What does the non-technical co-founder do?

What does the non-technical co-founder do?(hippoland.tumblr.com)

9 points by hippo33 13 years ago | 4 comments

tibbon 13 years ago |

My current viewpoint of what I want a non-technical co-founder to do:

1. Business to Business relations

2. Keep funding coming in. I want to focus on the code. Not term sheets or emailing investors.

3. Keep the board in the loop and happy

4. Make sure that what I'm building is viable, marketable and monetizable.

5. Keep me in the loop for these things. I don't like being in the dark, but I don't need every detail or to always be in the room for every meeting.

I want to code, create and focus on technical challenges. Going to lunch with angel investors isn't a good use of my time if my non-technical founder can do it instead.

Why did I choose to work with my non-technical co-founder? Because he has great perspective, ability to raise money (proven in the past with several companies), experience as an investor, a giant network and experience with companies of all scales from startup to publicly traded companies. Plus, he stays out of my way for technical things.

hippo33 13 years ago | |

Great point, Tibbon -- I didn't even touch the fundraising side of things.

taariqlewis 13 years ago |

What about convincing engineers to join you? How'd you do that?

hippo33 13 years ago | |

Good question! I've found it's easiest through progress in this manual sort of way. It's a much easier pitch to say, "hey, I need you, because we have all these paying customers who are going crazy, because there is no website" than it is to say I have "this awesome idea but no one is using it yet."