Technical Co-founders Are Overrated

A competent tech founder will inherently understand issues of scalability, security, data structures, and so on. By applying this knowledge, you can iterate faster and not have to stop for a costly rewrite because the site was crushed by moderate traffic, leaks private data, was hacked, etc.

Given that you're going to want to get the technology right before you launch, it's generally the role of a founder to tackle these issues. The title "founder" implies a certain level of equity participation beyond that of an employee, but it's all arbitrary anyways.

I'll take a shot at this.

There is a large gap between "good enough to get the job done" and "stable, maintainable, and secure." It's important to get the kind of technical person who has a solid grasp of the proper way to develop software. A cofounder will care a lot more about building a lasting, maintainable business than random programmers will. Someone has to take pride in the codebase and take responsibility for auditing others' work as well, and it's hard for me to see a non-cofounder really caring enough.

A technical cofounder will be much more invested in the enterprise when things get tough, and in a startup they will! Something will break, someone will attack the site, traffic will peak unexpectedly, and as a founder you will want to know that you have someone who is capable and willing to handle those issues when they come up. A contracted programmer certainly will not fix issues like that cheaply, and even an employee is likely to seek other options after a few such incidents.

If you want to build a thriving, lasting company while minimizing difficulties, there is no substitute for a good technical cofounder.

Edit: While writing my comment, biot explained my first point in a more concrete way.

I understand your article wasn't actually about that and it was more about the self-empowerment you found through doing it yourself. I'm in full support of self-empowerment - but I will say this: technical cofounders are strictly not overrated. As has been suggested many times in this comment thread, a balance between a good business cofounder and a good technical cofounder is a great way to do it.

A one-man technical founder can get along without a business person or even outsourcing to a business consultant; a one-man business founder cannot get along without a technical person or without outsourcing to a technical contractor/consultant. Additionally, I applaud your self-driven effort, but it is a common mistake to think you can take over the world after 6 months to even 4 years of self-taught programming experience.

As a business person, you did well by learning just enough to build a prototype, from there, you should be able to attract a technical cofounder that has the skill and talent you are ultimately going to need in the long run and probably don't have the time or desire to pick up on your own.

Most rational people don't give a flying toss whether Airbnb existed.

It's pretty obvious the ends did not justify the means. They're a reservations website, wake up, sniff reality and stop drinking the koolaid. Is it ok the aggravation they've caused to small business owners and the total lying. And that's ok because they did a few cereal packets once? Because they're 'naughty'?

If everyone who thought they had "a better service" and were thus justified to send "a few emails to Craigslist users" the utility of Craigslist would be negatively impacted.

On that basis I would think the "rational person" might not find that sort of behaviour acceptable and would vote to preserve the resource.