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HNed, it appears.
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HNed, it appears.
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This line should be taught and repeated many times in every startup book, school or accelerator. It's amazing how many people don't understand this.
It's widely accepted that you probably shouldn't be trying to build a new food company when you know nothing about food. Why do some people think it's a good idea to build a new technology when you know absolutely nothing about technology? It's not that technology itself has something magically exclusive in it. It's just that you're choosing to build something that highly depends on understanding technology to make business decisions. So it's just smart to understand technology to be able to make smart business decisions.
I can't count how many times I've heard "but it's just not my area, I'm a business/marketing/idea guy". Well, guess what, 90% of the things that are crucial for the success of your startup are not any one single person's area. You could either choose to not care and hope you're lucky, or you could actually get out of your comfort zone and do some learning like we all do.
If you're a pure hacker starting a company that highly depends on a good sales team, you should probably go learn something about sales. If you're a salesman starting an education startup, you should probably go look to learn something about education. If you're whatever and you're looking to build a tech startup, it's probably a good idea to look to learn technology. It's that simple. You have to realize that no matter what area you are on, if you're starting a new company, you are probably gonna have to do a lot of learning of new things that are completely out of your comfort zone.
Unfortunately, this kind of thing tends to be a code word for "I'm an empty suit, not good at anything in particular". And, often, "I'll come up with a half-baked idea, you'll do all the hard work of making it a reality. Obviously, those kind of people aren't going to be that useful.
The thing is, almost any great startup can really use a hard-hustling co-founder who tracks down deals and funding, pitches the company to potential investors and partners, sells product, manages the budget, and so forth. He will be the 'extrovert' to the coder's 'introvert' - and these are both complementary and valuable skill sets. In other words, we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
In one of his essays, pg described this kind of person as an "animal". For a tech firm to be successful, you need coding animals, sure, and you also need deal making, selling, product management, and PR animals.
(See: http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html )
The best non-technical "startup animals" that I know are fascinated by and respectful of coders, and often get drawn in to doing a little (or more) coding themselves.