[HN Gopher] You do need a technical co-founder [video] ___________________________________________________________________ You do need a technical co-founder [video] Author : todsacerdoti Score : 156 points Date : 2023-11-30 18:25 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.ycombinator.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ycombinator.com) | timeagain wrote: | Can't be bothered to watch the whole video at work so I apologize | if this is in TFV. | | If you can't find one technically minded person who believes | enough in your vision to drop everything and help you make it, | that is not a good sign for your vision. | michaelje wrote: | Or a technical audience is not the market | anamexis wrote: | That doesn't seem relevant. A co-founder isn't part of your | market or audience. | notahacker wrote: | That's why the willingness of a software developer to drop | everything to work with you might not necessarily signal | anything wrong with your vision. | | If you can't find a single software developer who believes | in your plan for better APIs or project management tools or | consumer internet apps, it's a pretty good heuristic that | your vision or ability to sell it sucks, or that you add | less value than the dozen other people that talked to them | about chatbots for X this week. Any prospective technical | co-founder has a huge amount of insight into those markets. | On the other hand, unwillingness of software developers to | believe that the dullest sounding CRUD app going will be | very exciting to grey suited men controlling a little known | niche (probably precisely because hardly anyone's writing | software for it) doesn't actually mean there isn't a market | there. | andy99 wrote: | I don't think it's about the audience, but the company type. | If someone is starting (random example) a food company based | on their superior hot-sauce recipe and existing retail | relationships, they probably don't need a technical co- | founder. If someone is starting a company that "uses AI" to | craft and target hot sauce recommendations, but doens't | really know what that means and assumes they can get a shop | to code them an app, that's going to be a problem. I think | the latter case is what this is usually about. Many (most) | business owners don't have technical co-founders and are | fine, not so in tech. | OkayPhysicist wrote: | In your first hot-sauce recipe example, that person IS the | technical founder. Just technical in the field relevant to | the business, which happens to not be tech. | | The scenario in tech is more often comparable to some dude | saying "I want to make a business selling the greatest hot | sauce ever" and then having to go looking for someone who | actually knows anything about hot sauce. | notahacker wrote: | I think the idea that the person with the specialised | knowledge of how to make hot sauce is the technical | founder is an interesting point, but I think in YC/HN | contexts it's usually considered to mean "engineer"; even | in cases like accounting software where the founder who | doesn't write software's specialised knowledge of the | field is at least as critical as their partner's ability | to convert that to code, the latter founder is the only | "technical" one. Although tbh I don't think accountants | or lawyers get offended by the insinuation they're the | "non-technical founder". | tptacek wrote: | The video goes into why that's the wrong mindset. If you're | looking for people who "believe in your vision", there's a good | chance you're looking for an employee, not a cofounder. Strong | candidates have their own vision, and strong teams build | something out of everyone's vision. | | It can still be the case that one person has an awesome idea | that everybody else in the company signs off on. But chances | are, everybody on the team is going to have to make some room | for other people's ideas and takes on things. | redm wrote: | The inverse side of this is, that depending on the business, you | may need another type of co-founder as well. Two technical co- | founders aren't the right fit for every business. | atoav wrote: | This is what I constantly tell my students: The _hard_ part about | doing a tech product for the most part isn 't the what beginners | _think_ makes tech hard -- the hard part is wrangling systemic | complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way. | | Many non-tech people e.g. look at programmers and think the hard | part is knowing what this garble of weird text means. But this is | the easy part. And if you are a person who would think it is | hard, you probably don't know about all the demons out there that | will come to haunt you if you don't build a foundation that helps | you actively keeping them away. | sonicanatidae wrote: | >This is what I constantly tell my students: The hard part | about doing a tech >product for the most part isn't the what | beginners think makes tech hard -- the >hard part is wrangling | systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable >way. | | I teach the same thing, seemingly every day to my teams. It | doesn't work, until it works reliably, within reason. | | High-5 from the doers to the teachers! (Both are needed) | | For the record, my partner teaches at a major university, just | not tech. ;) | sebmellen wrote: | More people need to read https://grugbrain.dev/ | jeremyjh wrote: | I really wish I'd read this 25 years ago, but probably I | wouldn't have believed any of it. | sebmellen wrote: | In some way, building absurdly complex systems and watching | them fail is a rite of passage. | Arson9416 wrote: | Fortunately (unfortunately?) most places are in some | stage of that process, so it's easy enough to participate | in. | gedy wrote: | I don't know, I've mostly followed this approach over my 20 | year career, but it really depends on your surroundings, | and honestly hasn't led to great success. | | E.g. If you're surrounded by yes men who will code whatever | without question, product people greatly prefer that, and | you end up sidelined. | | There's also plenty of companies who don't want engineers | getting involved with decisions, and product and UX people | work upfront and in isolation until you're handed tiny Jira | tickets with Figma mockups attached. Discussion at that | point is considered "disruptive". | | It honestly seems like this has gotten worse in the past 5 | to 10 years. | sebmellen wrote: | > _note, this good engineering advice but bad career | advice: "yes" is magic word for more shiney rock and put | in charge of large tribe of developer_ | | > _sad but true: learn "yes" then learn blame other grugs | when fail, ideal career advice_ | | > _but grug must to grug be true, and "no" is magic grug | word. Hard say at first, especially if you nice grug and | don't like disappoint people (many such grugs!) but | easier over time even though shiney rock pile not as high | as might otherwise be_ | | > _is ok: how many shiney rock grug really need anyway?_ | Karrot_Kream wrote: | > E.g. If you're surrounded by yes men who will code | whatever without question, product people greatly prefer | that, and you end up sidelined. | | I'm amazed at how non-obvious this seems to most | engineers and how often this angst gets repeated in | online tech communities. I mean, when I was in academia | there was a tension between publishing impactful results | or cozying up with the right professors into the right | conferences vs outputting meaningful work (pressures into | p-hacking or having big names author suspicious results | is par for the course.) In industry it's the tension | between product folks and engineers. Have you ever talked | to high-level finance folks who deal with the tension of | product folks just wanting to _do_ things and finance | folks who remind them how money works? | | It turns out that the hardest thing about getting things | done with people is... dealing with people. I wish there | was a way to remove this weird somewhat-ascetic blockage | found in tech communities about this. Many of the more | physical engineering occupations have to deal with this | in the form of contractors and supervisors. Wait until | you have to work on a government contract lol. | | When I mentor junior engineers with these feelings, I | like to use an adage: "Where there are people there are | politics." Look at pretty much any prominent FOSS project | and you'll see tons of it (by dint of transparency) and | those folks generally focus on the project and not a | product! | no_wizard wrote: | I can see this in academia, because you're working on | reputation as much as anything, if not more so, sorta | prone to being like this in a way. | | Finance however, not once[0] have I either observed nor | heard of someone working in finance being overruled by a | product person. If finance says _no go_ its _no go_ , | simple as that. People tend to listen to the money folks, | even at a high-level. | | [0]: I work both in fintech and have lots of professional | colleagues that work at other financial firms from big | banks to all manner of investment firms and much in- | between, as well as several generations of family who | have all worked in finance on various levels. Honestly, | its high level finance people trying to pressure others | into getting things done faster when they want something | done, not the other way around. | Karrot_Kream wrote: | > Finance however, not once[0] have I either observed nor | heard of someone working in finance being overruled by a | product person. If finance says no go its no go, simple | as that. People tend to listen to the money folks, even | at a high-level. | | Totally, but finance people want to see the company | succeed too, and even if finance says it's a no-go, | product people will still keep trying to push around | them. I just mean that this _tension_ exists between | different stakeholders in every organization. If we knew | ways out of this, we 'd revolutionize government | bureaucracies, vastly increase firm efficiencies, sort | out FOSS issues, the world would be our oyster! But human | coordination problems are _really hard_. The hardest | problems out there really. That 's my general point. Too | much airtime is given to tech people who seem to not | understand this. It's a bit like complaining that when I | jump I fall down. I also can't imagine spending _20 | years_ bemoaning this aspect of human nature. | no_wizard wrote: | The real human element that I've observed, having been | both in management and as an IC, and more broadly from | research I've done as a whole, is that ENG is often the | profit driver but has the least amount of say in their | own workload. | | I think this is where the tension comes from in the | lasting, I'm still complaining about 20 years later sorta | thing. Once you realize the value you are delivering to | the company, naturally, you start to want to have some | more say over the value chain, I think this is innante to | human behavior, but there is alot of gates between ENG | and the rest of the org, most of the time, from what I've | observed. | | Look at, for example, how "Agile" is implemented at a | company. It focuses on ENG having to address | stakeholders, without really saying that ENG should be | its own stakeholder too. With SCRUM and other systems, | the emphasis tends to be on _outside_ stakeholders and | what they want, rather than bringing ENG to _parity_ with | other stakeholders so everyone has more equal input on | the work streams - which ultimately, when this is | actually done, prevents more problems than it creates, | nearly every time - yet you can feel the resistance in | most orgs to giving ENG a full table stake | no_wizard wrote: | It has, because embracing agile as it was laid out in 12 | principles put too much power in these "technical" people | by giving them a stake at the table, to anyone who | doesn't work in an ENG first / ENG focused company. | | If you look at how "Agile" is implemented in most | organizations - even in technology companies! - there's | alot of barrier process put up to sideline / minimize | engineering input by focusing on stakeholders where | stakeholder is defined by _everyone telling engineering | what to do_ as opposed to engineering being seen as a | valid and reasonable stakeholder too. | | I think its because in part there is a linear pipeline | that the non technical business side sees as how things | go: you plan X, it gets designed by Y, and then | "manufactured" by engineers, if you will. | | Engineers - good ones, in my estimation - want more stake | in each step, both in planning and design, because often | its engineers that work on the system the closest (you'd | be shocked how many designers don't use their own | products on a daily basis, same goes for alot of business | oriented folks) and this is not "the way the world | works". | | Thats my thesis anyway | TurkishPoptart wrote: | I like this but I don't understand one part under "Saying OK" | | * _sometimes probably best just not tell project manager and | do it 80 /20 way.*_ | | Does 80/20 in this context mean that we'll implement 80% of | what is asked for an leave out the remaining complex parts? | sebmellen wrote: | Kind of, and it usually works. Even as a founder you can | trick yourself into doing things that way. I've found that | 20/80, Pareto style, is even better. 20% of the features | can achieve 80% of the sales, and you'll be a lot happier | if you're not constantly chasing the long tail. | bcrosby95 wrote: | 80% of the features/details for 20% of the code/complexity. | Even minor tweaks can have an outsized effect on the final | code. A large part of my job is doing this in such a way | that satisfies the stakeholders. | internet101010 wrote: | More or less and it usually gets the job done. The last 20% | can be a real time suck if it isn't managed properly. | | What you don't want is for the last 20% to occupy 80% of | the time. | airstrike wrote: | LMAO that's hilarious, thanks for sharing | | _> best weapon against complexity spirit demon is magic | word: "no"_ | | _> "no, grug not build that feature"_ | | _> "no, grug not build that abstraction"_ | | _> "no, grug not put water on body every day or drink less | black think juice you stop repeat ask now"_ | | _> note, this good engineering advice but bad career advice: | "yes" is magic word for more shiney rock and put in charge of | large tribe of developer_ | moffkalast wrote: | > sad but true: learn "yes" then learn blame other grugs | when fail, ideal career advice | | Perfection | oooyay wrote: | This is some really beautiful prose | alfalfasprout wrote: | I mean, this is largely true in software engineering in | general. Programming is easy. Perhaps being an _excellent_ | programmer is much harder but for many things being mediocre is | good enough. | | The hard part is building things sustainably at scale (people | wise or performance wise). That's when a combination of knowing | how to manage systemic complexity and knowing how to | communicate very well (soft skills) really come into play. | bcrosby95 wrote: | IMHO the hard part with a startup is you don't want to build | something that works sustainably at scale. You want to build | something that could plausibly morph into something that is | sustainable at scale. | mgaunard wrote: | Depends on the stage of the startup lifecycle you're at. | | But in general, reaching profitability (which is the real | hard part) will require making scaling efficient and | operations smooth. | gopher_space wrote: | I've started to look at scaling like you're killing a | golden-egg-laying goose but there's a 1 in _n_ chance that | it 'll pay off for you. _n_ starts higher than you 'd hope | and rises as you make tradeoffs. | | I've been thinking about scaling a bit because I've been | digging into a large SaaS product for a client and find I | am able to replicate their locally relevant output at a | fraction of the cost. Scaling up has allowed this SaaS to | serve an entire country but a majority of their user base | think in terms of one or two local counties. Consuming | their output means subsidizing work they do that's | irrelevant to (or might actually compete with) your own | interests. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | There is a weird local optimisation problem where being an | excellent programmer can make one a _bad_ software engineer. | (Another: unparalleledly excellent Excel skills making one a | worse financier.) | jmcphers wrote: | I've seen this so many times in my career. It happens | because interviews (especially at the junior level) focus | almost exclusively on line-by-line programming acumen. | People who excel at those interviews don't always make | great software engineers, and sometimes they make terrible | ones. | kragen wrote: | there's a selection bias at play here | | suppose you need to either be in the top percentile of | handsome and the top percentile of emotionally aware to | get a job as a hollywood actor, but these attributes are | uncorrelated in the general population, so 99% of top- | percentile-of-handsome people will be top-percentile-of- | sensitive and vice versa | | then the pool of hollywood actors you observe will | contain, out of every 199 people, 99 who are top- | percentile-of-handsome but not of sensitivity, 99 who are | top-percentile-of-sensitive but not of handsomeness, and | 1 who is both | | someone observing this result but not understanding the | process that led up to it might think that emotional | sensitivity makes you ugly or that being handsome makes | you emotionally oblivious, even though (by hypothesis) | the traits are uncorrelated. in fact, this negative | correlation in the selected group can survive even a fair | bit of _positive_ correlation between the traits in the | general population | | similarly, it's easier to get a programming job if you | have a history of delivering successful products, or if | you have a lot of line-by-line coding acumen | omeze wrote: | Berkson's Paradox: | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox#:~:te | xt=.... | kragen wrote: | thank you, that's exactly right. he even used my | attractive-celebrities example | gnulinux wrote: | This is what I always say. In college/studying you learn | programming, CS, algorithms etc. Once you're a software | engineer, you realize that programming, CS, algorithms etc | are the easiest part of your job. If the code is too hard for | you you're most definitely losing on other things. It sounds | very obvious, but think about it, part of being a good | software engineer is that programming should be _trivial_. | j45 wrote: | The business degree kids with an idea need to realize the tech | cofounders can learn and understand business. | | Having an idea is like having a thought. | | A startup needs product and distribution. If a tech cofounder | builds what's asked of him and the sales cofounder can't sell, | should the ownership revert to the tech cofounder? | simonw wrote: | I love the way you put this. It also doubles as a great | explanation for why programmers shouldn't be worried that | ChatGPT is going to steal their jobs: ChatGPT is good at the | garble of weird text, but it's terrible at the "wrangling | systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way" | piece. | ianlevesque wrote: | I think ChatGPT will eventually be good at the garble of | weird text. It's immensely helpful already but you really | must be checking up on what it is telling you. Plausible but | non-existent or incorrectly used APIs are routine still. I | definitely bet on it eventually getting there though. | FuckButtons wrote: | You know what computers couldn't do 10 years ago? Understand | and write coherent code. Why do you feel confident in your | opinion that they won't be able to do that in the next 10 | years? | dijit wrote: | 1) an understanding of what LLMs can actually do | | 2) a strong history of understanding the limits of | functional automation (why are there still project | managers? Asana exists!) | | 3) an understanding that progress will slow in this space | considerably once we have made the big wins and the hype | cycle dies down. (see also; every tech hype cycle) | travisjungroth wrote: | I go the exact opposite way on number 3. It seems more | likely to me this follows the growth trend of the | internet, mobile phones and computer graphics than | blockchain and VR. 10 more year of growth like the last | would be pretty wild to experience. | simonw wrote: | If they can "wrangle systemic complexity in a good, | sustainable and reliable way" then I think that's AGI. If | we hit AGI we'll have plenty of other things to worry about | beyond being able to make a living as programmers. | willsmith72 wrote: | depends on what part of "doing a tech product" you're talking | about | | > the hard part is wrangling systemic complexity in a good, | sustainable and reliable way | | in an early startup, this thinking is one of the most common | ways to failure. people optimise their technology for its | scalability, reliability, and "cleanliness", when none of that | matters yet. all that matters is finding product market fit | jofla_net wrote: | An idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity. --TAD | koonsolo wrote: | I would say the tech is the easy part. The most difficult part | is getting customers. | hackitup7 wrote: | I'd take the even stronger stance that additional technical | cofounders seems to deliver increasing rather than diminishing | returns. | geiagal wrote: | I wonder what portion of Hacker News users aren't technical. | | I thought this headline meant a technical founder needs a | technical co-founder even. | gumballindie wrote: | Judging by how many believe procedural text generators are | viable programmers, i'd say a lot of hn users arent technical. | AndrewKemendo wrote: | I'd venture to say the majority are non technical | CodeCompost wrote: | Yeah and then the non-technical co-founder treats you like you're | worthless because you're "just a programmer" | redm wrote: | That may be more of a personality conflict. There's no more | important choice than who you co-found with, and both parties | should have high regard for each other's value to the business. | distortionfield wrote: | Of course that's how it _should_ be. After working at enough | startups in very early and/or founder roles, I can tell you | it's more common than not to get treated like a second class | citizen when the "business" dinners come. | distortionfield wrote: | A tale as old as time. Gotta love the classic spin on the same | trope of "the C suite drives the sales tho" to justify their | insane salaries and bonuses. like they'd have anything to sell | in the first place. | robertlagrant wrote: | Yes, you need to make and sell things. They're both | difficult. | distortionfield wrote: | I'm not diminishing the effort and skill necessary to be a | good salesperson. I am, however, commenting on how often | that turns into engineers being kept "in the back" when the | paperwork starts. | madeofpalk wrote: | Don't co-found a company with an jerk. | Alupis wrote: | Might I suggest not being "just a programmer" then? | | In a startup it's extremely important for founders to wear many | hats and share many burdens. | | If you're the person that just goes off into a cave and emerges | with beautiful code 6 weeks later and then expects everything | to be great - you're wrong. There's a massive amount of | foundational work to do to support a startup that technical | people don't even think about. | chefandy wrote: | As someone who's rarely been "just a programmer" or "just a | designer," that hasn't stopped me from being viewed as such | by managers if it's convenient for them to mentally classify | me as such. | tptacek wrote: | Your cofounder in a new startup isn't your manager. | Alupis wrote: | If that's happening then you're not really a cofounder - | you're acting like an employee. | | If you're a cofounder you do not have a manager... | | Starting a company requires a diverse set of skills, almost | none of which are technical. A technical person can excel | at those tasks, but they have to have the desire to figure | out what needs to be done before asking what needs to be | done. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | It's interesting, how all this stuff is written for the biz- | bros, too -- try doing a google search on how to find a _non_ | -technical cofounder. Like, say you're an eng, with a technical | idea you think would make the foundation of a good startup, and | you're looking for someone to "found" the PM/marketing/bizdev | side of things. From what I can see, the content/advice doesn't | exist, even via YCombinator. | kragen wrote: | why would you want a nontechnical cofounder to do the | pm/marketing/bizdev side of things? a nontechnical person | might be able to do those things, but technical ignorance or | incompetence are not necessary for them, and aren't even | assets; they're just less serious drawbacks there than | elsewhere | | you might genuinely need some nontechnical people in your | startup, but if you have some money you can always pay people | to come be part of a focus group or user test when that's | necessary | distortionfield wrote: | Why would you want a nontechnical cofounder to do these 3 | specialized full-time roles? Is this a serious question? | | > but if you have some money | | lol . Just... lol. | kragen wrote: | yes. why would you want the three people doing those | three specialized full-time roles to be nontechnical? | | it seems to me that, given a nontechnical person who's | good at one or more of those roles, they'd obviously be | even better at it if they also understood the technology. | ignorance and incompetence are weaknesses, not strengths | | as for having some money, the context of this discussion | is startups with angel or vc funding, which is plenty for | focus groups and some user tests | distortionfield wrote: | Because good luck finding those three roles where they're | from a technical background? | | I've worked with a grand total of one PM who was from a | technical background. He was actually a great engineer | but he was absolutely the exception to the rule. | | Sure, if you can flesh your team out with entirely | technical people filling those roles, great for you, but | that's like asking why you wouldn't only hire 10x | engineers. Well of course if you could find and hire only | 10x engineers you would, but it doesn't work like that. | Especially considering those are all industry positions | that are typically taken by people who never went into | technical roles. | kragen wrote: | right, so people who are looking for a cofounder to fill | those roles aren't looking for a nontechnical cofounder; | they're looking for a cofounder. they may have to accept | a nontechnical cofounder, but that's not what they're | looking for. that's why there's no advice to be found on | finding a nontechnical cofounder | | i feel that my first comment in this thread already | explained this with perfect clarity and you've just been | trolling | robocat wrote: | You are undervaluing non-tech skills. | | Ironic given that you are commenting on a vid where tech is | undervalued and you are getting flagged for your | communication skills. | | I suggest you learn not to make the same mistake as those | plonker non-tech guys. | jjtheblunt wrote: | (Title is altered, changes meaning: explanatory "Why you need..." | is more enticing than the assertion "You do need...") | biomcgary wrote: | I think the amount of technical expertise needed varies by field. | I work in a small biotech startup. In this space, you aren't | going to get anywhere without deep technical knowledge. | jjtheblunt wrote: | There have been multiple ads/posts recently from companies citing | YC__ looking for a technical cofounder. | | So, is this post correlated? | doctorpangloss wrote: | Maybe. Those posts offer preposterously low equity, so I wonder | whom it is supposed to attract. Suckers? | | Y Combinator sincerely wants people to succeed, I don't think | it's reactionary or myopic like that. | | That said, to fill whatever hundreds of spots nowadays, they've | exhausted Math 55, it graduates all of 12 people every year. | | They're dipping into a far greater supply of nepo babies than | ever before. Those jagoffs can't do anything - not programming, | let alone sales - so whom is this advice really for? Those | companies will "succeed" anyway, I mean they won't fail. You | can make a ton of money as a technical cofounder, but for the | minimally intellectually stimulating problems of some moron's | meaningless app, for that moron to get all the glory? Just to | polish life off by marrying your subordinate and sending the | kids to Day School? And shoveling all that money right back | into meaningless angel investments? | | This is a stylized comment of course, but it's just to say, | yeah, you need a technical co-founder, really easy for Y | Combinator to say. I too would like extremely talented people | to give everything and take nothing. | jjtheblunt wrote: | What's Math 55? | BadCookie wrote: | Do you mean the "founding engineer" jobs? It can be misleading, | but those are not founder roles. They are regular employee | roles where the "founding" part of the title is just an | honorary indication that the person joined the company early. | | YC won't count someone as a founder unless they have at least | 10% equity in the company. Founding engineers are typically | getting 2% or less (from what I understand). | jjtheblunt wrote: | Yep that's what i noticed and the thresholds i did not know. | Thanks for explaining. | jensneuse wrote: | The inverse is also true. As a technical founder, and maybe even | an introvert like me, you should definitely look for a non- | technical co-founder who can help you with networking, etc... I | found my dream co-founder through YC Co-founder match and what | can I say, it's going great. We're focusing on enterprise | GraphQL/API solutions (https://wundergraph.com) and I benefit | from the networking and communication abilities of Stefan, while | I answer all technical questions. Tldr, I highly recommend to | team up with people who complement your skills. | malux85 wrote: | It's great to hear of a YC Co-Founder success, I'm looking for | a non-technical cofounder now so I'll give this a shot | Tactical45 wrote: | You hit the nail on the head with complimentary piece - and | extending that to personality as well. | | You need a mix of technical skills (engineering, product, | marketing, etc) but also personalities (which manifest in | different behaviors which are all useful & compliment each | other - eg bias for action and hitting targets vs careful | analysis). | jensneuse wrote: | I'm very strong in logical analysis and strategic thinking. | My problem though is that I have a natural tendency to not | talk to people. Ask me a question and I'm happy to answer, | but I don't like to initiate conversations. Stefan is the | opposite. Everybody loves him. He can talk to everyone and | he's very creative in finding leads and building connections | with other companies. But he's a really bad developer. | Together, we're a really strong team. I'd say without him, I | would still not have a strong network. | ryandrake wrote: | Honest question: Why can't this person be employee #(single | digit), SVP of sales or something, hired during product | development? Why the need to elevate to co-founder? Does an | introverted technical founder really need an extraverted non- | tech networking expert from day one? | jensneuse wrote: | When you build a startup, you have to go through so much | crap, a lot of people wouldn't do that for money. But there's | another aspect. Early on in the startup life, sales is not | just about selling but "exploring". You have to learn about | the market, what people want, what your ICP is, how to target | them, etc... Does an employee care enough? Do you really want | to put this responsibility into someone else's hands? I'd say | no. | anthonypasq wrote: | just a heads up, i found a typo on your website :) | | "Get started for free in 3 minutes No credit card required, no | vendor lock-in, but the convencience of a fully managed | service." | ofirg wrote: | "but based on the thousands of companies YC has funded over the | years, companies lacking a technical co-founder underperform" | | which could mean soon-to-be-underperforming companies fail to | attract technical co-founders | lnsru wrote: | I am developer who spend 2 decades developing things. First | decade it was hardware and now I moved to software. I can | always guess which idea from "idea person" will work and which | is not technically feasible. In my limited experience the "idea | persons" are not really listening why stuff does not work. | Sometimes simple laws of physics are ignored. | tracerbulletx wrote: | Having started a small business I respect greatly the skills of | great sales people and fund raisers and people who are great with | people. But I don't respect them when they think they can start a | business where they don't take what they actually make seriously | and think the product will just work its self out if they sell | hard enough. | threeseed wrote: | History has shown them to be right. | | There are many terrible products in this world that were | successful only because of good sales and marketing. And vice | versa. | jeremyjh wrote: | How many of those are from single-product startups? I know | some are, but not most that I can think of. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | It's just survivorship bias though. There's also boatloads of | startups that had crap product and just died right away, and | we don't talk about them. | debacle wrote: | > There are many terrible products in this world that were | successful only because of good sales and marketing. And vice | versa. | | Name one. | polar8 wrote: | Religion. | csallen wrote: | Most religions spread virally, which means the marketers | are the customers, which is usually a testament to the | product/service being one that customers value. I say | this as an atheist who's not a fan of religion, but | people clearly get a lot out of it, or at least believe | they do. | polar8 wrote: | That's a great point. I wonder if it's motivated by value | or fear of an eternity of torture in the afterlife, | though. | WJW wrote: | Probably neither. People like to belong to a group where | they feel they "belong" and that in itself is sufficient | explanation for the spread of religions IMO. | | Propagation of societal values and/or fear of hell and/or | fear of death assuaged by the assurance of an afterlife | and/or being able to rationalize away the vagaries of | nature as the will of god(s) are just optimizations after | the core system was already invented. | pleoxy wrote: | A totally generic and unthinking generalization. | | There is a place for religion. Something that pushes you | to be better than you are. Along with the happiness and | fulfillment that comes from that effort. Selflessness, | love, compassion, truth. | | Plenty of bad religions telling you that you are perfect | the way that you are. Just give me money, fame, or | influence and I will flatter you and pump your ego. | | Another form of this is flattery in exchange for hating | something. Many doomsday cults fit this category. All | your life problems are because of 'insert target X'. But | I, I have the answers you need. | | Religion is more attuned with purpose, where your heart | is, than the belief in God. Though the two are often | paired. | | And yes, we crave purpose. | polar8 wrote: | There are plenty of things that deliver the above without | the dogmatic slaughter of hundreds of millions of humans | throughout history and at this very moment. | WJW wrote: | There's also plenty of religious people who have never | murdered anyone in their lives, and there have been | plenty of dogmatic massacres for reasons entirely | unrelated to religion. The two issues seem to be quite | uncorrelated tbh. | nurple wrote: | Windows | WJW wrote: | Windows (especially v3.1, Windows 95 and Windows XP) was | leaps and bounds better than its contemporaries when it | came to normal desktop use. You can have the most | technologically advanced OS in the world but if it is too | difficult to use for 99% of potential users then it it | not a good product. Microsoft was one of the first few | companies to really get this right. | nurple wrote: | Yeah, perhaps I should have said MSDOS. But even still, I | think perhaps your rose-colored hindsight is probably | miscoloring your memory. The initial releases of Windows | was a nightmare, with Bill's mom consoling him after a | particularly disasterous demo, and if it wasn't on the | back of the brilliant--or lucky--marketing maneuverings | that cemented MSDOS as the preeminent PC OS at the time, | I firmly believe that Windows would not have become the | preeminent desktop OS powerhouse that it is today. | | In fact, I think that behind the scenes of the ominous MS | investment in Apple (with the whole big-brotheresque Bill | Gates appearance) there was an explicit--business, not | technical--agreement between Gates and Jobs that Apple | would not venture out of their own hardware, specifically | to allow Windows to continue its PC dominance. | WJW wrote: | Meh. Was early Windows (and/or MSDOS) perfect? Obviously | not. Was it better than its competitors? Yes. Absolutely. | Compared to what we have today they were all shit tbh and | MSDOS was better than most. | | Don't get me wrong, the marketing game of early MS was | absolutely phenomenal. I just want to say that they | succeeded to the degree they did because BOTH marketing | AND the tech were good. | mplewis wrote: | Tesla cars | cmrdporcupine wrote: | The fundamental core engineering -- the motors, the | inverters, the control systems, battery management in | their cars are pretty damn fantastic and they were | consistently ahead of most others. And the Model S, while | a dubious luxury car in terms of fit and finish, was a | piece of amazing engineering when it came out. | | The Model 3 and its variants I think are meh from a UX | POV (stupid centre iPad distracto-slab etc) and I won't | pay for them because of who is behind them... and the | lies about full self driving, and the crap support etc... | suck.... but I think it's disingenuous to call Tesla | product crap. | distortionfield wrote: | This doesn't track for me. I saw a Tesla dealership and | supercharging station in my city before ever seeing an | advert for Tesla. That's why Tesla was successful where | others weren't. | brynbryn wrote: | The original title on this (which was there when I started this | post) was infuriating - but it is still bad. Is it speaking to | the 'true' co-founder who is above the technical one? Maybe the | other co-founder who is an 'idea innovator' could up-skill a | little and stop pretending that you can build a business by | putting on a power suit and making presentations with upturned | hands and studied pauses? | sebastianconcpt wrote: | Very timely for a conversation I'm having this week. Thanks for | bringing this up. | oooyay wrote: | I like Michael's take that the real value in a founder is their | ability to recruit the right team. What I don't think was said | explicitly here is that typically technical people are | progressively marginalized as the business grows. We get some | harrowing stories where that doesn't happen, but I don't think | that's the standard story. Like they allude to, it's a story of | what the people who handle the money and investments value. | | Context: Michael is a non-technical founder from Justin.tv and | Twitch. | michaelmior wrote: | I'm confused what is harrowing (acutely distressing or painful | as Merriam-Webster says) about stories where technical people | are not marginalized. | oooyay wrote: | Typically stories I hear where technical people maintained | equity it was through a lot of maneuvering. It wasn't given | to them by the merits of their accomplishments. | michaelmior wrote: | Fair point. That makes sense :) | bomewish wrote: | I was also puzzled. Thanks for asking and thanks for | clarifying. | choppaface wrote: | > typically technical people are progressively marginalized as | the business grows | | I know three YC technical co-founders who were ousted by their | CEOs, and a justintv alumn who got nothing from the follow-on | exits. When YC says "you need a technical co-founder" they mean | it like you need a disposable lawyer. The essay here is about | targeting growth and flipping, not high-performance teamwork. | dontupvoteme wrote: | We're (probably) rapidly shifting to a reality where your | biggest value will be Agentifying as many things as you can. | | Even if it's mediocre, it's basically free, and has almost no | costs. | | Compare that to the incalculable potential switching costs of | us meatbags and our many non-linearities. | Satam wrote: | Hmmm, an extremely interesting thought! Basically, | agentifying might be the next programming. | | Do you have a guess how that would play out or how likely | that might be? It seems like the main blocker here would be | if the agents remain relatively weak in pure reasoning. | dumbfounder wrote: | It still needs to be scaled and maintained and understood, | and that is probably best done by a technical co-founder. | j45 wrote: | Also they notice yc applications that are taking advantage of | tech co-founders or tech team builders with unfair equity | structure. | anovikov wrote: | That's explainable, Dunning-Kruger effect. Whole custom | development industry is based on it. Otherwise it will never | exist as there are whole agencies with 20-30 year history that | never seen a tiny bit of what they produced working in | production: everything is a throwaway paid for by these would-be | founders. | | It's like clouds: AWS exists because enough stupid people don't | understand available hosting options and can't make simple cost | calculations. | | This will never change simply because no one makes money if it | does. If those people started looking for a tech-cofounder, then | two options: | | - they never find one, thus give up on the idea, the money they | spend/waste on it will never be spent, thus GDP from this final | consumption (which nearly all of custom development is: final | consumption, a hobby), will not be created. | | - they find someone who will pretend or will falsely believe to | be technical. essentially same guy as the original one. and he | will waste some time and money with freelancers, become convinced | they are all fraud (because this is what happens when you ask for | idiotic stuff to be built on impossible budgets - everyone except | scammers, decline), then hire some agencies, and waste some money | on them, aaaaand it's gone! | | How do you explain to people who are not capable of starting a | business, that they shouldn't start one? | | Bigger question: WHY would you do it? Why not just benefit from | them? | robocat wrote: | Using Dunning-Kruger as an explaination is a very Dunning- | Kruger thing to do: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38415252 | gnicholas wrote: | This is generally true. I had a technical cofounder for the first | 4 years or so, but once our tools were built it was less clear | what his ongoing role would be. | | This is because at that point, our focus turned to licensing our | (patented) technology to businesses. We still have B2C customers | who use the tools that he originally built (and which have been | updated by contractors after he left), but now the vast majority | of our revenue comes from our B2B licensing. | | We are pretty unique in this regard, since most startups aren't | able to generate much revenue from licensing in this way. | Specifically, when we work with our licensees, we provide a JS | library that they plug into their own platform. We don't need | engineers to do integration work, or provide support. | | My technical cofounder provided a lot of value in getting us to | where we are, for sure. But needing a technical cofounder to | launch doesn't necessarily mean you need one all the way along. | m_a_g wrote: | And your client's needs won't change ever? The product won't | need anything done on it until vacuum decay? | | Finally, someone made a proper JS library. | gnicholas wrote: | The clients don't want us mucking around in their code, which | is why they have their devs do the work. There are some cases | where having a dev on our end could help unblock their devs, | but these are pretty rare cases. In general, it's very easy | for folks to use our tech, and I'm able (thanks to a couple | years of CS back in the day) to help out with the vast | majority of questions that come up. | | In terms of changes, there aren't any material changes. We've | had licensees up and running for 7 years without changing any | code. | bob88jg wrote: | What so the person who "provided a lot of value in getting us | to where we are" got ditched in the end? Is that your story? | Use people and then chuck them to the curb once everything u | need has been extracted? | skummetmaelk wrote: | Classic suit brain. | gnicholas wrote: | Absolutely not -- he vested founder's shares just like me. | And then I continued to work with no salary and no additional | vesting for years after that. Also, I was working full-time | while he was working nights/weekends. | | Perhaps don't assume the worst? | bob88jg wrote: | I assumed he got some $$$ - but did he want to be removed | or did you tell him he was no longer needed? Was he just as | sure that he was no longer needed as u were? | gnicholas wrote: | He was the one who walked. He still has his shares, of | course. | ChrisCinelli wrote: | So you do not have need of innovation? | | Usually a company with software need to develop new features, | reengineering to reduce infrastructure costs and improving | performance bottlenecks, maintenance, etc. Do not you have that | in your company? And if you do, who is leading those | initiatives? | gnicholas wrote: | We are not innovating on the core product, which has remained | static for many years. Instead, we are pushing adoption | through our licensing partnerships. We now have over 250k | students using our reading tech through education platforms | that we work with. Building more of these partnerships, based | on the data we have gathered from our existing partners, is | the focus. | danjc wrote: | Hate to tell you this but a business cannot thrive if it | doesn't innovate. At best, you'll ride on your momentum for | a while. | gnicholas wrote: | If we were riding on momentum I would expect our revenue | to be stable/shrinking, not growing (as it is). I agree | that in the long term this is true, but when you start as | a tiny speck, you can grow for a long time as awareness | spreads. For example, we started our in education and are | now getting interest from news/media organizations. This | is without changing the core functionality at all. | trgdr wrote: | I mean not all businesses need to thrive. If the thing | generates significant profits for a while then the | founder can retire and either sell it or just let it die. | If it's not a publicly-traded company there's no | fiduciary duty to do anything more than that. | lmm wrote: | Sounds like at that point you're not really a tech company. | Your tech might as well be some off-the-shelf stuff as far | as you're concerned, if you're not actually working on it | any more. | DelaneyM wrote: | Corollary: you do not need a non-technical co-founder. | | My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to learn | business/sales than to learn to like a co-founder, especially the | type generally drawn to being a "business" founder. | | It is good to have a co-founder in general though, get one of | those if you can. Just don't worry about finding complementary | skills, bias entirely towards someone you can work with. | Eumenes wrote: | I generally agree but if you're developing a product for a | niche industry and that non-technical co-founder has a shit ton | of insight and connections, it will 1000% open doors. Then | again, perhaps you can partner with those folks in other ways | vs giving away 50% equity. | edgyquant wrote: | By that logic the person with that domain knowledge can | partner with technical folks for less than 50% equity. Which | is what normally happens in my experience | gnicholas wrote: | This is more likely to be true where you are selling to other | technical people. But it becomes much less likely to be true | when you are selling B2C, or to non-technical businesspeople. | And of course, the ability of a technical person to learn sales | varies quite a bit. Some technical folks pick it up easily, but | others do not (or find important non-technical bits like | fundraising and sales to be very distasteful/annoying). | notahacker wrote: | And of course the reverse is true. Some "business people" can | pick up a huge amount about UX, client priorities, process | automation and what is and isn't technically possible and | make useful product management contributions even if they | never touch the codebase, and some simply aren't interested | in that level of implementation detail even if they're really | good at selling the big picture and someone really needs to | get a handle on that side of the business. | choppaface wrote: | Need somebody who can do product and sales. Often this person | is predominantly non-technical. | VoodooJuJu wrote: | I'm currently the technical guy and would love to learn how to | also be the business guy - what do I need to do to develop | those skills? | | Getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn anyhting, so | with technical topics, especially programming, I would just | dive into projects and start coding, building things, and | that's how I learned. In terms of business skills, what | projects can I realistically undertake on my own that would | help me develop those skills? Should I start a low-stakes | business selling soap on Etsy or something? Is that adequate? | Completely different ballgame from the corporate startup world | - but would any of the skills from such a humble venture | transfer to the larger stakes ones? | | How might a technical guy become the business guy? | threeseed wrote: | Read and understand the Gitlab handbook: | | https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ | GamerAlias wrote: | Are you serious? If so why? Could you elaborate about why | one should read such a long text? Doesn't seem a clear | answer to his Q | DelaneyM wrote: | You become a business guy the same way you became a technical | guy! | | Don't waste time selling soap though (unless you really love | soap) - my best advice is to try to sell something you've | made. It could be your time (as a consultant), or it could be | a product. | | I would suggest waiting to develop these skills until you | know what product you want to bring to market as an | entrepreneur. No sense in learning B2C growth hacking when | you end up in enterprise sales (or vice-versa). | willsmith72 wrote: | The first stages are just sales. You're just trying to find | something people will buy and that means a lot of people time. | | I've found it rare that engineers will find that natural, it | takes a lot of time and discomfort to get good at | robocat wrote: | > just sales | | This sounds like a typical engineer's summary. It is a | dismissal - just like the video talks about tech being | dismissed. | | Recruiting a co-founder is not "just sales". The video is | taking about an archetypical salesperson who still can't buy | a tech guy (maybe their sales skills are not so good). | sebmellen wrote: | https://nav.al/build-sell | | > _Bill Gates famously paraphrases this as, "I'd rather teach | an engineer marketing, than a marketer engineering."_ | gnicholas wrote: | Absolutely true. Of course, a non-technical cofounder | probably knows more than just marketing. He may add a lot of | value in terms of fundraising, product management, and other | areas. Teaching all of these things to an engineer wouldn't | be trivial. | sebmellen wrote: | Nonetheless, I think most business functions are more | societally established, and for that reason they can be | more easily outsourced. | | You can find a "pre-packaged" MBA, attorney, etc. because | society is very good at churning out those roles. Just go | the most recently graduated Wharton batch and hire the top | grad for $300k, and you have someone who can do your legal, | fundraising, operations, etc. | | It's much harder to find someone with unique technical | insight and the ability to deliver, which is the true value | of a good "engineer". | WJW wrote: | This is like saying you can go hire the top graduate of | your local bootcamp and they can be a decent tech lead. | Experience matters for legal and business roles just as | much for engineering, much as we devs like to pretend | otherwise. | ginkgotree wrote: | Second this. I worked in Sales Engineering for 5 years, ended | that career selling a $25MM solution to the CEO of a fortune | 100. There is no secret sauce, and it is all learnable. The key | skills are interpersonal. I know its hard to do as an engineer, | but most of (enterprise) sales is shutting the F up, listening, | carefully listening, earning trust, and learning to navigate | stakeholders and what their potential incentives are to help | you. | WhitneyLand wrote: | I think sometimes the salary market would disagree with that. | | At many companies a sales engineer can make more money than a | developer. | | Personally I think it's too nuanced a question to answer | generally. Depending on who it is and the context "the right" | person in either role can make all the difference. | throwaway5752 wrote: | Let's just say - there are some critical things you have to be | good enough at and those correlate with commonly observed | corporate structures. Some degree of Sales, Marketing, Legal, | Security, R & D, and Finance competencies need to exist across | the founders. Sometimes one person can do it, but they also | need to know how and when to bring in experts if they are lucky | enough to need to scale up. | | On a very basic level, not having a cofounder in any capacity | can create a structural bottleneck when two important things | have to happen at the same time. A trusted second party | provides resiliency. | robocat wrote: | > My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to | learn business/sales | | Technical people mispredict the value of a business co-founder | in a similar way to how this video talks about tech co-founders | being misvalued. Cue jokes about sales-droids. But there is a | mirror between businessy people undervaluing tech and tech | undervaluing business. | | A key point of the video is recruiting (albeit a form of | sales): it is hard to sell "adventure" and belief. | | We see this every time an engineer tries to shift to a | managerial role and fails. In theory business skills can be | learnt, in practice it is hard and perhaps easier to co-found | with someone with the skills already. There are risks, but if | you can't judge ability and integrity then you're already | hosed. | | The best example I can think of who cogently explains how they | learnt is Jim Keller - talking about how he changed AMD. | amelius wrote: | The first non-founder employees of a company usually end up with | the worst deal financially. | | Take that into account if you're the technical guy working for | the startup. | hoistbypetard wrote: | I never thought that was an open question (given the space we're | talking about)... | | The one that seemed more open and therefore more interesting: do | you need a non-technical co-founder? | Belomolo wrote: | Most modern companies ARE tech / it companies but either don't | know it or don't accept it. | | It's easy to run services on the internet when you don't know | what you are doing wrong... | kragen wrote: | those companies will happily outsource the development of their | core competitive advantages to another company who does | appreciate its value; they will then sell it to their | competitors | 23B1 wrote: | This is dated. There's no rules to founding your own company. | | As a non-technical founder I can | | A) Get a technical cofounder which takes me weeks to find, | dilutes my ownership, and with whom I have no recourse if their | work is sub-par (or we end up just not liking/trusting/vibing | with each other) | | or | | B) Build an MVP with any number of offshoring partners in a | matter of weeks and for far cheaper (money, time, opportunity | cost). If I don't like the work, we can modify the contract, or I | can quickly pivot to another team. | | This is also true for technical founders as well, to be clear. | You can probably do a lot of the business stuff by outsourcing. | You can worry about gelling a team once you've got to 1. | nurple wrote: | Heh, good luck. As a tech cofounder, I attempted to do just | this and I have extensive development and management | experience. It was a nightmare, EVERY SINGLE offshoring company | tried to play us as a group that didn't know their stuff, and | when put to the iron they couldn't produce anything that would | stand up--technically--against a mild sneeze. | | If I hadn't been there, my other founders would have gotten up | to their eyeballs in offshore dev debt and would have a giant | hairball that even the most experienced tech people would be | unable or unwilling to make additional progress against once | the offshore team stops delivering. | | So, good luck trying to lead an offshore team that's only | interested in absorbing as much money from you as possible | before moving onto the next sucker. If you don't think a tech | cofounder is worth their ask, then you deserve to get exactly | what you pay for. | kragen wrote: | i'm interested to hear what kinds of things they did and what | you did in response. there are probably a lot of good stories | there | kragen wrote: | to get from zero to one, which i think is what you're referring | to with your 'once you've got to 1' line at the end, you need | to first find a market that's at zero; a product/service that | doesn't exist. but that isn't enough; then you have to take it | to one, a product that does exist. there are three piles here: | | 1. product categories that are technically feasible and | profitable and where products already exist; | | 2. product categories that are technically feasible and | profitable and where no products already exist; | | 3. product categories that are not technically feasible, so no | products already exist. | | anyone can tell the difference between pile 1 and piles 2 and | 3. but you need a technical cofounder to be able to distinguish | between pile 2, which is very small, and pile 3, which is | enormous. and that's not something you do once; it's an ongoing | process that happens at many levels of detail in your product, | and even at the largest scale it's a gradual process of | reduction of uncertainty, because you don't really know that | something is technically possible until it's been done | | then, you need to actually build the first product in that | category, which involves identifying, prioritizing, and | mitigating the risks that could destroy it. probably in banking | a lot of this is things like regulators, market moves, and bank | runs, but in companies built on software, a lot of those risks | are software risks, and you need technical acumen to do this | | as a nontechnical cofounder, what value are you bringing to the | table? your family's money? invest in a vc fund, or start one, | though without technical cofounders you'll waste all your money | on companies in pile 3. your business knowledge? that's | worthwhile in some cases. your leadership and management | skills? likewise. but you're going to have to offer convincing | evidence of something like this to be a good option for anyone | to invest their money in | ilc wrote: | Honestly as a technical guy: You come off as greedy. | | As a technical founder, I face the EXACT same risks. What if | the business guy can't drum up money? What if he can't sell the | damn pen. | | Most companies fail, the strongest firms will have strong | business and technical people. | | If you want to stand on one leg. Go for it. You'll piss your | money away overseas. When you need someone to help you get | across that line... there is nobody at your side. | | Founding a successful company is hard. You will face days where | you don't have the answer. Things will happen that are outside | your experience... and yes, you can buy, buy, buy your way | there... but remember, you are buying mercs. I've been a merc. | Win or lose... I get paid, so, yes sir. How high sir? | | Rework is just more money. | | ... You sure you want to be on the other side of the table from | someone like me, without someone like me at your side? | | Because all those off-shore firms... are more merc than I am. | hiddencost wrote: | I'd argue the other side of the this: you don't need a non | technical cofounder. | gkoberger wrote: | Disagree, and I say this as a technical founder with no | cofounder. Once things start to take off, a majority of the | things you deal with are non-technical. There's so much that | goes into building a company, and you really need someone who | understands how businesses work and can run G2M. | | Sure, you can hire for it... but you'll almost never find | someone as invested in it as the founder, and it's just as | important as the product. | kragen wrote: | you need a cofounder but there's no benefit in them being | nontechnical | gkoberger wrote: | Do you really think there's no skills or archetypes that | are valuable on a founding team that doesn't involve | writing code? | paulddraper wrote: | Depends what you're doing. | | It's relatively rare nowadays to see tech solopreneurs. (At | least, for something more than a lifestyle business.) | | Often you need someone with experience/connections/insight into | the industry: medicine, construction, ecommerce, finance, | logistics, whatever. | geniium wrote: | I love the format with the topics on the side, well done YC! | | Downside: they are too much looking around , probably a lot of | people around or screens with prompters. Disturbing me | opportune wrote: | Even this article IMO subtly demonstrates the mindset that leads | nontechnical founders to not think they need a technical | cofounder, by phrasing the search for one as "recruiting" as if | they were a subordinate or code monkey. It should be a partner | relationship, not a subordinate relationship. | | This mindset that technical cofounders are essentially "coders" | (a term I hate) is very prevalent among inexperienced | nontechnical founders. I know I'm preaching to the choir here but | a lot of technical people have deep industry/business/product | knowledge and have social skills. It is very frustrating when | some Ivy League 25 year old PM/management consultant tries to | pitch you on their vision while treating you like an idiot savant | they can easily take advantage of. | welfare wrote: | Completely agree, I'm waiting for the article on "Why you need | a business-oriented co-founder and how technical founders can | recruit one"... | thelittlenag wrote: | +1 on that! | debacle wrote: | The problem is that you don't. "Business" has been | systematized in many ways, and more and more your "business" | is just someone else's software. | jdminhbg wrote: | > There are two reasons founders resist going out and | recruiting users individually. One is a combination of | shyness and laziness. They'd rather sit at home writing code | than go out and talk to a bunch of strangers and probably be | rejected by most of them. But for a startup to succeed, at | least one founder (usually the CEO) will have to spend a lot | of time on sales and marketing. [2] | | http://paulgraham.com/ds.html | lainga wrote: | > while treating you like an idiot savant they can easily take | advantage of. | | I considered it a bit, and you know what, I'd wager that four- | fifths of tech business dynamics flow from this statement. | Technical expertise is the money printer onto which all manners | of value extraction anchor themselves, like barnacles. If not | at the creation, then, for a time, it is good. And then it | happens anyway 5-10 years down the line. | | That said, there _are_ different failure modes for purely | technical people not understanding business. But the market | doesn 't seem to reward them the same way. Root cause is | outside the scope of this comment... | _jal wrote: | Yep. I used to be more charitable, but I've taken to being | very short with founder wannabes who act like this. Bluntly, | if they refuse to look past their preconceptions to see who | they're actually talking to, why should I? | | This is made easier knowing founders with those sorts of | blinders are likely going to fail anyway, so you don't want | to be in the blast radius when it happens. | gary_0 wrote: | > That said, there _are_ different failure modes for purely | technical people not understanding business. | | A common one, I think, is technical people thinking | management or business expertise is easy (or even beneath | them) because they're so smart in other areas--and any | problems they might have can surely be solved with the same | tools they use to solve engineering problems, right? Which is | kind of the flip side of the attitude of the kind of | nontechnical founders we're talking about. | | Another thing I'm facing myself (as a technical person) is | when I've successfully dipped a toe into a management role, I | was lucky enough that the people I was leading were all also | technical people whose personalities were mostly in line with | mine. But I've had to remind myself that if I put myself in a | leadership position again, it won't always be that simple... | ethbr1 wrote: | The biggest business gap seems to be assuming other people | won't screw you over, given enough money on the table and | the opportunity. | | I assume most MBAs already know this. | | Lots of technical people learn the hard way. | jjav wrote: | Yes, this. I've been in many startups but only once as a | founder. I was the technical one, the only one with deep | expertise in the core business area of the startup. | | Well, my title was founder. All the other founders were | on the board, I was not. All the other founders | controlled budget, I did not. So really, despite the | words on the offer letter I was just an employee. The | founder title granted me the right to work 90 hour weeks | with no help and no support and no budget to hire help. | | At least didn't waste too many years on that one. | | Learn from me. Spend some of your money up front and hire | a lawyer with tons of experience in startups to guide you | through contract negotiations and if the company balks at | your (lawyer-assisted) terms that's your giant red flag | to run very far away. | rectang wrote: | Competing with that naivete is the great delusion of | technical people that "If we build it they will come." | | (Speaking as an technical person who constantly meditates | on that problem.) | gary_0 wrote: | > given enough money on the table and the opportunity. | | In my personal experience it was never even that much | money. Some people just really want to feel like they've | pulled a fast one, even if all they really end up doing | is wasting everyone's time. As a nerd who is generally | not motivated by Machiavellian shenanigans, I have a hard | time seeing these kinds of predators coming. | ethbr1 wrote: | > _I have a hard time seeing these kinds of predators | coming._ | | Just imagine other people's value functions are | exclusively "What's good for me?" | | At worst, you'll be pleasantly surprised. | mainpassathome wrote: | > Technical expertise is the money printer onto which all | manners of value extraction anchor themselves, like | barnacles. | | An even easier way to look at this is in general: Business | people somehow don't understand that the value comes from the | labour | Matticus_Rex wrote: | The other parts of the business are labor as well. Products | don't magically go to market. Business models don't | magically create and evolve themselves. | waprin wrote: | Technical expertise is very rarely where the core value of a | product comes from. If you're really pushing some boundary | and just have a better technology product, like original | Google or ChatGPT, then sure, tech is your special sauce. | | For 99% of software businesses, the tech can cause the | business to fail but its almost never what makes the business | succeed. Things like customer development and sales are | actually far more important. | | Its hard to build a well-architected web app that scales, but | theres many people who can do a reasonable job at it. But | translating that to business value is much harder. | | Theres many people can build a React project in a week, fewer | who know how to turn that React project into money. That | should be self-evident on a site full of people who know how | to make a React app, but begrudglingly work for others | because they dont know how to turn a React app into money. | | The thing about "the business guys" is most of them are | actually pretty bad at the business side. And a lot of | developers are actually better at the business side, because | they have more relevant experience. | | The "business guys" get their MBA and learn about merges and | acquisitions for billion dollar business and do case studies | about how GM optimizes their supply chain, information that's | useful in some contexts but mostly entirely useless when it | comes to getting your first 100 paying customers for your | SaaS. | | The developer is actually more likely to have the relevant | business skills since they're more likely to have put some | sort of SaaS on the internet and tried to get users for it, | even if they failed. | | I was on YC cofounder matchmaking for a while and was | inundated with "business guys" who were just bad at the | business side. It didn't bug me that they were non-technical, | but their non-technical nature led to some bad business | planning. For example, one guy who worked in VC wanted to | make a GMail / Superhuman competitor oriented towards VCs. I | suggested we start with a Chrome extension for Gmail, he | insisted we build an entirely new email stack from scratch | for the MVP. | | Making a realistic plan is part of making a business plan and | his lack of technical acumen made him bad at business. | | If someone came to me and said, hey I have a super pared down | MVP, it's just 4 screens in Figma with a minimal data model, | and I have 100 people who I showed the Figma screens to and | they signed up to pay $50 a month, can you build it ? I'd be | thrilled to pair up with a "business guy" like that but they | are far more rare than a good tech co-founder and the | business types that get that far tend to offer things like | "founding engineer" instead of actual co-founder because | they, somewhat fairly, assume that the skills you're bringing | to the table aren't actually that difficult to find. | | But to recap, my high level point is that the technical | expertise is not really the money printer. The money printer | is mapping market demand to technical products, which is a | business skill. And that business skill is worth a lot more | than technical skills. Its just a type of business skill that | you find more often in developers than you do in MBA, and so | we don't associate it with "business guys". But it's the most | fundamental of all skills to make money from software, other | than a handful of "exceptions that prove the rule". | puniaviision wrote: | This whole comment was beautiful. | | Especially this part: | | "But to recap, my high level point is that the technical | expertise is not really the money printer. The money | printer is mapping market demand to technical products, | which is a business skill. And that business skill is worth | a lot more than technical skills. Its just a type of | business skill that you find more often in developers than | you do in MBA, and so we don't associate it with "business | guys". But it's the most fundamental of all skills to make | money from software, other than a handful of "exceptions | that prove the rule"." | | As an ex-shitty business guy, I taught myself how to code | thinking that would solve my problems. Nope. Now I'm just a | shitty business person and a shitty dev. Forcing myself to | do the actual work of talking to customers now. | dogman144 wrote: | Heading over to MIT to "find a coder" is something you'll hear | from HBS aspiring founders. | | I also deeply agree with the other part - there's a class of | technical leaders who have that depth and choose to work with | technology as the primary day to day. But, they also don't have | HBS MBAs often. | | Good VCs look for these founders I think, but otherwise the | cultural treatment of that type can aspire one to get a MBA | just to fix or re-align the perception. | paulddraper wrote: | :shrug: CEOs get recruited too, i don't understand the problem | speby wrote: | This is pretty well said. I tend to agree and as a founder of | multiple companies, as a well an engineering-background co- | founder myself, I have definitely had interactions with "non- | technical" founders looking for people (like me) and totally | got the vibe of the needing a "technical co-founder" because | they just need some "coder" as if that's the missing key to | success (or whatever). | | That said, there are plenty of very smart, driven, people who | are not software engineers who don't think of a technical co- | founder that way. So it'd be wrong to paint with a super wide | brush on this. | TuringNYC wrote: | >> It is very frustrating when some Ivy League 25 year old | PM/management consultant tries to pitch you on their vision | while treating you like an idiot savant they can easily take | advantage of. | | I get calls weekly from people seeking technical co-founders. | The biggest thing most CTO candidates dont realize is the power | they have -- unless the "business co-founder" is actually | bringing something to the table. | | I'd LOVE to work with a "Business co-founder" who actually | brings Purchase Orders, Funding, Transact-able Relationships, | prior wins (esp publicly verifiable wins). That would be a | dream. | | It makes _no sense_ to work with a "Business co-founder" who | wants ME to put in hundreds of hours of technical work -- | upfront -- often for equity "e.g., free" -- and retains the | right to take all the upside and has none of the downside. Why | would I need a "Business Co-Founder" at all in that case, I | might as well be the only founder and recruit later. | | I see tons of friends burnt by these types of "deals." The | biggest red-flag is when the "Business co-founder" still has a | job and no real skin in the game. | WendyTheWillow wrote: | I have substantially less exposure to this space than you | seem to, but even when trying to start projects with friends, | this holds true. So often, I get pitched by pals who think | the _idea_ is what they 've done, and at that point, it's up | to me to "code up." What I would _love_ to hear is, "I've | been talking with these three businesses already, and they | seem interested." or even, "I'm really worried about the | sales and marketing side of things, so that's the problem I'm | going to focus on." | | Nobody's ever come even close to that. It takes _zero_ coding | to have those things already started, and yet nobody even | goes down that path before looking for a "code monkey." | vlod wrote: | I've been burnt multiple times by this. | | I think they believe in the "Build it and they will come" and | then they just coordinate and tell you what to do afterwards, | rather than making hundreds of cold calls (i.e. grinding). | csa wrote: | > This mindset that technical cofounders are essentially | "coders" (a term I hate) is very prevalent among inexperienced | nontechnical founders. I know I'm preaching to the choir here | but a lot of technical people have deep | industry/business/product knowledge and have social skills. It | is very frustrating when some Ivy League 25 year old | PM/management consultant tries to pitch you on their vision | while treating you like an idiot savant they can easily take | advantage of. | | This is nicely worded, but I would like to expand on it. This | is coming from someone who is a businessperson who programs -- | I've been programming since I was 10, but I've never had the | job of a programmer. | | tl;dr - I think that both programmers and business people can | be delusional about their value add, but folks who can do both | are easier to work with, and folks who can do both have more | opportunities than just hyper-growth startups. | | In generalities, there are four groups of folks on the tech- | business continuum. | | 1. Pure tech folks with little or no business acumen. Some of | these folks think "sales" or "marketing" are fighting words. I | find many of these folks very difficult to do business with. To | be charitable to the "Ivy League" folks you refer to, they have | probably met enough of these pure tech folks (some of whom are | actually idiot savants) such that they erroneously over- | generalize to think that all tech folks are like these pure | tech folks. | | 2. Tech folks with business acumen. The business side usually | comes from experience. I think pg advocates for tech folks who | do start ups to develop into this. Overall much easier to do | business with, but sometimes they make product-oriented | decisions that miss the forest for the trees. The best tech | businesses come from this group, but they get outclassed on the | business side unless they embrace the business side | aggressively (Zuck and Gates being prime examples). I think the | "Ivy League" folks lose a lot of business due to lack of | respect for this group. | | 3. Business folks with tech acumen (this is me). Great at | taking over tech business that are poorly run and optimizing | them either as a c-suite executive or as a buyer (this is what | I do). While I don't refer to programmers as "coders", and I | don't treat programmers as idiot-savants, I know how to find | and pay programmers to solve my business problems. | Interestingly, I run into some programmers who are doing | commodity work who want a percentage of the business. My offer | is always the same -- zero. I'm not building a startup or | complex software. Their skills are largely fungible to me, | since most of the value is in finding the solution rather than | the nuts and bolts of development. The exception is for folks | in group 2 who want to move to group 3, but at that point they | become a businessperson rather than a programmer. | | 4. Business folks with no tech acumen. These are the "Ivy | League" folks (and a lot of VCs, tbh). These are the "idea | people", the people who are clueless about tech and tech | development, often the people who are also bad at business, but | they happen to have access to money and/or critical buyers. | Fwiw, many of these folks treat other business people even | worse than programmers -- they just treat most people like | idiots, sans the savant. I sometimes have a hard time doing | business with these folks, because they frequently don't know | the value (or lack thereof) of their business, and/or they are | only looking for suckers to do business with. Many/most of | these folks are all style and no substance. If they had some | substance, they would be in group 3 (or try to be). | | Obviously these are people on a continuum that are separated | into somewhat arbitrary groups. That said, these archetypes | exist. | | How do these archetypes matter for tech businesses? | | If you're in group 1, you're at the mercy of whatever business | person you can work with. You hope that you end up more like | Woz than most of the pure tech folks who get restructured out | as the business grows. I strongly recommend that the pure tech | folks focus on getting paid primarily in cash rather than | equity, since any non-benevolent business person will structure | out the tech person's equity as soon as possible. | | If you are in group 2, you are in a strong position to develop | a successful startup or successful tech business. Just realize | that you are a cog in the VC machine, and they only value you | for your potential to hit home runs. You can make more reliable | money (think 8 or 9 figures) in a "lifestyle business", but it | is not likely you will become a billionaire... unless you shift | to group 3. | | If you are in group 3, you need to realize that most of your | value will be by doing very boring shit. Billionaire status is | possible, but it will be a boring trip, and you are not likely | to appear in any sexy tech write ups unless you engage in | aggressive self-promotion in these areas (some should, most | probably shouldn't). The biggest mistake I see group 3 folks | make is to think that they are in group 2, especially if/when | they try to develop a consumer-oriented product without getting | a group 2 cofounder. | | Group 4... well, group 4 is what they are. There is some | jiujitsu by which their egos and ignorance can be used for | greater good. If you engage with these folks, I would only do | so with that type of interaction in mind. If you engage with | them on their terms, you will almost certainly lose. | | Why did I write all of this? To clarify options for various | level of tech people. | | The HN/Ycombinator narrative to push for technical co-founders | is very valid _for start ups_ (the pg kind that are built to | grow fast), but there many other ways to make money as a tech | person or a tech-oriented business person than start ups | (especially now in the 20s compared to the 90s or 00s), and | some /many of these are more reliable ways to get to a "fuck | you money" level. I don't think a lot of highly skilled tech | folks realize this. | jschveibinz wrote: | I'd like add to this conversation this two other important facts: | | 1) you (or your partner) do need domain experience and expertise. | If you want open a bakery, or even try to automate a bakery, you | really need at least some commercial baking experience. I see so | many folks pitching a product in an area where they have zero | experience. | | 2) you (or your partner) do need some organizational and/or | business management experience. Business-whether it is software, | hardware, or selling bakegoods-is about working with people and | working with money. Learn about it and do some of it before | starting uour own company. | thelittlenag wrote: | And here what we need is a business co-founder who can help us | crack the nut of getting traction. Sigh. | ilc wrote: | As a technical founder/early person in my past: | | If you don't know why you need a technical founder. That is | EXACTLY why you need one. | | It is the same reason why if as a technical founder, I didn't | know why I needed a non-technical founder. I'd probably be making | a major error. | | To those saying they waste equity: | | If you truly have a failed company, with a bad founder, buy them | out or kill the firm, it happens. You've learned some key | lessons. | | If the founders you need cost you 75% of your equity and you make | a unicorn.... Were they worth it? Who cares. You got your fuck | you money. | hartator wrote: | Or you do not need non-technical founders. Sales people selling | themselves more than anything. | syrusakbary wrote: | I'm a technical founder working in a deep-tech startup. | | If I am completely honest, I think the recommendation of having a | technical cofounder while useful for startups in the past might | not be as useful for the startups of the future. | | Why? I strongly believe AI will cause a paradigm shift, and I'll | adventure stating that AI will make non-technical people be able | to do more and more with less. Which will make the requirements | for differentiation in the tech side even harder to accomplish | (very few people reaching the god-tech realms), but at the same | time it would make the bases reachable for almost anyone. | Basically, a more polarized order where less people will have | access to "technical founders" that can differentiate themselves | enough outside of the AI realms. | | I'd love to get more thoughts on this! | WendyTheWillow wrote: | Having used LLMs to solve tech problems, I would not trust the | current state, or even GPT5, to reliably solve anything other | than the most trivial of trivialities. | | Is the idea that in 2025, AWS will have an AI console where a | non-technical founder types in what they want their site to do, | and the LLM takes care of the rest? Register domains, build out | the database/backend/auth/frontend, etc.? | | I really can't see it happening in 2025, or 2035, without some | pretty big leaps forward, the kinds of leaps that may never be | possible. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-30 23:00 UTC)