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How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

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Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#21

Post by thinkmaya »

limedaring wrote: post #15
melissamiranda wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The look book was awesome, it brought all the invitations on the site to life. You could curl up on a couch and flip through beautiful stationery at your own leisure. It made it a pleasure rather than a chore by simple getting it off the computer. Tracy, where were you when I got married? I was impressed that Tracy had to learn pdf scripting to pull it off, she learns just about anything, and fast.

Mmmm alas, I didn't learn PDF scripting (eugh, one of the reasons why I dropped my original startup idea) — it was all painfully done by hand in InDesign. That said, we're looking at scripting for this time around!

very cool Tracy! I think it takes a certain kind of skill to marry our strengths with customer needs and build something that wins. Great job on the lookbook!

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#22

Post by Pimp4life »

This is all good stuff. I'm pretty active in Co-Founder recruiting. When I apply to incubators, I still list out the portfolios of all the people that I've talked to, so that they are aware of who I'd like to get aboard. The main problem is not having any money to hire them. I've had a few that are willing to do sweat equity, but they have their hands tied with other commitments (work, school) and projects. When I go to meetups and hackathons, the first thing people ask me when I say that I need a Co-Founder is "Do you have any money?". Granted, I wouldn't want to work with the type of folks that say anyway, but seed capital will help me pluck talent away from cubicles or have a 3rd-party get a MVP made. I need a developer and a designer. I want to split the equity 3-ways evenly among us.

You also have to raise the bar of what you're looking for by learning to code yourself. Codecademy is great, because everyone on a startup needs to be technical to some extent, at least early on. You need to be able to collaborate shoulder to shoulder.

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#24

Post by ericd »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #18

No wonder. She's a woman. (READ THE WHOLE POST before you downvote) I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the family funds. The men I know.... well... we…

There are lots of guys doing huge things very successfully. Bezos just located an Apollo rocket on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. James Cameron has gone from being one of the most successful film directors to being one of the most successful deep divers of all time. These are bold things that were successful. Being a risk taker causes a higher variance in ones endeavors, which implies some spectacular failures, but that also implies occasional spectacular successes.

Don't count yourself out just because of your gender. Tracy is awesome because she's Tracy, not because she's a woman. Actually, just don't count yourself out period, that's silly. You can always improve at things.

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#26

Post by grokaholic »

limedaring wrote: post #7
nickler wrote: post #3

'cockroach' !! I love it. Stealing that one.

Yeah, I think Paul regrets saying it because I've been using it as my personal nickname now. :P

First time I heard "cockroach" used to describe start up founders is in this article by Paul Graham.

http://paulgraham.com/guidetoinvestors.html

"Apparently the most likely animals to be left alive after a nuclear war are cockroaches, because they're so hard to kill. That's what you want to be as a startup, initially. Instead of a beautiful but fragile flower that needs to have its stem in a plastic tube to support itself, better to be small, ugly, and indestructible."

By the way, you go girl! Best of luck. I admire and applaud your persistence. Keep going. I believe you can do it.

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#28

Post by limedaring »

hkarthik wrote: post #16

This is a great story. As a visionary who clearly doesn't mind getting her hands dirty and has design skills you seem like every tech co-founder's dream! I'm honestly surprised you had difficulty finding a tech co-founder before launching. I'm dabbling with the idea of becoming a tech cofounder for someone, so I'd like to know what were the criteria that you looked for in a tech cofounder and how did you finally find…

"As a visionary who clearly doesn't mind getting her hands dirty and has design skills you seem like every tech co-founder's dream! I'm honestly surprised you had difficulty finding a tech co-founder before launching."

The difficulty wasn't in finding a tech cofounder — I had one back in the day, went through a whole "interview" process with people from my original post that got on HN. The problem was knowing someone long enough to feel comfortable with them and finding the right person for the industry, especially since I'm working in the weddings industry which is generally uninspiring for a lot of devs. So it ended up with me working solo for over a year, and the right person approached me, which worked way better.

"I'm dabbling with the idea of becoming a tech cofounder for someone, so I'd like to know what were the criteria that you looked for in a tech cofounder and how did you finally find one?"

Personality and fit with you and the company is number #1. Fit within the current needs of the company was #2. Right skillset wasn't considered (hell, if I can pick it up, someone who specializes in software development certainly can.) But definitely finding someone who you can work with is the most important, because if things go badly, you can work together on a new idea if you jive well together.

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#29

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

ericd wrote: post #24
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #18

No wonder. She's a woman. (READ THE WHOLE POST before you downvote) I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the family funds. The men I know.... well... we…

There are lots of guys doing huge things very successfully. Bezos just located an Apollo rocket on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean . James Cameron has gone from being one of the most successful film directors to being one of the most successful deep divers of all time. These are bold things that were successful. Being a risk taker causes a higher variance in ones endeavors, which implies some spectacular failures, b…

I should have emphasized more on the fact that this is what I'm seeing with the men and women that -> I <- know and have met. Those successful men you mentioned obviously have behaviors that I (or anyone in my family) don't have. It's just that in my life I'm seeing more of those behaviors in women than in men. Leading me to feel this way. I shouldn't, I know. It's illogical and I deserve the downvotes for such a loaded, wide, generalizing, polarizing statement, but I can't help but feel this way.

Re: How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder

#30

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

shazow wrote: post #20
ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #18

No wonder. She's a woman. (READ THE WHOLE POST before you downvote) I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the family funds. The men I know.... well... we…

You call it pattern recognition, I call it excuses. Setting high expectations for yourself is crucial to achieving them. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

Yes you're right it's partly an excuse (40%) but also a way (60%) for me to try and find the reasons for why I and others in my family have failed so I can change myself and stop making the same mistakes. I have a problem with your advice. I already had and still have high expectations for myself, my family does too. That's not working. The problem with my dreams, ideas, and goals is that they are coming from me. I am the flawed one and I need to change.
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