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Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

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Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#71

Post by srgseg »

webwright wrote: post #58

To name a few non-technical co-founders off-hand: Steve Jobs, Andrew Mason (Groupon), Ev Williams, Marc Benioff (salesforce.com), etc. The list is a mile long. A few of those folks can code a bit, but none of them coded much at all when they were doing their best work. There is nearly infinite non-programming work for most startups. Design, fundraising, writing, support, sales, bizdev PR, QA, accounting, talking to l…

Steve Jobs once described himself as "the best programmer I know".

I think I read this in the book "Apple Confidential"

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#72

Post by gordonc »

Fuck startup events (and startup "incubators" for that matter.) Everybody wants to 'play startup' these days.

Valuable non-programming skills include, in order of immediate product utility: user experience design, visual design, customer support, business development, marketing. And, more importantly, and much rarer, the ability to find all those people that fit with the team and to create a working environment of mutual respect.

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#73

Post by dlevine »

A friend of mine has said that there are three things someone can bring to a startup

- The ability to build a product

- The ability to bring in money (either VC or sales)

- The ability to tolerate risk

As a technical founder who has worked with many non-technical people, I have found it quite rare that a non-technical founder can bring in much on the product side. Almost every non-technical founder I have worked with claims that he is a "product person," but I have found that pretty much none of them are.

Some non-technical founders are good sales people, and can bring in either VC, customers, or both. Some technical founders can do this too, but if you are good enough at this, you will be pulling your weight.

The final thing is the ability to tolerate risk. If you can keep the team motivated and on-target even when things are going badly, that is almost enough in many cases. Very few technical founders can do this well (since most engineers are pretty risk averse), so this is an opportunity to distinguish yourself.

In summary, if you can raise money AND keep everyone else happy and productive, you are pretty much doing your job at the early stage.

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#74

Post by yalogin »

webwright wrote: post #58

To name a few non-technical co-founders off-hand: Steve Jobs, Andrew Mason (Groupon), Ev Williams, Marc Benioff (salesforce.com), etc. The list is a mile long. A few of those folks can code a bit, but none of them coded much at all when they were doing their best work. There is nearly infinite non-programming work for most startups. Design, fundraising, writing, support, sales, bizdev PR, QA, accounting, talking to l…

I don't necessarily agree that Jobs was not a programmer but when you say design as a non-programming skill do you mean the UI and the 10000 ft view? Every entrepreneur has the rest of the skills you mentioned. I am not saying there is no need for the non-programmer type but not when the first team is formed. They will be part of the first group of hires in my opinion. I really don't think a business guy should go to a hackathon style event and say I need a programmer to implement my idea. That is just a glorified way of searching for an employee on craigslist.

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#75

Post by roel_v »

aerique wrote: post #27
roel_v wrote: post #19

Where is this type of event? I'm in Europe (the Netherlands, to be more precise) and I have been trying to meet people who are more business-minded for years, but I can't seem to find any events like the one you describe. I guess I'm looking in the wrong places?

I was planning to attend this for the first time but I wasn't able to last time: http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders-Amsterdam-NL/ Perhaps others who did go can chip in whether it's any good. Also if you're near Delft I can point you to an upcoming event.

Thanks, I joined that group. I'm in the south but if the event has a 'scene' around it, maybe it would still be useful for me?

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#76

Post by GiraffeNecktie »

Here's what I'm bringing to the party as a non-technical founder:

- Money

- Domain knowledge

- Patents (not yet confirmed, starting this process soon)

- Office space in a cool location

- Over thirty years of communications experience including technical editing, ad copy, press releases etc.

- Lots of experience with web content management systems (contributed a lot of documentation for one open source project)

- Previous founder experience (though not a tech startup)

- The idea. Yeah I know what you're thinking. An idea + $2 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks but this is truly an innovative approach to a huge under served market. That's worth something.

- Journeyman graphic design and layout abilities

- Courage, creativity, sense of humor and perspective

-

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#77

Post by aerique »

roel_v wrote: post #75
aerique wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was planning to attend this for the first time but I wasn't able to last time: http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-Founders-Amsterdam-NL/ Perhaps others who did go can chip in whether it's any good. Also if you're near Delft I can point you to an upcoming event.

Thanks, I joined that group. I'm in the south but if the event has a 'scene' around it, maybe it would still be useful for me?

I'm not sure. Mail me :-) (see my HN profile)

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#78

Post by culturengine »

The skills that gets you into business (programming for example) are not the ones that will make you successful at business (everything else).

So perhaps the question shouldn't be about what does a non-programmer bring to a small team, but rather what do you as current co-founders not personally bring to your own business?

If building a scalable money making app/service/product/thing is what you want to do, then customer development is going to be just as important as product development, and connecting the dots between customers/users and your idea/features cannot be written with code alone.

Either the existing co-founders will need to share an equal level of interest/skill/time for the other parts of the equation (design/ux/sales/marketing/support/bizdev/funding/everything else), or you will need to acquire these skills via payroll or equity.

Knowing in which areas you suck will help this process a lot, and this only comes with giving something a go yourself.

Once you know your weaknesses you will be in a good position to assess what skills/experience a new co-founder will need to have to balance things out.

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#79

Post by mariusz10jonski »

I'm not a programer. But I write business plan in xmind tool. I do Branding - meaning I rewrite business idea for the market and implement strategy as a manager. I can be a co-founder with reasonable spendings plan. I have 2 projets that are commodities as well as digital products. And have few good domains for all sorts of business. So considering your startup idea is of a business kind, would you like to attend a meeting with me? All best, m

Re: Ask HN: What does a non-programmer bring to a 2-3 person startup team?

#80

Post by mariusz10jonski »

brandnewlow wrote: post #41

non-programmer founder here, Things I brought to our startup: - convertible note on great terms - crappy-but-functioning prototype - fully-designed HTML wireframes for prototype v2 - meaty customer pipeline including 2 customers pre-sold - extensive network of sales contacts in our space - extensive network of press contacts in our space - 2 years experience running a site where I used and helped sell the early versi…

I'm not a programer. But I write business plan in xmind tool. I do Branding - meaning I rewrite business idea for the market and implement strategy as a manager. I can be a co-founder with reasonable spendings plan. I have 2 projets that are commodities as well as digital products. And have few good domains for all sorts of business. So considering your startup idea is of a business kind, would you like to attend a meeting with me? All best, m
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