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How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

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Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#41

Post by Harj »

fallentimes wrote: post #36
tdavis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How could I, a non-hacker, possibly play an equal contributory role has my hacker cofounder?" As the hacker co-founder in a shop of two people, let me tell you, you can play an equal role. Okay, so my partner doesn't setup the servers or write the code or design the site; I do all of that. So what does he do? _Everything else_. Ask most any hacker and they'll give you a laundry list of things they hate doing when it…

Tom, thanks for the kind words. Our team has been fortunate in the fact that after Tom moved away in high school, he decided to become a programming genius. To add a little bit to what Tom said... Because of the nature of our project, numerous parties and moving parts are involved. For better or for worse, there's lot of "business stuff" to do on a daily basis. Looking at some of the other YC projects, I could defini…

I have built a few simple websites from scratch before and taken a couple programming classes

imo that's the perfect level of tech knowledge for a non-technical founder

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#42

Post by hooande »

In all my years working for small to mid sized startups, I have never seen a situation where two people founded a company based on one being the "tech guy" and the other one being "the business guy".

Rvery startup I've worked for was founded by one or two technical people and one person who raised the money. Generally the situation was that someone who had been working for years decided to start a company with a friend and used the reputation and contacts he'd built up over the years to raise money to finance it.

I've never worked at a company with more than 10 employees where there was a non-technical founder who didn't provide access to capital.

With that being said, I think as the "business guy" there will be a lot of pressure on you to work extra hard and really produce (especially if you aren't providing the financing). It's usually not enough to have "good ideas" or "the idea"...you should be bringing something so valuable to the table that the other founder(s) says "Thank god this guy is here!"

It almost seems that a business guy will have to put in more effort than a hacker as a founder. The hacker doesn't have to be an exceptional hacker...he merely has to produce a working website. However since the business guy doesn't have a lot of measurable output, he will have to work extra hard to show that he's carrying his weight.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#43

Post by aristus »

bigtoga wrote: post #32
aristus wrote: post #4

This probably sounds fatuous, but hacking experience will make you a better business person in the same way that a daily column will make you a better writer. The reason is that while we are farting about with bits & bytes and star trek jokes, what we're really doing is translating human imagination into a system that is not capable of self-delusion. It does not believe, it does not miss details, it blows up at the s…

So then I would assume you would also argue that hackers need to know the business side of things for the same reason - yes? Either way, you're choosing a strategy of "Strengthen your weaknesses." There are other strategies like "Play to your strengths" that a lot of people will advocate very strongly. Personally I cannot think to advocate one and only one strategy; I think you have to fit with the dynamics at hand a…

I'm a generalist, so I suppose that's right. But I am saying something a little more than that.

Computer Science is the first serious attempt to study process as a concept in and of itself. It's the study of how to do things, and how to learn how to do things. A lot of things in life, from business planning to washing a sinkfull of dishes, can be done better if you apply a little process analysis.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#44

Post by dennykmiu »

tptacek wrote: post #25
dennykmiu wrote: post #7

For 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…

Denny, I'm a bit confused. What you've built for $180 is a group blog, with a somewhat heavy emphasis on talking to vendors. I'm in your space --- quite directly --- and with an order of magnitude more visitors, I have no idea how I'd go about monetizing my site. I guess it's true that a smart businessperson can create value out of content --- look at John Batelle, Federated Media, and bOING bOING. But: * They actual…

tptacek - thank you for the comments.

One other lesson that we learned from Startup School is that "advice=limited experience+generalization" so clearly I am not trying to give advice here. But I am trying to answer the original premise of the post which is that "can anyone start a startup without having a hacker as a co-founder?" And my answer is yes and what I tried to do is equate over-reliance on technology with over-reliance on money. In other words, if the original question were "can anyone start a startup without having $500K from a VC as seed money?", the answer would have been yes as well.

Keep in mind that I am talking about the initial stage of a startup. In other words, I am talking about going from nothing to something. Once you are done with the initial concept stage and you have a working model of your product and services and you have a workable business model, then everything changes and you are going from something to something more, which is very different again (in other words, I will need a lot more than $180).

What I have learned is that success of a startup requires both vision and peripheral vision. Having lots of money and lots of technical talents in the beginning help a great deal in terms of executing your vision, but unfortunately they tend to cloud your peripheral vision. In other words, if you have too much money in the beginning, you are going to spend it pushing the market as opposed to finding an opportunity to get the market to pull you. And by the same token, having a strong "hacker" as a co-Founder also can have the same unintended consequence which is that you are going to hit every nail with the same hammer (in the first year of my previous startup, I had to change out the technical team when it was clear that our initial business idea was incorrect).

Again, I am not trying to offer advice here (by generalizing my own limited experience). I am merely trying to answer the original question and my answer is a resounding yes. Anything is possible ... entrepreneurship is the great equalizer.

Thanks again.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#45

Post by cstejerean »

tdavis wrote: post #24
kyro wrote: post #2

I had the same question about a year back, and I'm sure some of you will remember it. I saw myself as the 'business major [I don't have a major] who loved the web and had a good idea about a web based business.' And there's one thing I found out through posting on web bulletins, posting flyers around school, and trying to network - it's extremely difficult to find a hacker cofounder who is willing to jump on board. H…

"How could I, a non-hacker, possibly play an equal contributory role has my hacker cofounder?" As the hacker co-founder in a shop of two people, let me tell you, you can play an equal role. Okay, so my partner doesn't setup the servers or write the code or design the site; I do all of that. So what does he do? _Everything else_. Ask most any hacker and they'll give you a laundry list of things they hate doing when it…

You bring up excellent points. There is a very long list of things I hate to do would likely screw up even if I tried to do (like file my taxes on time). I would be more than happy to partner with a non-hacker cofounder that had a good idea and was willing to take care of the boring parts. (By good idea I mean a business that can actually make money and with market research to back it up, not gamble on M&A).

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#46

Post by dennykmiu »

xenoterracide wrote: post #13
dennykmiu wrote: post #7

For 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?

http://www.typepad.com/pricing/

You can actually start at $89.50 per year instead of $149.50. The ability to have your own URL is important.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#47

Post by dennykmiu »

sanj wrote: post #29
dennykmiu wrote: post #7

For 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…

Slightly offtopic, but the name "LoveMyTool" is just chock full of double entendre for the native english speaker. Hopefully that was your intent.

I get this comment at least once if not three times a week. It is a problem but it is a one-time problem and it does have the side benefit that no one would ever forget the brand. Being mildly controversial is actually a feature for a startup.

On the other hand, I have done three different startups in the past. My first one was a component startup and the key to success was in creating a unique socket. My second startup was a system startup and the key was in creating a permanent footprint in the network. This one is online media and I believe the key of success is in creating a unique genre.

In other words, National Enquiry was the first of a new genre (gossip in prints) and so was the movie Matrix (gung fu fighting in blacks). My hope is that LoveMyTool will be a new genre as well which is what I call "Advocacy Marketing". It is about customers and industry experts giving advice and testimonials on TOOLs that they LOVE. And it is slowly catching on.

By the way, (American) English is a very flexible and tolerate language and in some way, I am fortunate that I am not a native speaker because I don't see words and sentences, I see a canvas.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#48

Post by maxklein »

yan wrote: post #35
maxklein wrote: post #15

If 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.

This all sounds fabulous until you start putting out fires and possibly start to have troubles with scaling. Not to downplay your development choice, but it's always nice to be intimate with what you rely on.

Depends on your market. If you ever get to the point where you need to scale your software significantly, you will have people throwing money at you, and you can hire good people. Till then, russian hackers do an excellent job at SQL optimisation.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#49

Post by azharcs »

What happens when Business Majors enter Web is, they end up reinventing wheel most of the times and most of them are not visionaries. They don't know what is possible and what is not. They come from a place where they think Web as place to make money. But what they don't understand is "no amount of money can buy you audience or position". Some start up from someone's bedroom will change the the whole dynamics of business, look what happened to Music Business. The clash between Business Majors and Hackers is like a Clash between Old Age Media and New Age Open Media. Hackers were pissed with the way Business Majors handled the business with their bureaucracy and high-handedness and hence they started a parallel industry by inventing Internet and a Industry which could thrive upon ideas and openness. This is a Hackers world.

Re: How technical does a start-up founder have to be?

#50

Post by stcredzero »

dennykmiu wrote: post #47
sanj wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slightly offtopic, but the name "LoveMyTool" is just chock full of double entendre for the native english speaker. Hopefully that was your intent.

I get this comment at least once if not three times a week. It is a problem but it is a one-time problem and it does have the side benefit that no one would ever forget the brand. Being mildly controversial is actually a feature for a startup. On the other hand, I have done three different startups in the past. My first one was a component startup and the key to success was in creating a unique socket. My second star…

"By the way, (American) English is a very flexible and tolerate language..."

Sure, but that sentence immediately marks you as a second-rate English speaker. Many will take that as a reason to doubt your thoroughness in other areas.

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