No offence, non-technical founders
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Most of the most successful tech entrepreneurs were technical. Zuckerberg, Gates, and Bezos, along with many successful founders, single-handedly built companies because, well, they can build.
Almost all successful solo founders in tech were technical.
This makes sense.
That’s the tech in tech companies.
As a non-technical founder, I’m tempted to look to exceptions to this rule, including Reid Hoffman, founder of Linkedin and a fellow Wolfson alum; Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal; and Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb and a fellow Y-Combinator alum.
However, both intuition and data seem to suggest that technical background still matters. As academics point out in the Harvard Business Review:
Firms profit disproportionately from a mix of business and technical skills when the founder has technical knowledge and employs additional business experts.
Statements like these fire me up to win despite the odds rather than give up because of them.
Many of my non-technical friends reach out asking about how to get started on their own startups. Here’s how I started as a non-technical founder before my technical co-founder joined.
One of the most common complaints I hear from non-technical founders is, “I can’t do x because I don’t have a technical co-founder”. I’d argue you can go quite far on your own before needing a full-time technical co-founder.
Looking back at my journey, I started my company, had a product mock-up, and raised my pre-seed round before my technical co-founder joined full-time.
Thinking that the only thing holding you back is someone to build the “perfect set of features” you have in mind is almost always wrong
Get your side of the role in order before blaming the lack of progress on not finding the right technical co-founder — which, by the way, falls under your job description as a founder “convincing talented…