

Do you need a technical co-founder? - jefftala
http://www.jeffreytalajic.com/2011/02/do-you-need-a-technical-co-founder/

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RiderOfGiraffes
Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: Acquire technical skills.

There, I've saved you the effort of reading the article. Move on ...

(Wow - I'm _grumpy_ today ...)

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petervandijck
Perhaps because this was just a really boring fluffpiece article :)

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mindcrime
_And your technical co-founder probably doesn’t need you._

I guess it depends on the domain of your startup, but I generally disagree
with this. Maybe it's because I'm focused on B2B scenarios, but - as a
hardcore techie type - I absolutely see the need for a "business guy" to
partner with. Marketing, sales, business development, fund raising, PR,
etc.... all of those things are things that are NOT my strengths and would be
better done by (or at least in collaboration with) somebody who specializes in
those things.

Regarding sales in particular... maybe it doesn't matter so much if your
startup is a webapp that either goes viral or doesn't, but if you're selling a
product (or service) that requires face to face selling, I expect you'd be
hard pressed to overestimate the value of somebody who's good at the selling
side of things.

Hell, I'm actively seeking a non-technical co-founder, especially one of those
"can sell ice to eskimos" or "can sell Bibles to the Devil" types. I may even
go find a good used car salesman and see if I can get him/her up to speed on
enterprise software. :-)

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jefftala
I guess I was thinking of the first few weeks/months of a startup where all
the efforts are really around building the product. What does the business guy
do? Definitely there are things to do, but if you had to dedicate all man
hours to something, building product would be of paramount importance.

And when you think of technical founders like the Google guys, Bill Gates,
etc, they started as technical and acquired the business skills as things
developed. So yes, business skills are super important. But they can be
acquired.

I'm not so sure that a business guy will just learn some technical skills in
the early days of a startup. So the tech guy can learn business, but the
business guy can't learn tech.

~~~
mindcrime
Ok, from a timing standpoint, I'd say that's fair. In my case, I've been
hacking away, by myself, on the code for around a year now... and it's only
now that I'm starting to get close to the point of wanting a "business guy."

That said, I think there _could_ be a role for "business guy" even earlier in
the process, depending on the details. If you're "scratching your own itch"
and you _know_ what you're going to build, then that's one thing. But if
you're doing the "find a problem somebody has, and solve it" approach, then
you could start the Customer Development process from day 0, and a guy/gal
with experience in marketing / product management / etc. could be valuable
then. Especially if he/she has some domain knowledge in the field you're
working in.

 _I'm not so sure that a business guy will just learn some technical skills in
the early days of a startup. So the tech guy can learn business, but the
business guy can't learn tech._

I think it just depends on the individual. And when I say "business guy" I
mean "business guy with _some_ technical knowledge, particularly relevant
domain knowledge." Which is one reason that finding the right person has been
a challenge. I joke about finding a "used car salesman" and teaching them
about software, but realistically, I'd like to find somebody who has
experience selling enterprise software already.

