[yubrew]

This question has been asked plenty of times before. Look up variations of "business/idea guy needs hacker." But you should at least hack a bit with Ruby on Rails so at the least you won't piss off your technical co-founder. If you have deep domain knowledge, significant contacts, and a problem that is worth solving, then getting a hacker co-founder should be pretty straight forward.

It is my personal belief that the team composition depends on the type of opportunity and where the core competitive advantage will come from. If you are a lawyer, and you want to make a paperless solution for legal firms, you better believe you'll need a technology wiz. However, if the technology component is honestly only a small part of the overall problem, then you can perhaps look to getting an employee or contract out the tech work.

[tx]

I disagree. Stick (and perfect) what you do best naturally. Yes, you don't need to have a CS degree to be good at programming, but you DO need to have a passion for it. Actually, having passion for what you do is what makes you an attractive partner to start a new business together. I personally could care less if it's a law or technology, as long as you're in love with what you're doing and it fits the objectives of the venture.

Don't force yourself to be someone you're not.

[ptn]

Why Ruby on Rails? Python is also worth learning.

[yubrew]

Learn some basic hacking in (insert functional language here). I'm not trying to start a programming language flame war.

The point of the statement is to do just enough so that you don't drive away potential technical cofounders. Basically make yourself more attractive as a cofounder by avoiding the traps that many other non-technical cofounders fall into.

[ptn]

Oops, my bad then. I thought you had a reason to recommend Ruby.

Learn some basic hacking in (insert a programming language (that's not VB) here, whatever the paradigm). :-)

[SamanthaG]

Many thanks, thats helpful