Hi!I have great respect for what Matt Mireless is doing with both his business and for the NYC Startup community, however as a Technical Founder in NYC I find some issues with his latest post “The City of Founders Without Hackers.”
In his post, Matt cites a problem that there is a lack of entrepreneurially minded technical talent in NYC. While I don’t disagree there is a proportional disconnect of technical talent and “aspiring” entrepreneurs, I would also like to argue that a core of the problem is a lack of non-technical founders who understand the process of building a technology-based product.
The majority of Non-Technical Founders I run into only have an idea. I’d say 85% of the Non-Technical founders I meet do not offer much more value to their idea than the concept itself. As we’ve learned over the years, ideas are nothing. A majority of the magic comes from execution and luck.
For an example I recently met an aspiring non-technical founder who is running into a problem finding a technical co-founder. By day they are a personal trainer, but they have aspirations of building an online destination that connects personal trainers to clients.
I asked the personal trainer about his thoughts on aspects of his venture. Things like user acquisition, user experience, distribution, competitors, etc. His responses were not very thought out. Turns out this would be entrepreneur has been working on this concept for 2 years. When I asked what sort of progress he’s made, his response was “I talked with other trainers, gyms, and have been trying to get a prototype built. Everyone loves the idea, I just need to get it built.” This project is going nowhere as he’s showing he cannot execute on his own idea.
I suggested to him that he should put together his thoughts on things that will grow his business. Things like how he plans to acquire users, how much user acquisition is going to cost, how he plans to make money on those users, and how he plans to measure it all. What will allow him to validate his business is working or not and if it’s not working, what are the failing points.
After reading Matt’s post and recounting my experience (which happens often at meet ups) I feel that there needs to be a better crop of non-technical founders to match the available technical talent. Without that non-technical founders will always have a problem impressing someone who is vital to building their product. If you are a non-technical founder you must bring something to the table that’s more than an idea. Bring something solid to show you are thoughtful and can articulate a clear vision for your business. If you can do that I can assure you that finding technical talent will be much easier.
