from Hacker News

The trouble with non-tech cofounders

by scottallison on 2/23/12, 7:25 PM with 12 comments

• by mindcrime on 2/23/12, 8:17 PM

  I kinda feel like any article that argues that "non-technical cofounders are inferior to technical cofounders" or "technical cofounders are inferior to non-technical cofounders" or otherwise tries to denigrate one group relative to the other, is over-generalizing at best, and flat wrong at worst.

  And I'm saying this as someone who is very much a technical cofounder, working with two other technologists as cofounders... we'd love to have somebody on board who has experience with sales, marketing, dealing with distribution channels, business development, partner relations, etc. And there's no question we will need those skills eventually if we're going to succeed. The fact that we can all write code, and maybe even produce a great product, doesn't mean much if we build something nobody will buy, or if we can't figure out how to get it in front of the people that make the purchasing decisions, etc.

  Of course we're a B2B enterprise software play, which is a bit different than, for example, a consumer facing web application. In that context, a "hardcore business person" maybe is actually less important. I don't know, because that's not the world I play in.

  My feeling is that a non-technical founder in a technology company cannot be a complete Luddite who knows nothing about technology, but I don't think he/she necessarily needs to be a coder. Of course somebody who knows how to code and has the "business skills" is probably ideal, but how many of those people are there out there?

• by fasteddie31003 on 2/23/12, 8:17 PM

  I am a programmer and at my last company there was a technical founder and a nontechnical founder. The nontechnical founder was just taking up space. He once looked over my shoulder at my code and said "Oh I get it, it's not that hard" I then pointed out to him that the code was the stuff in-between the lines that started with "//". He actually thought the comments did all the work. He could not make any management decision because of his lack of technical experience. He ended up just doing payroll and accounting work, while the technical founder worked 90+ hour weeks. He made some pretty drastic strategy mistakes, such as thinking the iPhone was a fad (it was a mobile company). I left because I did not have faith in his management.

• by dr_ on 2/23/12, 8:26 PM

  Nothing new here. Hence the term non-tech "cofounder", you're only half the equation. Depending on the business, it can be an important half. Jobs, by his biography, wasn't technical. Gates was quasi technical, he ultimately purchased their initial OS. Larry Ellison wasn't really technical either. They all built some of the biggest companies in the world. And by technical I mean a coder, not someone who sort of understands technology. In some industries, being technical isn't going to be enough. If the business is the technology itself, it may be, but a lot of times it is not. Take healthcare for example. It's a complicated arena, and unless you have some background about how the system works - the relationships providers have with each other, with their patients and with insurers, it's hard to gain footing, which is one reason why there have been only a few success stories so far. Or in media, with a company like Hulu, which hasn't been successful because of it's technology - but rather because of it's partnerships. There are many ways to build a business, but what has changed is that there are many more instances in the past 15 years where the tech person/team can go it alone and build the business before other players come in. And I think that's a good thing.

• by untog on 2/23/12, 8:21 PM

  The article deals with non-technical people wanting to take their idea and turn it into a startup, but I'm wondering if anyone has any words of advice for a techie (i.e., me) who has little business experience.

  If I set up shop tomorrow, I'd be the solo founder of my first startup. Given the amount of work involved (and how much of it would be non-technical), I figure it would be better to have a business-minded cofounder with me.

  But how do I find one? Or, more crucially, how do I assess how good they are? Given that I have zero experience of running a startup on my resume, it's quite likely a co-founder would be the same. Am I better off just teaming up with my less business minded friend, whom I know very well and trust?

• by lukeholder on 2/23/12, 8:09 PM

  I think this guys kinda-gets it. I wanted to point out the conversation I had with a Jason Gordon in the comment, who I think doesn't get it:

  From the comments Jason Gordon says: I don't think the ability to code something is as important as the ability to communicate exactly what you want to someone who has that ability. It's very easy to find someone who can code, the challenge is communicating to them what it is they need their code to accomplish.

  Me: You are inferring that coders are just a utility that you need to manage and instruct. Coders, Programmers and designers, are people with ideas and also can be very entrepreneurial. Speaking for myself, I only want a non technical person to drive sales, and networking, and getting me featured in blogs and news - in effect, I just want to communicate exactly what I want to someone who has that ability. Good coders are not a dime a dozen.