(Given HN's technical inclination, I am aware that most will frown on this from the start. Yet another "ideas man".. ;-))
Background: I have never developed an app or website. I come from a non-tech project management and statistics background. I've dabbled in Python and R for statistics and academic-type research. So nothing really useful for app/web development. I also don't have any entrepreneurial credentials.
Current inclination: learn the necessary tools myself to code/develop my own product. My rationale is that the more I know the ins-and-outs of my product, the better I can sell it. Plus, this path may even help me attract technical talent, or a technical co-founder. But truth be told, part of this inclination is also to ease (at least partially) my imposter syndrome. I know outsourcing the product would save me time in the short-run, but I would feel like a total poser doing so. Also, worst case, the project fails but the technical skills I acquired make me more marketable for tech-type jobs.
If there's any pattern I can see with the non-technical founders, it's that some knowledge of coding is certainly nice, if only so the founders can talk to the actual coders. But coding's not the most important thing. The two most important things for a non-technical founder are (1) understanding their market, and (2) closing deals.
Steve Blank (a respected startup expert) proposed a way to prove that you can do (1) and (2): Collect non-binding letters of intent from future customers. These letters should say something like "If you can produce software that does X, Y and Z acceptably well, we would would like to negotiate a contract with you for $1000/month." (See Blank's classic "Four Steps to the Epiphany" for more details.)
If you can collect 10 of those letters, then you should have no problem finding a technical co-founder, and you'll be bringing strong assets to the table.
(The details might be different for your startup. Maybe your product is only worth $200/month, or whatever. But the key point is that you can go talk to customers and close deals.)
If you're eventually trying to become the CTO with someone else doing the selling, then learn to code it up yourself.
I'm a technical guy, but the first start up I joined started selling sheets of paper to clients at a premium before we scaled to an app.
If you can get a business running with spreadsheets, you'll have a lot of leverage bringing devs to the table.
This is a difficult situation as positive founders that you can build a company with are hard to come by (been there) and outsourcing is a minefield. I would suggest not to engage with an offshore outsourcing company, I have had terrible experiences here (they may tell u they are under NDA so cannot share any of their ‘successful’ projects, of which there are probably none), and if they know you don’t know tech, it’s a free for all. The other issue is they will try to bleed you up front and most startups are based on iteration, but you will probably have no cash left to incorporate the feedback into another version. Also, the quality will be terrible and they will not care about your project. What could Work, to get you started, is to find a single engineer you can work with (and pay) to get an MVP up and running, this could be a young guy or an off shore engineer but someone who will to work with you. This can keep your costs reasonable. The only issue here is that you have to think about how to move that MVP into a real product so you are really kicking the can down the road, but this can get you started.
In summary, avoid out sourcing like the corona virus.
This, a thousand times.
Getting it right is not tracing a path on a map. Once you start traversing the terrain your perception about the thing will change. You will hit dead ends that you hadn't considered when looking at the map. You will realize you should have used another road or that you made a bad turn. You may realize the trip is not worth it after all. Etc.
Outsourcing when you're trying to figure it out is super expensive. Even more when you don't have the technical knowledge. Like John above said, it's better to find a cheap dev to produce a quick a dirty MVP, knowing this won't be the final product.
Another great metaphor I've found that helps think about this is that you don't build a car from scratch by building each part independently. You start with a kick scooter, then you make a bike, then you make a motorbike... until you finally make a car. The bigger the product, the more complex it will be, and the more interactions between all the involved parts.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-it-through-...
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia
I have been in companies where we'd outsourced to firms in India. The experience was not good for us, at all. The arm of the company that set up this arrangement, it went under. The offshore firm did not deliver.
I realized what seems to be a cultural thing with folks I'd worked with from offshore firms. They would nearly always exude absolute confidence in their ability to deliver what you'd requested from them, no matter how complex the task.
"Oh yes. Sure. No problem. We will get that done for you. Absolutely, yes. No problem."
You never heard humility in the sense of, "well, I/we aren't experts in _________ but we'll research and get back to you." It was always confidence, to the extreme.
I wonder why this is?
The reality ended up being entirely different. Many times, they had no effin clue. These were with some very big-name offshoring firms.
The flip side to that same coin… the folks from those firms that were genuinely skilled… they weren't in India. They got brought over on visas and were working in the US.
With tech it's similar. You could supervise the end result but there are so many decisions taken "in the kitchen" that will have an impact in the product. Maybe 6 months from now you will want to implement a feature and because the developer decided to use XYZ it's not feasible to do it and you have to rewrite that from scratch.
I'm not saying all founders should be technical, but at least one should be. It's a software company after all.
This. The chances of hiring folks to build an MVP and getting enough paying users off that to bring them on full time or getting enough traction to raise money are absurdly small. If you're already both very wealthy and are the single most famous person in your industry then maybe there's like a 10% chance of it working, if neither of those things apply then the chances are much closer to 0%. What will happen is that you'll spend a ton of money to build something, not really validate any assumptions or de-risk anything, and then be stuck with this poorly constructed prototype that's too complicated for you to modify yourself.
Spend six months learning to code, then try to build your product. If you're not making progress at a reasonable pace then just get a job as a full stack developer and spend a couple years learning from the best people in the industry while getting paid for it, and then finish your prototype on nights and weekends. After a couple years of working professionally as a developer, things that would have taken you a month you'll now be able to do in a day.
What about the chances if you build yourself? Any better?
If you have the skill to build yourself you avoid (really, reduce by some amount) the portion of the risk attached to getting people to build it (skill and counterparty and other risks) but you still have the market risk.
I’m a non technical cofounder and CEO of a 70-person SAAS company (that’s bootstrapped). We could not have gotten where we are with without the other cofounders (there were three) and me pretending I could do everything and doing nothing well. We each were responsible for doing a job the others hated.
Anyway just food for thought. Email me if you want to hop on a call.
I do not want payment or equity. I have my own promising thing going on. Let's just make sure there is no conflict - I am in ads/algos/gaming.
Just looking for someone with strong references/connections/SV-background who might be willing to return a favour later on.
I can commit to ~1hr daily for the coming month to help get someone started.
When it comes to starting up, resilience and determination are much more important skills than outstanding programming skills. Or at least that's what experience has taught many of us.
Nowadays you can do a lot with few resources thanks to no-code tools [0], try to keep it simple and reduce LoC as much as possible. If you need a backend, tools like Firebase/Netlify/Saasify [1] are enough to build an MVP and get the ball rolling. And of course, do not try to build something that has 0 demand, just try to build the MVP that meets the demand you have identified and then take it from there.
[0] https://nocodelist.co/
[1] https://saasify.sh/
So glad you said this. Applies to other kinds of ventures, not just software.
I learned this lesson the hard way in my first venture. Co-founder flaked, left me swinging in the wind.
Vowed to start something new on my own as a solo founder where I could at least prototype and iterate early versions AND revenue was coming in the door from the beginning. This enabled me to hand off things that tested well to contractors and grow that way. Goes against YC "you must have a co-founder" dogma but it works.