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You are absolutely right on both comments! And additional comments: 1) I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong f

You are absolutely right on both comments! And additional comments: 1) I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong flow. It should be like this: 1. Have the idea. 2. Get customers who give you real money to build this idea. 3. Get a developer by telling "I already have paying customers". 2) Absolutely agree. When I say "I should build that", in fact what I wanted to say was something like "I should have looked for more X prospects that would pay for what they wanted, get their money and then build that".

dagss 13y ago
To me it seems like recruiting of a developer worth anything, from scratch and without an existing team to help you to recruit or lure, must be much more difficult than getting an amazing idea or selling said amazing idea. Is that just because I never tried selling anything? Does anybody have examples of successful startups that proceeded in the way Sergio describes and became successful -- starting out with a business person/team, selling the goods first, then manage to find developer(s) to build it? (It's not rhetorical, I'd love to hear such examples -- the usual stories seem to be revolving around a gang of programmers, or at least a programmer co-founder.)
- sergioschuler 13y ago
  Look at http://thefoundation.com/ http://thefoundation.com/ , they have some cases about this kind of approach.
- daigoba66 13y ago
  For the company I currently work for, and at a previous company I worked for, v1 was built by an outsourced development firm long before the first fulltime engineer was hired. Yes it sucked and has since been completly rewitten. But it was a working product that started bringing in revenue and helped raise more money.
- apineda 13y ago
  Stephanie from https://www.refficient.com/ https://www.refficient.com/ did just that.
enraged_camel 13y ago
>>I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong flow. It should be like this: 1. Have the idea. 2. Get customers who give you real money to build this idea. 3. Get a developer by telling "I already have paying customers". Actually, I disagree. Even if you're not a developer, you should still strive to learn enough development such that you can push out the first version of the product yourself, even if it's imperfect. Doing so will have several advantages: 1. It will make it easier to find a developer (they will respect you a lot more) 2. It will make it easier to get customers 3. It will make you appreciate the technical aspects of the business Number 1 is the most important. The reason non-technical people have difficulty convincing developers to work on their ideas is that developers tend to look down upon non-technical people, especially "sales types." In addition, most developers have a thousand ideas of their own - you need to give them a reason to work on your idea instead. And that's a lot easier to do if you already have a version 1.0 out there that you have developed and have customers paying for it.
- red_anorak 13y ago
  In my experience of being a developer and building my own idea I actually found there were occasions when my inbuilt technical idealism caused me to make some wrong decisions on my product. I found it quite difficult to make product decisions independently of technical ones. I've had some really good bosses who couldn't code, though there is certainly a skill in winning over devs when you're not a programmer yourself. There are advantages to being a non-technical founder, if you're able to bring the right techies on board.
- sergioschuler 13y ago
  In fact I am learning how to program, so I agree with your points - but I don't think it is for every one. There is plenty of space for non tech founders. BUT I do believe it is easier if you do know how to code.
  - antoinec 13y ago
    "There is plenty of space for non tech founders." In the tech startup ecosystem, I don't think there is that much space for founders that don't want to code. Saying "I want to start a tech startup but I don't want to code" is as ridiculous as saying "I want to sell horses but I don't know anything about them and I certainly don't want to have to learn anything about them". It's possible, but you're gonna have a hard time doing it...

dagss 13y ago

To me it seems like recruiting of a developer worth anything, from scratch and without an existing team to help you to recruit or lure, must be much more difficult than getting an amazing idea or selling said amazing idea. Is that just because I never tried selling anything? Does anybody have examples of successful startups that proceeded in the way Sergio describes and became successful -- starting out with a business person/team, selling the goods first, then manage to find developer(s) to build it? (It's not rhetorical, I'd love to hear such examples -- the usual stories seem to be revolving around a gang of programmers, or at least a programmer co-founder.)

sergioschuler 13y ago
Look at http://thefoundation.com/ http://thefoundation.com/ , they have some cases about this kind of approach.
daigoba66 13y ago
For the company I currently work for, and at a previous company I worked for, v1 was built by an outsourced development firm long before the first fulltime engineer was hired. Yes it sucked and has since been completly rewitten. But it was a working product that started bringing in revenue and helped raise more money.
apineda 13y ago
Stephanie from https://www.refficient.com/ https://www.refficient.com/ did just that.

enraged_camel 13y ago

>>I am not a developer, but I believe having an idea -> finding a developer is the wrong flow. It should be like this: 1. Have the idea. 2. Get customers who give you real money to build this idea. 3. Get a developer by telling "I already have paying customers". Actually, I disagree. Even if you're not a developer, you should still strive to learn enough development such that you can push out the first version of the product yourself, even if it's imperfect. Doing so will have several advantages: 1. It will make it easier to find a developer (they will respect you a lot more) 2. It will make it easier to get customers 3. It will make you appreciate the technical aspects of the business Number 1 is the most important. The reason non-technical people have difficulty convincing developers to work on their ideas is that developers tend to look down upon non-technical people, especially "sales types." In addition, most developers have a thousand ideas of their own - you need to give them a reason to work on your idea instead. And that's a lot easier to do if you already have a version 1.0 out there that you have developed and have customers paying for it.

red_anorak 13y ago
In my experience of being a developer and building my own idea I actually found there were occasions when my inbuilt technical idealism caused me to make some wrong decisions on my product. I found it quite difficult to make product decisions independently of technical ones. I've had some really good bosses who couldn't code, though there is certainly a skill in winning over devs when you're not a programmer yourself. There are advantages to being a non-technical founder, if you're able to bring the right techies on board.
sergioschuler 13y ago
In fact I am learning how to program, so I agree with your points - but I don't think it is for every one. There is plenty of space for non tech founders. BUT I do believe it is easier if you do know how to code.
- antoinec 13y ago
  "There is plenty of space for non tech founders." In the tech startup ecosystem, I don't think there is that much space for founders that don't want to code. Saying "I want to start a tech startup but I don't want to code" is as ridiculous as saying "I want to sell horses but I don't know anything about them and I certainly don't want to have to learn anything about them". It's possible, but you're gonna have a hard time doing it...