Loved this article - non-technical people should learn how to SELL. There's no point in building something unless you have money in your hand first.
An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
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Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#12[deleted]
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#13[deleted]
"How does anyone think he can later on convince investors, clients, employees and so on, if he can't even get someone to join him and build an MVP."
You might be missing the point made in the post here. One really great way to get someone to join you and build an MVP is by doing the MVP as a pure service first and developing the business that way as far as possible. Then show that progress to developers who you'd like to join you.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#14This is GREAT advice. And not just for non-technical co-founders - this is how I would start almost any business, if I didn't already have money in the bank and my goal was to have a close-to-sure economic success. (Btw, Technical founders I would urge towards starting with a consulting practice as a way of getting a) money and b) business experience.)
Another benefit that isn't mentioned in the article: this gets you money in the bank from day 1, making you a lot less reliant on giving away equity to VC's, with all the good that implies. And honestly, if all you need is a technical person to help you scale after you've already got some money in the bank, you can always pay someone to do it - saving you even more equity.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#15As a non technical founder I liked the article. Many of the ideas in the article are similar to things discussed in the book The Lean Startup by Eric Reiss . I think PG is a big fan of the way of thinking as well so the fact that the article was written by a YC alum isnt surprising.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#16This post made me really happy. THIS is the kind of encouragement that 'non-technical' aspiring founders need. Less of the "if you can't code you don't have valuable skills" attitude. I have a blog post sitting in draft form that has scarily similar advice to this based on my own experiences, however this describes it with some really inspiring YC examples.
I started working this way at the start of 2012 and all of my projects since then have been far more popular/successful and more pleasing to work on. This is because I'm fully in control of project progress, I can see things through to launch, pushing the limits of my coding skills and bringing my 'concierge' MVP to life.
For those looking for technical help with a project longer term, don't forget that by starting this way you're stripping back and leaving pure technical issues which allows those with technical skills to clearly see where they could bring value which makes offering help very interesting.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#17This is a good approach for non technical people, no doubt. That is if it really suites their skillset. As a non-technical founder, you are likely good at building and maintaining relationships. You are probably good at selling things. You might be great at framing, so people buy into your vision or get excited about your ideas. These are amazing, difficult-to-acquire skills. Unfortunately, too many non-technical fou…
If they are non technical and don't have the hustle and flow skills then what exactly would they be bringing to a startup generally?
Assuming of course it's not money cause money solves most problems.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#18The premise of do what you're good at is great. However, even the non-technical examples listed still require quite a bit of technical knowledge (accounts, management, payment flows, notifications, etc.). The good thing is that these are fairly simple processes nowadays and can be picked up within a few months of studying.
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#19"I did not meet a single non-technical person who had done any of this leg work. I would have taken them and their idea very seriously if they had".
In the last year I've met more than a dozen such groups. Of those, 2 had actually done some legwork on their own - one had attended a tradeshow showing nothing more than a powerpoint and had collected some leads. (initially, that was impressive). Another had done a lot of exploratory work, and when I asked them to do XYZ, they actually did it and gave me the results from it.
In both cases, I've extended a bit more of my time to work with these people in hopes of getting the project to a point where we might work together long term. In one case, we simply parted ways because the vision was shifting a lot on his end - no focus. In the other case, that team has actually called it quits - they had simply underestimated the time and effort involved in making it work, and I appreciated the halt vs dragging it on for months on end.
But rarely do I meet groups or people that have done any significant legwork at all - they're the typical "idea man/woman", and just need someone to "make it work".
Re: An idea for non-technical co-founders: try a service-first business
#20Absolutely spot on. I would even extend this to developers. Why take a week to build a way to automate something that takes a human half a day when you don't know if anyone is ever going to pay for it?
I don't remember the company, but I was inspired by a fresh fruit+veg box-delivered-to-your-door founder. He made all the deliveries himself to start with rather than building a grandiose delivery platform or hiring.
I started my B2B company the same way. Initially I copied and pasted my code into customers sites. My 'ordering system' was just a PayPal express checkout. Zero backend. Man was it dull. But as a developer I knew I could automate 90% of what I needed to, when I needed to.
Now it's completely automated apart from support. Meaning my notional margin (cost of sale being my previous contracting rate) is at 85%. And I know I've just written the code I needed to so as to not do the mundane manual tasks anymore.