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Comment by CodeCompost | Hacker News Reader

Yeah and then the non-technical co-founder treats you like you're worthless because you're "just a programmer"

A tale as old as time. Gotta love the classic spin on the same trope of “the C suite drives the sales tho” to justify their insane salaries and bonuses. like they’d have anything to sell in the first place.

Yes, you need to make and sell things. They're both difficult.

I’m not diminishing the effort and skill necessary to be a good salesperson. I am, however, commenting on how often that turns into engineers being kept “in the back” when the paperwork starts.

Don't co-found a company with an jerk.

That may be more of a personality conflict. There's no more important choice than who you co-found with, and both parties should have high regard for each other's value to the business.

Of course that’s how it _should_ be. After working at enough startups in very early and/or founder roles, I can tell you it’s more common than not to get treated like a second class citizen when the “business” dinners come.

It's interesting, how all this stuff is written for the biz-bros, too -- try doing a google search on how to find a non-technical cofounder. Like, say you're an eng, with a technical idea you think would make the foundation of a good startup, and you're looking for someone to "found" the PM/marketing/bizdev side of things. From what I can see, the content/advice doesn't exist, even via YCombinator.

why would you want a nontechnical cofounder to do the pm/marketing/bizdev side of things? a nontechnical person might be able to do those things, but technical ignorance or incompetence are not necessary for them, and aren't even assets; they're just less serious drawbacks there than elsewhere

you might genuinely need some nontechnical people in your startup, but if you have some money you can always pay people to come be part of a focus group or user test when that's necessary

Why would you want a nontechnical cofounder to do these 3 specialized full-time roles? Is this a serious question?

> but if you have some money

lol . Just… lol.

yes. why would you want the three people doing those three specialized full-time roles to be nontechnical?

it seems to me that, given a nontechnical person who's good at one or more of those roles, they'd obviously be even better at it if they also understood the technology. ignorance and incompetence are weaknesses, not strengths

as for having some money, the context of this discussion is startups with angel or vc funding, which is plenty for focus groups and some user tests

Because good luck finding those three roles where they’re from a technical background?

I’ve worked with a grand total of one PM who was from a technical background. He was actually a great engineer but he was absolutely the exception to the rule.

Sure, if you can flesh your team out with entirely technical people filling those roles, great for you, but that’s like asking why you wouldn’t only hire 10x engineers. Well of course if you could find and hire only 10x engineers you would, but it doesn’t work like that. Especially considering those are all industry positions that are typically taken by people who never went into technical roles.

right, so people who are looking for a cofounder to fill those roles aren't looking for a nontechnical cofounder; they're looking for a cofounder. they may have to accept a nontechnical cofounder, but that's not what they're looking for. that's why there's no advice to be found on finding a nontechnical cofounder

i feel that my first comment in this thread already explained this with perfect clarity and you've just been trolling

You are undervaluing non-tech skills.

Ironic given that you are commenting on a vid where tech is undervalued; plus your comments are getting flagged for your communication skills.

I suggest you learn not to make the same mistake as those plonker non-tech guys.

to correct your error: nontechnical skills like marketing, grit, forgiveness, and negotiation are far more critical to business success than any technical skill

my single comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38479157 got flagged, i think, for being extremely rude, not for failing to communicate

you are the third person here to incorrectly attribute to me an undervaluing of non-tech skills, but that's on you three, not me; you're just pattern-matching what i said to some kind of stereotype and guessing what kinds of opinions i might hold on questions i haven't talked about. it's as if i had advocated abortion rights and you attacked me for advocating gun control

but i'm not in favor of gun control, and i value non-tech skills very highly. you guessed wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself for falling into fox-news-style stereotype-based reasoning instead of thinking about what i actually said

the particular communication skill i need in this case is the skill to avoid communicating with people who will ignore what i actually said and substitute something they would prefer to argue with

> to correct your error

Condescending and rude. I made no error.

> abortion rights > gun control

Wow - that's an irrelevant tangent. HN guidelines are to avoid flamebait and politics.

> why would you want a nontechnical cofounder to do the pm/marketing/bizdev side of things?

This is what my comment relates to. It seems to me that you are dismissing the potential value of a non-tech co-founder. A co-founder is not telling the dev what to do. Partners whos skills complement each other. I helped co-found a successful business with 4 founders: 1 sales, 1 BA, and 2 dev - although we were all tech types with far wider skills than the stereotypes of the labels I used suggest.

To be clear: some people don't need a non-tech co-founder, but I have seen devs try to start businesses where I felt the devs would have done better partnering up with non-dev co-founders. Also if one can't sell a business to a high-value co-founder, then my guess is one likely lacks the skills to be successful.

> case is the skill to avoid communicating with people who will ignore what i actually said and substitute something they would prefer to argue with

I am replying because I felt you ignored what I said, and you substituted something you preferred to argue with.

I'm not trying to change your mind - I'm just trying to explain how your comments come across to me - it is about me not you. I'm not trolling to make you angry - HN is not for that and why waste your time or mine. All good.

you guessed how highly i valued non-technical skills, based on literally zero information. i explained how highly i actually value non-technical skills, which is utterly contrary to your guess. you maintain you 'made no error', which i suppose means that you believe your initial baseless guess was correct, and i'm either mistaken or lying about my own beliefs

and somehow you think i'm the condescending and rude one?

my initial comment didn't even say how highly i value technical skills; it only said that the sign of the value i assign to technical skills is positive rather than negative—in the context of looking for a cofounder (as opposed to certain other contexts, such as finding user testing subjects, where the sign might be negative)

i explained that, by answering my comment in the way you did, you are engaging in the same kind of flamebait and politics that kills rational discussion around topics like abortion rights and gun control. (please stop doing that and respond to what i actually wrote.)

in response, you're implicitly claiming that i'm the one who's bringing in the flamebait and politics?

i don't know what you expect to achieve with this kind of darvo bullshit

no reasonable person could claim that when i say 'nontechnical skills like marketing, grit, forgiveness, and negotiation are far more critical to business success than any technical skill' i am 'dismissing the potential value of a non-tech co-founder'

but you did make that claim

what i'm dismissing, as i've explained at exhaustive and exhausting length, is the idea that they're valuable because of their lack of technical skills, rather than despite it (and because of their other skills, which, as i explained repeatedly, are even more crucial to business success)

Might I suggest not being "just a programmer" then?

In a startup it's extremely important for founders to wear many hats and share many burdens.

If you're the person that just goes off into a cave and emerges with beautiful code 6 weeks later and then expects everything to be great - you're wrong. There's a massive amount of foundational work to do to support a startup that technical people don't even think about.

As someone who's rarely been "just a programmer" or "just a designer," that hasn't stopped me from being viewed as such by managers if it's convenient for them to mentally classify me as such.

Your cofounder in a new startup isn't your manager.

The point is you can act like whatever you want, and so can everybody else, and often that means they'll be idiots, often in consequential ways. That's life.

The point is if you act like an employee, you will be treated as an employee.

Starting a company is not easy. If you stand around and only do tech, then you're not a founder, you are an employee. If you have to ask "what needs to be done next?" you are not a founder, you are an employee.

If you call someone your manager, then you are an employee.

If that's happening then you're not really a cofounder - you're acting like an employee.

If you're a cofounder you do not have a manager...

Starting a company requires a diverse set of skills, almost none of which are technical. A technical person can excel at those tasks, but they have to have the desire to figure out what needs to be done before asking what needs to be done.

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