Comments on: Friday Q&A: Do You Have to Be Technical to Start a Software Company?

By: tom hanks

tom hanks — Wed, 19 Jul 2017 12:29:14 +0000

this is understood thing if you are starting a software company then you must have knowledge of technical field .Because nobody can build any company alone.He will have to hire the employee . Whatsoever your employee is doing. you must know things and without having technical knowledge you cannot do any good for the company .I have also started a technical support company name PC SUPREMO .PC Supremo mainly works for the Microsoft Office Support .I have few employee who are needed every time help to work on target .so i help them on particular topic

By: Maurice Koks

Maurice Koks — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 19:39:38 +0000

Again an interesting topic @alex_turnbull:disqus
Now, Technical or Non Technical, it depends how you look at it, I believe you can still be technical even if you don’t know how to code,
I have been always interested in tech, unfortunately i was born in a time computers where not part of daily life, But for instance, i had my first mobile phone in 1985, a big Brick style storno and I liked to take the engine of my motorcycle apart in the early 80’s. and in the early 90’s I became and expert in Audio Editing using a software called Sonic Solutions so I like what @@nicholasrubright:disqus says, but i think that is not as easy as one might think, specially if you want to build a quality product.

Learning how to work with programs like illustrator & Photoshop for designs, Studio One for Audio, Adobe Premiere or simpler video stuff like Camtasia or Screenflow for video stuff also require technical insight and aptitude and are good and could come handy if you start a software company but are NOT comparable to coding.

All in all, the word non technical is IMHO relative.

Also, if you talk about validation of an idea,
It all depends if you are thinking of something totally new (inventing the wheel) or come up with a better, faster, more intuitive, more affordable etc etc solution to an already Validated idea, Example, Zendesk vs Groove I don’t think that you Alex needed to much time to Validate you idea.

And then I think it’s also good to look at your long term Goals,
Do you want to build a business or do you dream of walking into guys who write you a big cheque so you can try build the next startup and burn other peoples money, play pingpong etc etc

In my case i didn’t fail finding a Technical Co Founder, I simply didn’t look for it and started without one, and so far so good,
its just a matter of finding a good team with a Technical Team Manager which (if you are lucky) could act as your Technical Co-Founder. but that’s another topic and is honestly spoken not easy either.

But that’s what it is, Nothing is Easy you have to passionate and try to work harder and smarter and maybe, maybe one day you will get lucky.

Whatever you “Vaibhav” end up with I wish you all the best.

By: Crystal Ignatowski

Crystal Ignatowski — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 16:47:45 +0000

In the first point you say “I’ve written in another Friday Q&A about how a non-technical founder can validate a startup idea. You can check out the post here…” but I think you left the link out. Just wanted to let you know. Another great post; always a highlight of my Friday.

By: Nicholas Rubright

Nicholas Rubright — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 15:37:17 +0000

I hate to be that guy, but non-tech people can learn to code.

I remember I hired a freelancer to build the first version of my product, but his laptop was stolen and he lost all the code since he didn’t back it up. 8 months and $2,000 gone.

I learned to code and built the first version of my app in 3 months. If you dedicate yourself and really grind, it’s possible. An understanding of technical stuff can help with business decisions as well.