71–78 of 78 posts
This is a great, concise story. To me, the most valuable insight in this article isn't that a non-tech founder needs to get super-technical. Rather, it's that he needs to demonstrate a willingness to do everything he possibly can. That is the secret sauce. It's not about being able to talk shot for shot with a super-techy coder. It's about not being the kind of person who throws his hands up in the air and sets limit…
I think the reason people crap on business ops co-founders, is because most of the time they don't want to be co-founders. Unlike the author of the articles, you see a lot of mba types who don't respect what coders do. So in the end, they don't want to give their 'technical co-founder' equity or sometimes even a fair wage. That's assuming we're even beyond the business dood's idea being making a 'facebook killer'
Its too bad this divide between technical and business folks exists. That's mainly what bugged me about the process and why I wrote about it. In the end I think it comes down to the personality or more importantly how personable the business or technical person are. -Will
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So I have a question here. What makes you 'a buisnes guy'? Your skills or that you majored in buisnes [1]? Or to ask in another way, would you have missed something if you had majored in engineering? Anyway, great blog post. Loved it! [1] My assumption!
Great question, and I'm figuring this out as I go along. I majored in German and was a consultant for 12 years. Though I learned some coding skills I know that I can never be the technical person, unless we had a much longer time to build the product. An option that doesn't work financially and given the pace of things on the web.
The situation is kind of a mirror of the whole designers that refuse to learn how to code thing. If you look, even if they don't do it, the designers who at least learn how html and css work turn out work that is leaps and bounds better web design. Likewise, business type people who learn how the technology they're building their business on, run companies that are leaps and bounds more efficient and potentially leaps and bounds more profitable. (not to mention that much better to work with)
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Its too bad this divide between technical and business folks exists. That's mainly what bugged me about the process and why I wrote about it. In the end I think it comes down to the personality or more importantly how personable the business or technical person are. -Will
So I have a question here. What makes you 'a buisnes guy'? Your skills or that you majored in buisnes [1]? Or to ask in another way, would you have missed something if you had majored in engineering? Anyway, great blog post. Loved it! [1] My assumption!
After a few months I had a prototype and it actually worked. The application screen-scraped data, stored it in a database, presented it to the user, and then submitted data to an external system. Much better decision than hiring someone that could do it in a day.
Not sure if you are being sarcastic, so I am taking it as you were serious. There are arguments both for and against taking a few months to do it yourself when someone could have done it in day. He invested his few months and now he has the credibility and experience to implement the prototype himself, talk to technical founders, manage contractors and see through bullshit. On the other hand, if this was all his prot…
He is no longer in the path of becoming a PHB.
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Nothing AirBNB did was illegal or immoral. The most you can say about what they did was that it was mildly annoying.
What AirBNB did was directly illegal and immoral. It was illegal because it violated the CAN-SPAM act: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003#The_mechan... .... CAN-SPAM defines a "commercial electronic mail message" as "any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service, including content on an Internet website operated…
"In particular, it does not require e-mailers to get permission before they send marketing messages"
Can you point to a single case where someone did what AirBNB did and got a conviction?
Also, violating craigslist TOS is debatable, pretending to be females is not on it's face immoral.
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Given the choice between a world without AirBnB and a few emails to Craigslist users about a better service, most rational people would vote for AirBnB to exist. The ends do justify the means. Just be sure your ends are defensible, and be prepared for blowback if you get too many people clutching their pearls in feigned outrage.
It seems to me that sort of attitude leads to spam and "Tragedy of the commons" scenarios. 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.
This is a great, concise story. To me, the most valuable insight in this article isn't that a non-tech founder needs to get super-technical. Rather, it's that he needs to demonstrate a willingness to do everything he possibly can. That is the secret sauce. It's not about being able to talk shot for shot with a super-techy coder. It's about not being the kind of person who throws his hands up in the air and sets limit…
Other times if you are hiring a large technical team (5 or more people) to accomplish what you want to accomplish then the technical co-founder is not as important, and it's more important to hire an awesome team of technical people and have the money raised to do that.
However if you have moderate or complex technical requirements and you are starting the business with 1 or 2 people and no staff, then a technical co-founder makes more sense.