I majored in Business (with marketing) in 1994. The one thing I learned from business school was problem solving. When I accidentally became involved in software, and more later web apps, it was obvious to me that I needed to learn to code at least to the point where I could converse about it. This ended up being one of the best things I've done and I garnered more respect from the team by doing so. My not being able to code was an obstacle - a problem - that was overcome by rolling my sleeves up. And guess what, I enjoyed it and still do to this day.
How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
11–20 of 53 posts
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#12My perspective is that of a person that focuses on the business side and no longer programs but has in the past:
The thing you do in entrepreneurship is essentially 'solve problems' day in and day out. You are constantly resource constrained so you must figure out how to maximize efficiency , whatever that may be in each respective case.
You have an idea (let's assume it is a good one for simplicities sake) but lack the ability to implement. This naturally brings up the question of how to implement - you can learn to do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. Hire may mean trading equity for the "co-founder's" time or compensating them monetarily. If you cannot afford to hire (try elance, guru, etc) you are left with trading equity. This means that you must now convince someone that you are competent to direct the implementation process ("you bring something to the table").
This is meant to be a pretty straightforward explanation because your question is vague in the sense that the situation you allude to has multitudes of variables.
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#13For the last ten months, I have been working on my most recent startup, http://www.LoveMyTool.com , which in time will become an online marketplace-of-choice for network monitoring tools (sniffers, IDS, etc.). The business model is old fashioned (no Google ad here). My vision is that we will become a virtual tradeshow (a zero carbon footprint version of Interop or NXTcom, which are million dollar physical events). In…
$180? does that include hosting?
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#14“Does a start up founder have to be a hacker”- the answer is, NO. The purpose of the founder is to execute. The secret to a start up isn’t the “original idea”…it’s whether or not your founder can execute - never mind the idea. If the founder can’t code a page is he resourceful enough to “execute” and find someone who can…etc.
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#15If you're no hacker, be good with photoshop so you can mockup what you have in mind. Then outsource the hell out of your product, and micromanage it to death. I've done this, and I have a nicely working website, and absolutely no idea how the code that runs it looks like.
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#16Here's a great post from Joel about exactly that. It doesn't start off like it's answering the question, but it does:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html
"Watching non-programmers trying to run software companies is like watching..." and you'll have to read the article to find out :)
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#17It s very funny to see your reactions.
"do we really need a business guy?"
Do you know what business guys say about techno/hacker/super ego hacker guys? They ll always find a dumb one that will do the job for them for few dollars.
It s interesting how you return the situation with so much pretention in a tentative to build yourself a legitimity.
You re just a tool.You re just missing the context. keep dreaming about the 20 successful heros of your tribe that could make it by themselves. Tell me about ego fishes that discuss about freedom inside their glass..
Good luck anyway .
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#18I come from the realm of web dev.
In this realm, not knowing how to code will make sure somebody else usually has you by the balls. While an extreme micromanaging alpha type can probably get others to do the job and do it acceptably, the level of work and commitment from employee-developers is hard to maintain.
While I agree there is room for non-technical founders who bring a lot to the table (like Thiel) the benefits such a person brings (like fund-raising and market strategy) are often only realizable when the product already exists (i.e. created by the technical people). Therefore it is questionable whether it makes sense to bring biz-only people on board at an early stage unless fund raising and specific biz dev is an essential part of the biz strategy.
Finally, as technical and associated biz changes occur more rapidly, an inability to understand the core technologies will leave more and more biz-only people crippled. Consequently, unless one is close to technical people who share a common vision, my recommendation to anybody interested in the web space is to gain real experience with the relevant technical tools.
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#19Technical enough to learn to program.
The majority of what is considered a web startup these days, appearing on TechCrunch and other such blogs, do not require the complete skills a CS major brings to the table.
If you are going to give it a go, and still in school, consider taking a couple of c++ courses or python if offered. Of course if you are a self starter you can jump right into python - diveintopython.org.
I learned on my own after getting my econ degree at UCLA, and I found that programming for the web is trivial compared to the c++ coursework I took.
I spent many days and nights over a few years learning how to program, setup servers, model my web apps with postgres, manage postfix mail servers etc. But these days, a good framework will get you off the ground and solve most of your database modeling. And a good hosting company will take care of your sysadmin stuff.
So a good co-founder would be someone who compliments your newfound skills and who is the opposite of you - a risk taker or conservative. This should help you better evaluate the difficult decisions that come up.
Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?
#20Programming is one of the easier aspects of founding a successful web startup. Perhaps there is greener grass elsewhere?