Re:Minimum Viable Hustle
by alanctgardner2 on Wednesday November 07, 2012 @01:43PM
(#4754592)
I guess the idea is that non-technical founders' role revolves around persuasion and negotiation. They typically handle the business end, which involves substantial networking, promotion, customer acquisition, etc. Knowing people works for a while, but once you've tapped out your social network, where do you turn?
I would argue that a founder with domain knowledge isn't 'non-technical'. I know traditionally that term refers to people who don't code, but if I was working on an earthquake detector, a seismologist would be a technical founder, even if they didn't code a thing. Same with mathematicians. Domain knowledge in non-science/maths areas is harder to divide, but I would say there's as much weight behind saying a non-technical founder focuses on business dev as saying a technical founder focuses on code.
It's an awful, awful word.
To make a point relevant to the article - what if the non-technical chap has deeply relevant domain knowledge and valuable contacts within the industry?
I can't say it bothers me enormously, but I do find the idea that all non-technical cofounders have to be wizards who magically hustle themselves into meetings with people who don't really want to meet them to be both funny and misguided