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Non-technical founder is a weird catch all. You never really hear about non technical founders in other industries, right? You don't start a construction compan

Non-technical founder is a weird catch all. You never really hear about non technical founders in other industries, right? You don't start a construction company and say "Well, I don't know anything about construction but I can draw pictures of buildings, so I'll just hire someone that does (barring for a moment that I lack the knowledge about the profession that would allow me to judge talent in the first place)." That said, there isn't something magic about geography that makes people suddenly better at programming. Good programmers live all over, you've just got to know enough about your business to be able to judge talent based on more than geography or color. One rule I've found useful: don't ask people to do things you can't (potentially badly) do yourself.

jacquesm 12y ago
It's mostly a reflection of the ability of the non-technical people to evaluate their prospective partners. Good non-technical people will be able to compensate with effort what they lack in initial ability. You don't need to know enough to do the job, you need to know enough to evaluate whether the other party is able to do the job (and to check up on them as things progress). Almost by definition this means that they will need a (very) competent project manager on the side of the hiring party. Alas, this is often also outsourced and that's when you get interesting phone calls at 4 am.
- McDoku 12y ago
  It is helpful if they (non-technical) are willing to learn and you (technical) need to be willing to devote the time to help them understand. Its important to make sure that is in your estimate. It can eat up a fair bit of time but it makes the relationship stronger.
dccoolgai 12y ago
"well, I don't know anything about construction but I can draw pictures of buildings" That's called an architect... and they do start companies that produce buildings. Just like I'm sure there are a lot of construction guys that hire an architect. The idea does not necessarily have to be tightly coupled with the execution. It can certainly make things easier and the road to startup hell is paved with people who had an idea without any concept of how it can/should be implemented - but they can still be successful under the right conditions.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Architects know something about construction.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That they do, but they typically farm out the engineering component to an engineering company. This then determines the constraints within which the architect will have to work with respect to design. There is a hybrid field called 'architectural engineering'.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
crdb 12y ago
Regardless of industry, a non-technical founder can still offer many things, including fundraising (whether via connections or hustle), sales, admin, the boring research like talking to customers, dealing with accounting, legal... (I've also personally found that to have one person focused on figuring out what problems are worth solving, and the other on solving them, works very well, but many engineers are also good at and enjoy figuring out what problems to solve). It's not just about relative ability, it's a question of motivation - few engineers truly enjoy putting on their tie to pitch 100 potential investors in a row, or convincing the first few clients to pony up for the product, with 95% of cases ending in a painful rejection. In fact, if a non-technical founder (I'm looking at you MBAs "interested in entrepreneurship") wants to increase his chances with the better engineers, he can always do so by closing a sale and presenting the evidence to the technical people he is trying to hire for the job. "I've gotten a written commitment to $100,000 if we build this relatively simple piece of software, and I have another four watching, we won't need seed funding" is a considerably more attractive proposition than "hey, please build this for free and according to this PowerPoint from my Tech Ventures class we'll own a billion dollar market next year".
gmarx 12y ago
Good programmers do live all over, but there are selection effects at work. In the US programmers tend to be people who like to program. In many other countries they are a cross section of smart college grads who do it more because it is a job that pays well and can be done over the internet.
retrogradeMT 12y ago
This happens in construction way more than you might think. From 2005 - 2008 there were thousands of "paper generals" building houses as a way to make a quick $50 - $100k. Most of them subcontracted every aspect of the job and knew little to nothing about construction. Industries that experience a boom attract people that are looking to strike it rich. The key to being successful for a non-tech founder is to have solid domain experience. A Realtor acting as a "paper general" stands a much better chance than a dentist.

jacquesm 12y ago

It's mostly a reflection of the ability of the non-technical people to evaluate their prospective partners. Good non-technical people will be able to compensate with effort what they lack in initial ability. You don't need to know enough to do the job, you need to know enough to evaluate whether the other party is able to do the job (and to check up on them as things progress). Almost by definition this means that they will need a (very) competent project manager on the side of the hiring party. Alas, this is often also outsourced and that's when you get interesting phone calls at 4 am.

McDoku 12y ago
It is helpful if they (non-technical) are willing to learn and you (technical) need to be willing to devote the time to help them understand. Its important to make sure that is in your estimate. It can eat up a fair bit of time but it makes the relationship stronger.

dccoolgai 12y ago

"well, I don't know anything about construction but I can draw pictures of buildings" That's called an architect... and they do start companies that produce buildings. Just like I'm sure there are a lot of construction guys that hire an architect. The idea does not necessarily have to be tightly coupled with the execution. It can certainly make things easier and the road to startup hell is paved with people who had an idea without any concept of how it can/should be implemented - but they can still be successful under the right conditions.

pessimizer 12y ago
Architects know something about construction.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That they do, but they typically farm out the engineering component to an engineering company. This then determines the constraints within which the architect will have to work with respect to design. There is a hybrid field called 'architectural engineering'.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

crdb 12y ago

Regardless of industry, a non-technical founder can still offer many things, including fundraising (whether via connections or hustle), sales, admin, the boring research like talking to customers, dealing with accounting, legal... (I've also personally found that to have one person focused on figuring out what problems are worth solving, and the other on solving them, works very well, but many engineers are also good at and enjoy figuring out what problems to solve). It's not just about relative ability, it's a question of motivation - few engineers truly enjoy putting on their tie to pitch 100 potential investors in a row, or convincing the first few clients to pony up for the product, with 95% of cases ending in a painful rejection. In fact, if a non-technical founder (I'm looking at you MBAs "interested in entrepreneurship") wants to increase his chances with the better engineers, he can always do so by closing a sale and presenting the evidence to the technical people he is trying to hire for the job. "I've gotten a written commitment to $100,000 if we build this relatively simple piece of software, and I have another four watching, we won't need seed funding" is a considerably more attractive proposition than "hey, please build this for free and according to this PowerPoint from my Tech Ventures class we'll own a billion dollar market next year".

gmarx 12y ago

Good programmers do live all over, but there are selection effects at work. In the US programmers tend to be people who like to program. In many other countries they are a cross section of smart college grads who do it more because it is a job that pays well and can be done over the internet.

retrogradeMT 12y ago

This happens in construction way more than you might think. From 2005 - 2008 there were thousands of "paper generals" building houses as a way to make a quick $50 - $100k. Most of them subcontracted every aspect of the job and knew little to nothing about construction. Industries that experience a boom attract people that are looking to strike it rich. The key to being successful for a non-tech founder is to have solid domain experience. A Realtor acting as a "paper general" stands a much better chance than a dentist.