The trouble with non-tech cofounders | Hacker News Reader

The trouble with non-tech cofounders

eu.techcrunch.com

22 pointsscottallison12 comments

I kinda feel like any article that argues that "non-technical cofounders are inferior to technical cofounders" or "technical cofounders are inferior to non-technical cofounders" or otherwise tries to denigrate one group relative to the other, is over-generalizing at best, and flat wrong at worst.

And I'm saying this as someone who is very much a technical cofounder, working with two other technologists as cofounders... we'd love to have somebody on board who has experience with sales, marketing, dealing with distribution channels, business development, partner relations, etc. And there's no question we will need those skills eventually if we're going to succeed. The fact that we can all write code, and maybe even produce a great product, doesn't mean much if we build something nobody will buy, or if we can't figure out how to get it in front of the people that make the purchasing decisions, etc.

Of course we're a B2B enterprise software play, which is a bit different than, for example, a consumer facing web application. In that context, a "hardcore business person" maybe is actually less important. I don't know, because that's not the world I play in.

My feeling is that a non-technical founder in a technology company cannot be a complete Luddite who knows nothing about technology, but I don't think he/she necessarily needs to be a coder. Of course somebody who knows how to code and has the "business skills" is probably ideal, but how many of those people are there out there?

I am a programmer and at my last company there was a technical founder and a nontechnical founder. The nontechnical founder was just taking up space. He once looked over my shoulder at my code and said "Oh I get it, it's not that hard" I then pointed out to him that the code was the stuff in-between the lines that started with "//". He actually thought the comments did all the work. He could not make any management decision because of his lack of technical experience. He ended up just doing payroll and accounting work, while the technical founder worked 90+ hour weeks. He made some pretty drastic strategy mistakes, such as thinking the iPhone was a fad (it was a mobile company). I left because I did not have faith in his management.

I worked at a development shop where we hired a programmer who couldn't get a standard browser toolbar implemented.

Therefore, coders are useless. See how fun anecdotes are?

>"I left because I did not have faith in his management"

Weird, because all we had to do was replace the guy with someone more capable, and off we went.

Sounds like your technical founder didn't know how to manage human resources. And if he did, you wouldn't have left, and the business would have been better off, right? That's why knowing the intricacies of running a business is important.

Nothing new here. Hence the term non-tech "cofounder", you're only half the equation. Depending on the business, it can be an important half. Jobs, by his biography, wasn't technical. Gates was quasi technical, he ultimately purchased their initial OS. Larry Ellison wasn't really technical either. They all built some of the biggest companies in the world. And by technical I mean a coder, not someone who sort of understands technology. In some industries, being technical isn't going to be enough. If the business is the technology itself, it may be, but a lot of times it is not. Take healthcare for example. It's a complicated arena, and unless you have some background about how the system works - the relationships providers have with each other, with their patients and with insurers, it's hard to gain footing, which is one reason why there have been only a few success stories so far. Or in media, with a company like Hulu, which hasn't been successful because of it's technology - but rather because of it's partnerships. There are many ways to build a business, but what has changed is that there are many more instances in the past 15 years where the tech person/team can go it alone and build the business before other players come in. And I think that's a good thing.

The article deals with non-technical people wanting to take their idea and turn it into a startup, but I'm wondering if anyone has any words of advice for a techie (i.e., me) who has little business experience.

If I set up shop tomorrow, I'd be the solo founder of my first startup. Given the amount of work involved (and how much of it would be non-technical), I figure it would be better to have a business-minded cofounder with me.

But how do I find one? Or, more crucially, how do I assess how good they are? Given that I have zero experience of running a startup on my resume, it's quite likely a co-founder would be the same. Am I better off just teaming up with my less business minded friend, whom I know very well and trust?

but I'm wondering if anyone has any words of advice for a techie (i.e., me) who has little business experience.

Just flip the equation around... if we're always telling "business people" to "learn to code" then, as a coder, maybe you should make a conscious effort to learn more about the business side of things. Is that really any less reasonable than asking a marketing guy to sit down and learn to code from scratch?

For an entrepreneur, I'd suggest reading Steve Blank's The Four Steps to the Epiphany (at least until his new book comes out) since that's about as close to a "paint by the numbers" guide as I've ever seen, for founding a startup and dealing with the customer/market side of things.

Beyond that... read all the Jack Trout and Al Ries books on positioning, marketing and branding. Read Crossing the Chasm and The Art of the Start. Find out what textbook the nearest college/university uses for their "Business 101" class and "Marketing 101" class and "Business Law 101" class, and buy and read them. Even better, go to the nearest community college and take those 3 classes. That trio makes a pretty good foundation on some of the most basic stuff one needs to know about running a business.

And (talking out of my ass here, since I haven't done this part yet myself) read some of the top books on selling and negotiation. SPIN Selling always seems to be high recommended, so that's queued up on my personal reading list for this very reason (technologist with no business background, acting a founder).

Oh, absolutely. And I have been. But I know it's more work than one person can handle, so it simply seems like it ought to make sense to bring a business head on board. But a cofounder is no small deal, so I'm concerned about doing it right.

Oh, absolutely. And I have been. But I know it's more work than one person can handle, so it simply seems like it ought to make sense to bring a business head on board.

Yeah, that's similar to the boat we're in. Three technology people (2 hardcore server-side coders, and one front-end coder/designer), and we're still looking for the right "business head" to bring in. The good thing is, we (well, me anyway) are arrogant enough to think we can go ahead and get started, and add the dedicated "business head" a little later on. But I've also been working hard to remake myself into a little bit of a "business head" myself (including taking some business classes at the community college and that whole bit).

Keep slugging away, the right combination is bound to come together eventually. Like pg says "just don't die." :-)

Though be careful not to confuse "business head" with "a person capable of adding a business model to a solution and bringing revenue from 0 to 10m within 2 months". Depending on your idea, I've seen CS Ph.D. students take on board a former management consultant with 2-3 years of work experience as CFO. (data integration solution that sells to corporate customers) His motivation? Less hot air, more opportunity to advance an actual project.

Alastair, if you're talking about Taxonomy - really liked your custom maps blog post, btw, even though I'm not a tech guy myself -, someone at college might be well-suited, as you seem to be working on a solution that needs larger-scale consumer adoption and an interesting story to sell (PR-wise) in order to be successful. I am always amazed at the number of business students I know (of) that are happy to intern at (commercial) startups or company builders and end up "community managing" the Facebook page, just because the business founders are successful at pitching their Groupon clone. If you give a talk at a university etc. and mention you welcome feedback on which feature is missing (>> ask for advice, you get money; ask for money, you get advice) afterwards, you might just find someone with a good product sense that also doesn't mind approaching people, and spare them that fate.

I think this guys kinda-gets it. I wanted to point out the conversation I had with a Jason Gordon in the comment, who I think doesn't get it:

From the comments Jason Gordon says: I don't think the ability to code something is as important as the ability to communicate exactly what you want to someone who has that ability. It's very easy to find someone who can code, the challenge is communicating to them what it is they need their code to accomplish.

Me: You are inferring that coders are just a utility that you need to manage and instruct. Coders, Programmers and designers, are people with ideas and also can be very entrepreneurial. Speaking for myself, I only want a non technical person to drive sales, and networking, and getting me featured in blogs and news - in effect, I just want to communicate exactly what I want to someone who has that ability. Good coders are not a dime a dozen.

>"I don't think the ability to code something is as important as the ability to communicate exactly what you want to someone who has that ability. It's very easy to find someone who can code, the challenge is communicating to them what it is they need their code to accomplish."

Sounds to me like Jason Gordon gets it.

There is far more to running a business than being able to code. And there is far more to the business world than software.

Good ideas generally come from people working at stuff they enjoy and/or do for a living. That's pretty obvious, which is why, generally, software ideas come from people who can write software.

But you can't do everything in your company. So being able to "write code" is no more or less important than being able to "do accounting", or being able to "operate a forklift", or being able to "perform arthroscopic surgery".

A true entrepreneur can look at any operation and determine how to assemble the parts to make the business model work.

Aren't you doing exactly what you're complaining non-technical founders do by treating "business" people as a utility? They just want you to "code" and you just want them to "sell". I think both sides need a mutual respect for each other. Treating either side as a utility is a recipe for failure. Good business people are not a dime a dozen either.

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