

How to thrive as a solo non-technical founder - limedaring
http://weddinglovely.com/blog/how-to-survive-as-a-solo-designer-founder/

======
patio11
In addition to making all the necessary steps to deal without a technical
cofounder (problem: can't iterate without code, solution: crash course in
Python programming then), Tracy also really, really works angles that many
technical founders wouldn't consider. I did a wee bit of work with her at 500
Startups -- my favorite example of several is that she produced an actual,
honest to God, on-dead-tree _photo book_ of her paying customers' wares. It
was _extraordinarily compelling_ , both as a product (I have recent experience
with wedding product photo books, mostly produced on 1000x the budget of
that), as a sales channel for her company, and clearly the hackiest use of
paper I've ever seen in a software company.

~~~
limedaring
Oh goodness, thanks Patrick — that really means a lot.

Funny, we just announced the 2nd version of the Lookbook a couple days ago,
and it's going to be a whole new challenge, since we're working with over 3x
the number of vendors and in multiple wedding verticals rather than just
invitations. I'll have to send you the new one once it's released in a month.
:)

~~~
melissamiranda
The look book was awesome, it brought all the invitations on the site to life.
You could curl up on a couch and flip through beautiful stationery at your own
leisure. It made it a pleasure rather than a chore by simple getting it off
the computer. Tracy, where were you when I got married? I was impressed that
Tracy had to learn pdf scripting to pull it off, she learns just about
anything, and fast.

~~~
limedaring
Mmmm alas, I didn't learn PDF scripting (eugh, one of the reasons why I
dropped my original startup idea) — it was all painfully done by hand in
InDesign. That said, we're looking at scripting for this time around!

~~~
thinkmaya
very cool Tracy! I think it takes a certain kind of skill to marry our
strengths with customer needs and build something that wins. Great job on the
lookbook!

------
scottkrager
What I really enjoyed about this post is the ending...

You learn all the hard work Tracy puts in on her own. And in the end she EARNS
a technical co-founder. She doesn't stop working on her product while waiting
for the mythical tech co-founder to join her. Bravo and congrats.

~~~
limedaring
Ha yeah — I wrote an article about finding a cofounder the traditional way a
year ago ([http://www.limedaring.com/technical-co-founder-wanted-for-
di...](http://www.limedaring.com/technical-co-founder-wanted-for-disrupting-
the-wedding-industry/)) — well, that didn't work out. This article really is
my followup to that article, that I should have just jumped forward then and
started working rather than doing a few months of searching for the "right
cofounder"!

Thank you!

------
prgibbons
I would consider having design skills as a technical skill. Try doing a tech
startup with a liberal arts degree (or three) ;)

Good article!

~~~
limedaring
Maybe true, but both design and liberal arts degrees are missing the true
technical skills that a tech startup really requires: back-end development,
experience with servers, databases, etc. That's been the toughest part — it's
all well and good to ideate, but implementation is where things really matter.
I waffled on the title, but decided that if YC considers myself non-technical,
then it fits. :P

Thanks for the compliment! It's really fun being the tech person because at
least I'm learning something new every day.

------
Pimp4life
This is all good stuff. I'm pretty active in Co-Founder recruiting. When I
apply to incubators, I still list out the portfolios of all the people that
I've talked to, so that they are aware of who I'd like to get aboard. The main
problem is not having any money to hire them. I've had a few that are willing
to do sweat equity, but they have their hands tied with other commitments
(work, school) and projects. When I go to meetups and hackathons, the first
thing people ask me when I say that I need a Co-Founder is "Do you have any
money?". Granted, I wouldn't want to work with the type of folks that say
anyway, but seed capital will help me pluck talent away from cubicles or have
a 3rd-party get a MVP made. I need a developer and a designer. I want to split
the equity 3-ways evenly among us.

You also have to raise the bar of what you're looking for by learning to code
yourself. Codecademy is great, because everyone on a startup needs to be
technical to some extent, at least early on. You need to be able to
collaborate shoulder to shoulder.

------
hkarthik
This is a great story.

As a visionary who clearly doesn't mind getting her hands dirty and has design
skills you seem like every tech co-founder's dream! I'm honestly surprised you
had difficulty finding a tech co-founder before launching.

I'm dabbling with the idea of becoming a tech cofounder for someone, so I'd
like to know what were the criteria that you looked for in a tech cofounder
and how did you finally find one?

~~~
limedaring
"As a visionary who clearly doesn't mind getting her hands dirty and has
design skills you seem like every tech co-founder's dream! I'm honestly
surprised you had difficulty finding a tech co-founder before launching."

The difficulty wasn't in finding a tech cofounder — I had one back in the day,
went through a whole "interview" process with people from my original post
that got on HN. The problem was knowing someone long enough to feel
comfortable with them and finding the right person for the industry,
especially since I'm working in the weddings industry which is generally
uninspiring for a lot of devs. So it ended up with me working solo for over a
year, and the right person approached me, which worked way better.

"I'm dabbling with the idea of becoming a tech cofounder for someone, so I'd
like to know what were the criteria that you looked for in a tech cofounder
and how did you finally find one?"

Personality and fit with you and the company is number #1. Fit within the
current needs of the company was #2. Right skillset wasn't considered (hell,
if I can pick it up, someone who specializes in software development certainly
can.) But definitely finding someone who you can work with is the most
important, because if things go badly, you can work together on a new idea if
you jive well together.

~~~
amirhhz
What would you say about trying to identify a potential co-founder's
underlying motivation (money, experience, small team/flexibility, fame,
actually caring about the market, etc.) for joining a start-up?

I'm actually asking from the perspective of a technical person who finds it
hard to trust/gel with potential non-tech founders, but I thought perhaps you
had some thoughts :)

------
ErikEliason
Thanks for sharing Tracy. Your story is encouraging and reminds me of Abraham
Lincoln's story: <http://pinterest.com/pin/224687468879142473/>.

I think it would help the entire startup ecosystem if more founders shared
their challenges, failures, and triumphs.

------
citricsquid
The article doesn't answer the headline, unless "become one" is the answer?

~~~
limedaring
Anyone can be a solo founder, but I'm hoping the article answers some of the
qualities and tips you'd need in order to be successful, or at least put
yourself on the path to success. So, if you can't find a cofounder, what
things to remember and to get yourself motivated by in order to continue
endlessly without another person working on the company with you.

------
sausagefeet
I wonder how often the advice in these How I Succeeded posts are actually
related to their success. Hard to filter out these things when you're the one
experiencing them.

~~~
shazow
Everyone defines success differently. Most generally, success is the absence
of failure. Bonus points if you're making progress.

I'd take these posts more as inspiration to persist. Take toll in your
achievements and realize that your business is alive up until the moment you
allow yourself to give up.

------
jeffrese
Congratulations Terry and thanks for sharing your story. What kind of
ownership split did you do with your post product, post revenue, post funding
co-founder?

------
iamdann
Great success story. Great links too (although, the 30x500 link is broken).

Thanks!

~~~
limedaring
Whoops — missing the http. Fixed, thanks!

------
nickler
'cockroach' !! I love it. Stealing that one.

~~~
limedaring
Yeah, I think Paul regrets saying it because I've been using it as my personal
nickname now. :P

~~~
grokaholic
First time I heard "cockroach" used to describe start up founders is in this
article by Paul Graham.

<http://paulgraham.com/guidetoinvestors.html>

"Apparently the most likely animals to be left alive after a nuclear war are
cockroaches, because they're so hard to kill. That's what you want to be as a
startup, initially. Instead of a beautiful but fragile flower that needs to
have its stem in a plastic tube to support itself, better to be small, ugly,
and indestructible."

By the way, you go girl! Best of luck. I admire and applaud your persistence.
Keep going. I believe you can do it.

------
pydanny
Great job Tracy! Keep it up!

------
apz
Good job tracy!

------
allanscu
Great job!

------
ChrisNorstrom
No wonder. She's a woman. (READ THE WHOLE POST before you downvote)

I keep seeing this over and over again in my life. Nearly all the women I
know, from family to friends, are self driven, independent (even with a family
they have a strong sense of self), stable, educated or self-educated, and self
disciplined. Earning degrees, starting businesses, or properly investing the
family funds. The men I know.... well... we're the worst kind of failures. Not
the good Silicon Valley "I failed but I learned" kind of failure. The bad kind
of failure where you keep doing the same thing over and over expecting
different results. Out of all the men in my the family, my mother is the only
one that played her cards right. Financially, career wise, everything. Same
with my aunt. Same with my other aunt. Same with my childhood female friends.
WTF.

I think I've developed such a bias favoring women that I specifically want a
female co-founder. At least I know there's a much less chance of testosterone
induced ego trips, driving the company into the ground from unnecessary overly
risky decisions. I've noticed that these women's decision making is VERY
different from the men's.

From what I've seen. Women change their success strategy much more often,
whereas the men keep the same one despite years of failure. Women adjust to
change much quicker than the men I know. When women mess up, they say to your
face "I'm sorry, it's my fault". In fact they blame themselves a lot more when
things go wrong, whereas the men place blame on others and don't apologize at
all. Men don't see it as "I screwing up", they see it as "things didn't go my
way". Women gather information first, then make a decision. The Men skip the
information gathering step. They rush in and just call the shots. It's quicker
but more risky and eventually leads to a lot of failures. When business
doesn't work, women blame themselves and try to change themselves (get a
degree, educate, find new partner, find what they did wrong) but when business
doesn't work for men, they try to change the business itself, refusing to
admit that it might just be their fault. And lastly, the men I know seem to
think they are correct by default and tread ahead into the darkness, whereas
the women think they are incorrect by default and carefully tread through
decisions.

I think I'm sexist. But I can't help it. You call it sexism and generalizing
but I call it 'pattern recognition'. Literally all the women in my extended
family and friends have good jobs and the guys (me included) have nothing or
terrible jobs. I feel as if I'm destined for a life of failure. I know I
shouldn't feel that way but I can't help it. It feels inescapable. The more I
think about it, the more it makes sense and becomes evident. Sorry if I
dragged any men into the same depressive pit that I'm stuck in.

~~~
ericd
There are lots of guys doing huge things very successfully. Bezos just located
an Apollo rocket _on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean_. James Cameron has gone
from being one of the most successful film directors to being one of the most
successful deep divers of all time. These are bold things that were
successful. Being a risk taker causes a higher variance in ones endeavors,
which implies some spectacular failures, but that also implies occasional
spectacular successes.

Don't count yourself out just because of your gender. Tracy is awesome because
she's Tracy, not because she's a woman. Actually, just don't count yourself
out period, that's silly. You can always improve at things.

~~~
ChrisNorstrom
I should have emphasized more on the fact that this is what I'm seeing with
the men and women that -> I <\- know and have met. Those successful men you
mentioned obviously have behaviors that I (or anyone in my family) don't have.
It's just that in my life I'm seeing more of those behaviors in women than in
men. Leading me to feel this way. I shouldn't, I know. It's illogical and I
deserve the downvotes for such a loaded, wide, generalizing, polarizing
statement, but I can't help but feel this way.

~~~
ericd
Ah ok, gotcha. I personally know a bunch of very successful guys and gals
both, so maybe you just need to meet a wider variety of people. I've mostly
lived in urban areas (Boston, NYC, Silicon Valley), though, so that probably
skews my own sample pretty badly.

