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Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
41–50 of 53 posts
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#42I’m a CTO in a 20 man startup and have been through the ringer on several different projects through my career. This is a difficult situation as positive founders that you can build a company with are hard to come by (been there) and outsourcing is a minefield. I would suggest not to engage with an offshore outsourcing company, I have had terrible experiences here (they may tell u they are under NDA so cannot share a…
Friendly correction: You've been through the wringer (as in, laundry wringer, an old-fashioned household appliance). https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-it-through-...
Yes! Thank you.
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#43I’m a CTO in a 20 man startup and have been through the ringer on several different projects through my career. This is a difficult situation as positive founders that you can build a company with are hard to come by (been there) and outsourcing is a minefield. I would suggest not to engage with an offshore outsourcing company, I have had terrible experiences here (they may tell u they are under NDA so cannot share a…
Your comment comes off as xenophobic. I know it's acceptable in tech circle to talk this way, but not cool.
No xenophobia intended, the same can happen with onshore. But, there is a tendency to jump off shore due to costs and if you are inexperienced it can go very badly. That’s all. I’m experienced and it has gone badly on past experiences.
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, so how do we talk about the prevalence of awful off-shore software-development firms without being "xenophobic"? If you're going to lecture us on how we talk, at least offer an alternative?
> OK, so how do we talk about the prevalence of awful off-shore software-development firms without being "xenophobic"? We don't, when the problem under discussion is endemic to outsourcing firms and has no particular connection to their location. The fact that there are lots of outsourcing firms that are, relative to where the demand for their services is, also offshore is completely beside the point . Raising that i…
Offshore outsourcing tends to be by far the cheapest, hence assuming people will use offshore firms isn’t xenophobia its based on a relatively likely assumption.
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#45I co-founded a startup that had a technically-solid product that people swore they wanted. It failed. I've also worked for a number of successful startups. And I've consulted for startups that succeeded, and ones that sank without a trace. If there's any pattern I can see with the non-technical founders, it's that some knowledge of coding is certainly nice, if only so the founders can talk to the actual coders. But c…
Don't forget that MVPs don't need to be apps. I'm a technical guy, but the first start up I joined started selling sheets of paper to clients at a premium before we scaled to an app. If you can get a business running with spreadsheets, you'll have a lot of leverage bringing devs to the table.
More details on that first startup?!
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#46I would say, Lean to code. Divide your SaaS project in small unit of task, explore each section unit by some video tutorial at first-good for first. try on youtube, freecodecamp or udemy. gain knowledge of subject and make small function to demonstrate the part of your saas products capability. Explore and learn, you can later hire some dev, co-founder or CTO of tech background. For coding, I would say put your effor…
If he’ll starts to learn how to code, he won’t be good at coding nor business.
I've long thought this. Could you elaborate?
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#47I co-founded a startup that had a technically-solid product that people swore they wanted. It failed. I've also worked for a number of successful startups. And I've consulted for startups that succeeded, and ones that sank without a trace. If there's any pattern I can see with the non-technical founders, it's that some knowledge of coding is certainly nice, if only so the founders can talk to the actual coders. But c…
If someone came to me with 10 letters like that I'd probably jump at becoming a technical co-founder depending on my life situation at that moment. If it was bad timing for me I could connect that person with a few other people who would jump at that opportunity too.
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#48I co-founded a startup that had a technically-solid product that people swore they wanted. It failed. I've also worked for a number of successful startups. And I've consulted for startups that succeeded, and ones that sank without a trace. If there's any pattern I can see with the non-technical founders, it's that some knowledge of coding is certainly nice, if only so the founders can talk to the actual coders. But c…
Agreed, find a technical co-founder and focus on the market/selling yourself. Do you have a brief of the problem you’re looking to solve?
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#49I’m a CTO in a 20 man startup and have been through the ringer on several different projects through my career. This is a difficult situation as positive founders that you can build a company with are hard to come by (been there) and outsourcing is a minefield. I would suggest not to engage with an offshore outsourcing company, I have had terrible experiences here (they may tell u they are under NDA so cannot share a…
Your comment comes off as xenophobic. I know it's acceptable in tech circle to talk this way, but not cool.
This is a throwaway account.
I have been in companies where we'd outsourced to firms in India. The experience was not good for us, at all. The arm of the company that set up this arrangement, it went under. The offshore firm did not deliver.
I realized what seems to be a cultural thing with folks I'd worked with from offshore firms. They would nearly always exude absolute confidence in their ability to deliver what you'd requested from them, no matter how complex the task.
"Oh yes. Sure. No problem. We will get that done for you. Absolutely, yes. No problem."
You never heard humility in the sense of, "well, I/we aren't experts in _________ but we'll research and get back to you." It was always confidence, to the extreme.
I wonder why this is?
The reality ended up being entirely different. Many times, they had no effin clue. These were with some very big-name offshoring firms.
The flip side to that same coin… the folks from those firms that were genuinely skilled… they weren't in India. They got brought over on visas and were working in the US.
Re: Ask HN: Starting a SaaS business as non-technical founder
#50I’m a non technical co-founder and CEO of a SAAS company. We were unable to have gotten where we are with without the other prime supporters (there were three) and me imagining I could do everything and doing nothing admirably. We each were answerable for carrying out a responsibility the others abhorred.