[asharpe]

Taking aside the blatant sexism (kudos - we need more people raising this issue), there is a significant 'rolism' in the tech community. I have worked on the business/product side of tech for more than 10 years. What you say is inherently true of too many 'developers' and their views.

It harks back to a belief of "Build it and they will come" that pervades the industry (and yes, I do know the actual quote is "Build it, and HE will come"). There are many successful products that solve a problem or do something. If no-one ever knows about it or works out how to pay you for it, then the business will never be a success. You need all parts of a business (selling, marketing, ops, banking the cheques, making payroll, taking out the garbage) for it to work ... the naivety of some devs about the processes that go on to make that work and their lack of engagement in the wider business is a wake-up call many need to hear.

[balls187]

I agree with you to a point, devs would benefit with understanding "the other side of the house" and that sales, marketing, and administration are all important aspects of building a healthy business.

We have different roles to play in the success of an organization; at different times each role has different values, but as people we're all valuable.

Of course your side of the house is always out of the office by 5p =)

[melindajb]

that kind of response is exactly what i'm referring to above. I'm a non technical founder and I work literally side by side the same hours as my technical co founder. Maybe at different times, because he's a night owl and a lot of business and marketing stuff can't be done at 3am hopped up on red bull. But the same time. And there was a line of former coworker engineers for the co founder position, so he's not an outlier.

[balls187]

I expect all founders to work hard. My 5p comment was a joke. I'd be very wary of a founder of an early stage startup that bolted that early.

If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team.

Two non-technical co-founders, vs two technical co-founders. Which will have a higher outcome of success?

"I've built a prototype, I need help getting customers." "I've got customers, I need help building a product."

Even in just market terms--how many people will try to recruit the non-technical founder vs the technical founder for a position?

As a techincal co-founder, I could do the non-technical portion: get customers, do market validation, read termsheets, talk with investors, recruit, manage payroll AND do my job: build awesome product. There isn't a hard science to being the non-technical founder--Y Combinator is what, a 3-month bootcamp to teach founders what they need to know about running a startup. Try learning everything you need to know to be a technical cofounder in 3-months.

You can learn a lot about being the non-technical founder by trying your hand at starting a company. The same is not true about writing product.

Again, the founder relationship is important, and you need both halves to succeed, but if you want to pick who is more valuable to the organization, and who has the harder job, it is the technical co-founder.

This rant assumes the non-technical person has little to no coding abilities, and these are "first time" founders with no prior successful exits.

[melindajb]

>If you want to compare two sides of a founding partnership, the facts is the technical cofounder, early on, is more valuable member of the founding team.

Hmm. Let's try this on: "if you want to compare two sides of a marriage, the facts are that the wife early on in the more valuable member of the founding team." Nope, doesn't work. There are way, way too many dead "great products" for me to buy that argument.

>-Y Combinator is what, a 3-month bootcamp to teach founders what they need to know about running a startup.

If Y combinator were doing such a fantabulous job of giving technical co founders the basics, their success rate would be much, much higher.

>You can learn a lot about being the non-technical founder by trying your hand at starting a company. The same is not true about writing product.

You can learn a lot about running a company by running one. But you're going to waste a lot of time and money if you've never done it before.

There are also a lot of YC graduates looking for heads of marketing because they've completely cocked it up. If you only knew the kinds of basic dumb ass questions about marketing they don't understand.

I'm not saying it's not possible to do both or that business can't be learned. I am saying the lack of respect towards anyone not a programmer will be the end of the silicon valley species. That's what pushes all new blood out, and what will cause your own downfall.

If you think you will continue to have market power, given that pretty much every VC is begging the government to fix immigration (aka hire more cheap labor), you're delusional. Perhaps having a business co founder who understands economics might be useful at that point.

[balls187]

"We need more non-technical founders."

- Said by no one, ever.

[asharpe]

The only time I have personally left the office before 5, I was back on my MacBook at 8 until midnight. :-p

[melindajb]

given how many "product driven" companies fail for lack of marketing or customers, you'd think they'd catch on. but apparently that kind of pattern matching doesn't work for them.