[Leonidas]

What do you have to offer to the team of hackers?

Are you somewhat technical savvy? Do you know every single competitor out there and now how to make your product better to slaughter them?

I've heard a lot of entrepreneurs say "I can help with marketing"...um well at the beginning there's no marketing because there's no product. So you need to think of a way to help your team out before the "marketing" phase.

[nostrademons]

Marketing doesn't start with a product. Marketing starts with figuring out what is the right product to build. You should have some idea what the market wants before you start designing the product.

One of the things that attracted me to my (non-technical) cofounder was that he has a pretty good understanding of the market space. That's valuable in the beginning, because it means less flailing around building the wrong project.

Of course, you shouldn't only be doing marketing, because that tends to take a lot of time before development, a lot of time after the product is ready, and very little time in-between. But a smart cofounder (and who would partner with a dumb one?) can find other ways to help out in the meantime. My cofounder is learning Flash and helping on the UI end, for example.