechnical founders I see on YC's own matching board (https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching): - I have domain expertise. I have done the thing I am trying to do before (I used to be part of the leadership at a company in the same space), and I'm trying to build a thing that has had some real-world proof-of-concept already. I don't have "an idea", I have a plan for how to create it and for why I think it will be a viable business. I'm not "the ideas person", I'm "the person who will make the business side of this work so you can focus on the technical stuff you like, which is an equal and complementary role". - I'm offering something "divisive". Specifically, I'm not* trying to build the next unicorn, I'm trying to build something small and sustainable. Many people do want to build the next unicorn, but the people who don't* have much slimmer pickings. I'm not more interesting on average, but I can be the most interesting to a specific subset of people. This is essentially the same dynamic you see on dating sites, as with OKCupid's old blog about attractiveness-rating distributions (archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcupid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcup...) - you don't want to be a 5/10 to everyone, you want to be a 10/10 to someone. - Related to the previous bullet, I act like a human being. Basically, I bet on the idea that other people who want to start companies are often doing it for (one of) the reasons I am: because they're so tired of the pervasive culture of corporate BS that overlays almost every company of any size, and want to laser-focus on something that keeps you honest. My profile is direct, human, emotional, and does not shy away from talking about who I am, not just why my credentials are great (which they honestly aren't - they're not terrible but it's certainly not my competitive advantage). I think people respond to that, because I respond to that, and I can't be the only one. - I'm trying to build a thing engineers care about. That's obviously not something you can control if you're trying to, I dunno, build the next fintech app that is fundamentally boring on the technical side, but if you're a nontechnical founder, it might suggest to you which ideas you have would be easiest to find a technical partner for. None of this is particularly earth-shattering, mind. If you just watch the Startup School videos, they'll tell you most of this. But as with a lot of things, a surprisingly huge chunk of the "market" fails to grab the low-hanging fruit. (* nontechnical in the sense that YC's matching uses, i.e., I cannot build the product myself with my current skillset. I am considerably more technical than the average "non-technical" founder, though.)