Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
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Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#2Good post, but I would change the title. It's not about technical co-founders being overrated. It's about how it's a good idea to make yourself technical enough if you are a business person who wants to start a company based on a web application.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#3Good post, but I would change the title. It's not about technical co-founders being overrated. It's about how it's a good idea to make yourself technical enough if you are a business person who wants to start a company based on a web application.
I agree. A technical co-founder with no business sense would likely be inclined to disagree with business decisions made by the CEO, thus causing friction internally and hindering productivity.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#4I'd go so far as to add that the business guy having a modest amount of technical chops will make getting that technical guy easier, make getting funding easier, and make the creation of the product easier.
This is the Right approach.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#5Good post, but I would change the title. It's not about technical co-founders being overrated. It's about how it's a good idea to make yourself technical enough if you are a business person who wants to start a company based on a web application.
I agree. A technical co-founder with no business sense would likely be inclined to disagree with business decisions made by the CEO, thus causing friction internally and hindering productivity.
Wouldn't you think, a business co-founder with a technical co-founder would mainly stick to their strengths?
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#6Good post, but I would change the title. It's not about technical co-founders being overrated. It's about how it's a good idea to make yourself technical enough if you are a business person who wants to start a company based on a web application.
I agree. A technical co-founder with no business sense would likely be inclined to disagree with business decisions made by the CEO, thus causing friction internally and hindering productivity.
At the same time, a co-founder with a business sense and no sense will likely make bad business decisions that have technical impacts.
Do they understand the true cost of a highly available environment? Do they understand why feature development takes so long?
Even people with a limited technical background make those. In fact, they're probably worse, because they think they understand something but really don't.
Have two founders from different backgrounds, with a small understanding of the other is good. But the key is to understand their own knowledge boundaries and let the other take over where it matters. They need be able to play devils advocate to each other just enough to come up with the right solution.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#7I think the reason people crap on business ops co-founders, is because most of the time they don't want to be co-founders. Unlike the author of the articles, you see a lot of mba types who don't respect what coders do. So in the end, they don't want to give their 'technical co-founder' equity or sometimes even a fair wage. That's assuming we're even beyond the business dood's idea being making a 'facebook killer'
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#8I think the article is best summarized as "Don't let the lack of a co-founder hold you back". No matter what your expertise, the farther you get with your idea on your own the more likely someone will join you.
I do think the idea of "learning to code" to start something is pretty silly, just like the idea of "learning to sell" is pretty silly. Yes, you can learn them while starting a company but the process will be painful. Get advisors, mentors and possibly job experience in areas where you are weak instead of burning your precious start-up time on learning something new.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#9I'd go so far as to add that the business guy having a modest amount of technical chops will make getting that technical guy easier, make getting funding easier, and make the creation of the product easier. This is the Right approach.
I agree with this. You dont need to be a software developer, but enough knowledge of a programming language(s) will make raising funding and finding partners easier.
I think the biggest roadblocks occur because a non-technical founder doest have the knowledge to properly hypothesize and test his business to practice theories.
Re: Technical Co-founders Are Overrated
#10Good post, but I would change the title. It's not about technical co-founders being overrated. It's about how it's a good idea to make yourself technical enough if you are a business person who wants to start a company based on a web application.
I agree. A technical co-founder with no business sense would likely be inclined to disagree with business decisions made by the CEO, thus causing friction internally and hindering productivity.
I tend to think of "business sense" as basically being equivalent to "conventional wisdom," and then think of the long list of very successful businesses that have been started by people with no business sense. And the long list of "business" people who dismissed them.
I vote for "causing friction internally and hindering productivity."