[thwarted]

If business guys want to earn their chops, there are a bajillion open source products out there that a solid consulting or VAR business could be built of off. Learning how to, for example, configure file servers with samba for small businesses, or set up blogging platforms, are a good way to get some technical chops too, and is most likely going to take less time to get good at than becoming a kickass programmer. And it's more practical experience than telling people about your awesome idea that just needs to be implemented.

In other words, there are a lot of business opportunities for which a majority of "the technical part" is already done.

[mattmanser]

That's called consulting, generally not really seen as a startup.

I don't really get your point? You seem to be telling people without technical skills to go get into non-scalable business models?

[thwarted]

I'd venture to say that many ideas don't qualify as being a "startup", even if they are "generally" seen as such.

I fail to see what's scalable about an idea without implementation, making the end result, a non-scalable business model (as a business that doesn't have an implementation by definition isn't scaling), the same.

My point is that if you're a business guy who just has an idea, and doesn't have any business creating/building experience, you're going to have a hard time getting technical people on-board. You can get business creating experience without having some Super Duper Awesome Unique Idea that requires a technical guy. And you can do this yourself and earn some tech chops at the same time, which will help at selling your "It's the Vimeo of Youtubes!" idea to other, more technical people.

A successful consulting business is more valuable than having an idea that hasn't been implemented. Having had an unsuccessful consulting business is also more valuable than solely having an idea that hasn't been implemented.

The problem here may be pride: being a person with an idea is seen as a more desirable state to be in than executing on someone else's idea.

[Kroem3r]

The examples he gave are misleading; they tend to suggest consulting.

But his point is right: There are applications that have been written for a small number of clients, but languish because getting that amount of success is something a developer can do on his own. In other words, it's tee'd up: There's a business case, a product and there are existing users.

What remains needed is someone who can get additional users, grow the application, leverage the business, etc.

It's such a good idea, in fact, that I don't know why there isn't a bigger 'reverse market' of devs looking for a business partner. Maybe because once you've got to that point you start thinking you don't need an MBA to do business.

[thwarted]

Agreed, my examples were contrived, and there are better ones, but that doesn't mean one can't build a business off of them (and I know people who have).

All one needs to do is go to freshmeat or ohloh to see loads of stuff that could be leveraged to fulfill a need and ultimately build a business. You know that it fulfilled at least one person's need, because it was created to scratch an itch. Sure, maybe they aren't polished or sellable out of the box, and many of them are infrastructure (rather than end-user-product) related, but that's where the work of building a business comes in.

[rmc]

I don't really get your point?

It allows a 'Business Guy' to prove that they have what it takes to grow and manage a technical business.