How To Build A Tech Startup With No Technical Skills

Happy New Year! My name is Raph from Orlando and Sydney. What's your opinion on starting a meditation app company with using zero coding tools? I just graduated from University of Sydney, and I majored in Product Design. My plan is to hire some Chinese programmers on the side as well. I would love to receive a constructive feedback from both of you. Cheers! Much love.

If you are a technical co-founder looking for a partner, please reach out!

Spoken to lots of engineers over the last few years and have also gotten a few to offer to work on what I’m working on right now. I think a lot of non-technical cofounders overweigh the importance of knowing how to code as the factor for getting a technical cofounder to work with you. Technical cofounders tend to already be very good at coding and building software solutions - what they need from you, the non-technical cofounder, is a problem to solve and traction around solutions to the chosen problem. They want to know that you’re not just going to be thinking of ways to do things without actually talking to users who have the problem you’re trying to solve. They also want to see traction from a no-code solution if possible, which can be done with tools like Carrd for a landing page and a bunch of other tools you can use to build a community of users before you even write a single line of code.

This was absolutely brilliant. Great learning source this channel is.

That's cool and all, but how do you build a company with no business/sales skills? :D

If you are non tech co founder and you want to learn tech saas.
What program should you learn first?

"changing the people you know" is an interesting sentence. I got the meaning, but it took a moment because there are two possible interpretations.

The premise is flawed. Most people can learn how to program at a basic level. If you are convinced you are not one of them. Your company will still use tech. But it's questionable why start a company where the main product is purely software.

Every spices is important..

I am a full-stack dev with knowledge in AstroJS, sveltekit, Nodejs Express, Serverless(best) drizzle orm and some edge sqlite database. I don't have good soft skill due to my anxiety would love to be a CTO😅.

Every company is tech company nowadays

🙋🏽‍♂️i need help get body cam footage on my suicide hotline test , but i’m to broke to pay for lawyers , yc pls help

michael triggering my personality disorder 😅

💯

I’m sorry but the world is turning away from needing technical skill, there’s going to be a point where technical skill to engineer code will basically be void imo

My take:
U made it easy , yet a tech cofounder is not easy....
-how do u guide his inner motives?
-his own way of working

I will just acquire one of those software companies that they dont even know to run a business smoothly. I only need to learn all the the basics of coding and programming, you don't need to be full stack. Low coding etc. Artificial Intelligence are on their way. We can build a prototype then hire a programmer and developer to refine. Agile project management is also important. No need to fool yourself being a nerd scientist. Copycat is I think the good options. How chinese are doing it right now outpacing all of their competitors. It is not best ideas it is how you sell to users and consumers. Why are those genious hackers do as bill gates did and other successful software companies. They have the ability to recruit the best hacker to start the more advance or go beyond quantum.

I was a non-technical founder. Learned how to code, it's been the biggest asset. It unlocks agility + opportunities to explore more things. I would always recommend knowing how to bake the cake if you're starting a cake shop. But if you're funded well, know someone close, it's always of course better to let someone else do it - regardless, knowing how tech works will still go a long way.

Let's build a company together. We will have a great adventure together.

What type of engineer is the best fit as a co-founder? Front-end vs Back-end? Assuming they are not full stack. Or is fullstack the dream CTO?

Hey YC.. why don't you start a small online meetup kind of a thing where non tech founders can pitch their ideas (small presentation with a pitch deck) in front of tech people for better matching.. this could be on a regular basis and has potential to make lots of meaningful connections..

amazing video

It's always a pleasure to watch your videos, I deeply love it and I 😁😁😁get a lot of knowledge out of them. Your best fan from CAMEROON

I was expecting more interesting arguments to be on the table, but what it seems it's already that simple..

This video was very un useful thank yoylu

I'm a technical co-founder who had to learn how to be a non-technical co-founder. Now I can kill a presentation but my coding skills are a bit rusty.
I want someone who is even more technical than me and wants a co-founder like me, since I have a deep understanding of coding and can actually write half-decent code and build a cool UX myself.
On paper, I have all the skills I need. But it'd make it a whole lot easier to get help. Reply to this comment if you'd consider.

Bro I thought this was an Onion video with that title.

How would you expect to onboard a technical co-founder without product market fit?

Started out as a non-technical founder. I made the decision to become technical a couple years back. I have learned an incredible amount and feel fully comfortable developing our product, outsourcing pieces when I get stuck. GPT has been an incredible learning tool, which has accelerated my learning immensely. Waiting for the magical technical co-founder to appear that shares your vision/passion will likely not happen.

The best advice I can give to a non-technical founder is to make the mental switch and become technical. The sooner you do it, the better off you’ll be.

Yup got it, feels like taunting me through the screen. 😂

Good explanations! 👍

I've been a brick and mortal business owner. I want to venture into tech, but for more than a year, I can't find a co-founder here in our province. I found some online, but they are not very committed.
The path I'm trying to take is learning no code tools, then building an mvp, finding product market fit, and then looking for a tech co-founder. Any thoughts on this?

25% or 50% equity split?

But however I got an issue what is the best equity split to offer to my technical cofounder?

I got the next ai bigidea and I believe it will change the world in a whole. I got no skills but however I am working on it it. Thank you for the advice, It will go in handy for me to get a technical cofounder

Question for all the engineers/tech people: Where do you guys usually hangout? Any social platform or discord community??

You never really stated the EXACT reason why a technical co-founder is a MUST-HAVE.

More so, it's the way YC often hammers on looking for technical guys, without putting same energy into talking about technical guys getting business guys. A cool tech app if not sold is just a cool tool that does nothing.

All I hear from you is your personal biases. And it's quite understandable since that is your own company policy for investing in Startups. But I honestly believe that YCombinator has made the whole world believe that their own internal policy is the standard way to go, possibly because Ycombinator is the biggest Accelerator name out there. It doesn't make YC right. Just means the world is filled with more copycats than real thinkers.

There are always exception to this rule of finding technical cofounders. In my years of experience in the tech world, I have learnt that most times, technical people know HOW-TO DO, but dont know WHAT-TO DO. The Business guy who doesn't know how to code but has solid Product Management skills, and Product Design skills, plus indepth Business Analyst skills always guides the Technical guys on WHAT TO DO. This Business guy understands the problem and the solution like the back of his hands. Sits on the table and discusses technical workarounds with Technical guys. If the Technical guys think something will not be possible and they cant come up with a possible alternative to fix the problem, this Business guy brings in another logical implementation. He is that great. He just doesnt write code.

Yet, YC doesnt consider this type of Business guys as Technical. Only the person that writes code is technical.

YC doesnt consider a guy that is highly skilled in Product Management, Product Design, can build the entire Frontend of the application using HTML and CSS, plus understands the exact technology and Stack needed to build the Backend, the timeline, number of people needed on the team, an excellent salesman, and strategist, a highly competitive innovator, etc as Technical enough.

If he doesnt write Backend code, he is not technical, says YC.

One would expect that a Business person that posseses all these skills will thrive by simply hiring and managing C-level Technical person who goes on to hire and manage Mid and Junior Level Tech guys. Logically, that's how it should be.

Forcing people to give out shares to someone who cant do anything without asking you first, simply because he writes code, is an outright No.

Not everyone needs a Co-founder. There are exceptional people out there who are by themselves a powerful force by the sheer factor of their will power and strength.

A lot of Billionaires in the world today dont have co-founders. Dangote is into Cement manufacturing, Oil Refinery, Salt and Sugar Production, etc. He doesnt have Co-founders who work with him in each of these companies. No. But when you look at it, Cement Production is a core Science and Engineering field. He possibly isnt even an Engineer. He simply had the idea, the money and put a team together to work for him. He is super successful. Same applies to lots of Billionaires out there

Back to tech, the co-founders of Uber are not Engineers. When Investors refused to invest in them, they hired a Tech shop to build out their first MVPs, and they put together a team of Engineers later. Today, investors who turned them down before regret it.

The Founder of Calandly, a Billion dollar company is not technical and didnt have a cofounder.

There are people who are by themselves enough. YC says that people need co-founders because there would be hard days ahead that if only one person was on the team, they would burn out and give up easily - so someone else being around for emotional support is key. The truth about this is it's all conjectures and assumptions. There are those rare beings that are die-hard and nerver-say-never. They would keep going because that's their only way out. They are self-motivated and dont need external motivations. They are a one-man battalion.

While having a cofounder is good, it's not a do or die matter. Why should a founder spend one year looking for a cofounder instead of spending that time on their product with a team? I'm disappointed to hear you guys advise that founders should put their time into finding co-founders instead of building a product when they cant find a cofounder. Again, you failed at explaining why that is so important.

I would love to hear YC mention that there is an exception to this their take.

I would also love to see YC put same energy into advising technical people to find Business founders before they invest in them - possibly a video like this one dedicated to that.

Or, why does YC open their arms to solo Technical people when they approach them, but not solo Business people with MVPs? Why is it cool for YC to turn someone who learnt to write code 2 years ago and has possibly not done anything business in their life before into a Technical CEO? That means YC thinks it's cool that Technical peoole can become good business people easily even if doesnt have the skills.

This script needs to be re-written.

Hey Dalton and Michael, Hey YC, thats one of the best videos I have ever seen from you guys. It ranks right up on the top. Spot on! :)

I've always been of the opinion that a predictor of success of a tech enabled startup is the understanding the founder has of the problem being solved.
1) if the startup solves a technical problem/ is differentiated on the technical implementation, a successful startup will have a technical founder.
2) if the startup leverages technology to solve a business problem, the best founder is one who best understands the problem

There are far too many startups where founders are mismatched to the problem being solved. A technical founder may make a solution looking for a problem, (look at the flood of useless tech adjacent startups) while a business founder may not understand the investments and development needs to differentiate a technical tool.

The content is great but can you guys please not interrupt each other and let the person talking finish their thoughts. It’s really disruptive when you jump in one each other’s conversation. Thanks

👏

Yet another good episode from YC! I have two thoughts listening to this: (1) as a non-technical founder, it would be useful to have deep domain knowledge and network in certain area where you want to tap into with your startup - this is what makes you non-fungible as a business developer. (2) technical co-founder needs to also be a good leader. So many great software engineers out there struggle when it comes to hiring a technical team and managing people... Programming skills are simply not enough.

Finally a mature convo on the topic. Thank you for your honesty

I started as a sales person, got technical skills and can now build (and have started a company in the process).

I’ll say this: the hardest part is selling / marketing.

If you can sell, you’re likely a good listener. This is the most important part of building a great product.

Find a technically strong co-founder who not only can code but can interpret and understand.

Then, go and setup as many conversations with people who have the problem you’ve theorized on & work together with your founder to build the solution.

If you both execute on your respective roles; you finding the people with problems / co-founder building to solve the problems. You’ll find some form of success.

Side note: if you’re coming with the idea you better have deep understanding of the problems & people associated with it.

With over 20 years of experience collaborating with startups, we, as a software development service, emphasize that technical expertise is a key factor in their success. Regardless of how innovative an idea may be, professional implementation is indispensable.

I think it’s a horrible idea to start a tech company as a non tech. Steve Jobs literally warned against this

Thanks Dalton and Michael! -Nathan

thank you so much for this video! I found a co-founder thanks to it. your podcasts are amazing and so useful for rookie entrepreneurs like me!