That was pretty much the impression I got when going through Startup School here last autumn.

The focus was on beating the bushes to see if you could generate interest (finding "Market Fit") and using an "MVP" (minimum viable product) that didn't even have to be a working product, to basically provide an image (illustrations, videos, etc) of what it will do.

If you can generate interest then you start building a product. Pretty much the opposite of "If you build it they will come".

So, in that scenario, getting a software engineer is often akin to going to the hardware store and buying a hammer.

in your experience at startup school, who created the illustrations and videos, the founders themselves or did they get a designer involved?

I created my own. I think a few others in our group may have hired that out. They didn't ask or look for slick production of those though. They were more focusd on the message.

For me, Startup School was pretty overwhelming. I had no idea of what to expect, was a team of one, and I'm a coder, not a marketer.

Startup School is really about marketing and "finding market fit", and to a lessor degree the process of getting funded, setting up the structure of corporation, and, lastly, building the product.

But the actual building of the product was not focused on at all. That comes after you prove a viable market exists and get funded.

Not sure where the incubator you visited was, but I'd say mainstream view in Silicon Valley is that most teams need a technical cofounder (unless the startup just isn't technical at all). If anything, it's sometimes the other extreme: people will claim that technical cofounders don't need business cofounders.

That said, since it is so difficult to find technical cofounders, some teams end up outsourcing technical work out of necessity (not because they don't want to share equity).

So I'm an early employee in a small startup that decided outsourcing the software was the way to create the MVP. It bought the company valuable time to start because none of the founders was technical and they just want the MVP to launch on the app stores. We did launch early and the MVP is working to validate business processes and iron out things we did not think about before. One thing that's left is the technical debt for extensibility/maintenance.

One thing I want to bring up in this scenario is the need for the founders to still find a key technical person ASAP as they are trying to prove their idea works. If one of the company's edge is in their technical capability[0], you need someone in house to own the stack eventually. Preferably experienced, as they need to look over the handed over code and vet any possible future problems and/or fix any pressing bugs ASAP.

[0]: Technical edge does not have to be bleeding edge technology. Most of the time, the advantage of having the right CRUD app built that is an improvement over your competitor/existing business process/product is enough.

Ideally you'd want at least one technical founder...helps with hiring, determining the correct stack long term, and general tech decision making

Very common specially now, many companies have popped up which charge competitive rates for development.

Keep in mind, most startups are simply CRUD apps where you don't need much technology.

If the startups are just CRUD apps then are those defensible businesses? As per my understanding most successful software businesses have something in their tech stack that cannot be easily replicated.

Technology is not the only “moat” there is. A photo sharing app is ultimately CRUD but it’s pretty hard to take down Instagram.

maybe another way of framing it is that not all startups are software businesses, maybe they provide some other service that just happens to depend upon some software, and perhaps a bunch of other things

It's not true.

Think of Dropbox or Instagram or even Amazon

What's there which technologically can't be replicated given enough money?

It's the userbase/network effect which can't be reflected if given

But they all had technical founders/co-founders? Thats what I think OP's question was related to?