Really, you want a technical co-founder, but if this is the first thing you've done and you don't have cash, that will be difficult. A business guy without money is like a technical person who doesn't have completed projects on his resume.
The people who like this project the most are the industry contacts I've pitched to. Essentially I've got three believers in my product: the IP lawyer I consulted with in fall of '09 when this whole thing started, the former coworker who is also a "guerrilla-style" marketer/graphic designer/photographer, and my current coder who I've contracted to do $2K of work to build the alpha prototype.
As far as investors go, I think the recession of '08 shook people's perceptions of Wall St. and made it easier for startups to argue for funding from individuals. I make the case of, "Hey, you lost how much in your mutual fund? This product is a high risk to be sure but the potential return for a small amount of cash is astronomical." I never say those words exactly of course but that's a theme of my financial argument to investors.
Its very very cheap to start a web company and I'm trying to run it that way.
As far as my status of being a nontech guy without money, that's true to a certain extent because I have no formal training. I have been working a lot on developing the marketing and product design end of things. Graphic design has been a hobby of mine for a long time so I've been doing all the initial UI design. I guess that's my "sweat" contribution to the thing so far.
There's always talk of "value" with startups. I would argue my "value" to my startup is in the fundraising, conceptual development, and UI design end of things. I communicate well with investors, I'm comfortable speaking to people because of my teaching experience, I know the difference between selling and educating (thanks to two failed attempts in sales) but I can do both if necessary. I also have talent in graphic design and can create meaningful mockups to guide coding development. People pay for those two functions in the industry. A lot of R&D money goes into developing ideas (Google Wave anyone?) so the conceptual work I've been doing is also not without value.
The only difference is that I don't have formal training so it takes me longer to develop these things to industry standard formats because I don't know what developers need to create a quality product. I'm learning though.
If some business guy without money approaches me and claims he knows how to raise money, well, maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. How would I know? but if the same guy approaches me and can prove that he's already raised $bignum dollars from various investors, then I at least know he's good at raising money. I mean, that's not the whole of the business guy job, but it's certainly an important part.
I've been running into some dominant themes on HN as I've been participating and learning. This is my first project so usually when I say I can't code, HNers say, "Well you have no resume and can't code, so what value do you bring?"
Since I'm applying for winter session, I want to let the selection people know how I respond to those questions because I'm sure they have similar concerns.