I tell you whut...a lot of the non-technical stuff suxxor! Why am I reading HN right now? Because I'm in the middle of reviewing some contracts and it's awful, so I got my ADD on and am now surfing here. I would much rather be working on our product. That's why you need business people...because there is more to a company than a product. Company = product + business. Developers work on products. Business people work on business.
It's easy for us to discount all the non-technical stuff that needs to be done - but without it we might as well be playing with ourselves in our closets.
I agree - I think a rule of thumb is that you will underestimate the actual work required for anything outside of your core experience by a factor of two, and that's if you have a GREAT person working on it.
Back to the coal mines.