Without his initiative would the sight have ever launched? It looked like he was the driver of the whole thing. Sometimes software developers can be the drivers, sometimes they go off to tour Europe with their band instead. Neither is a bad choice, but if you want your product launched in this lifetime, someone has got to be the manager and evangelist.

Also, I like the earlier designs, especially the first a lot - they are clean and to the point.

Your app went from the concept of 'save a photo of yourself every day' to "Not only that, get your own gorgeous widgets and fleet of social features - free."

The complexity you have added has not only faded your differentiation but now you start to come across as a "me-too Facebook clone". If this was ever going to be part of your app it should have been something you integrated as you actually got a social network using your system - new users don't care about the social features and widgets.

Finally, change your blog so your links are more search engine friendly, not ?p=7 etc.

Thats what Product Managers and Project Managers do ..

Yeah, like I thought, middle management in a startup.

I like the post, and sure I guess it's great to have someone pull it together but if that person could also be adding some value to the actual building as well that would be even better.

So let me get this straight: to be valued in a startup you have to actually do the coding or design? There's a lot to be said for the value of vision and passion. They are probably the only two things you can't hire.

To be clear, this isn't directed specifically at the person who wrote the blog post but from my point of view to be valued in the startup you have to do more than tell everyone else what to do. Passion and vision are great, but you should be able to use these to practical value. Anyone can say "let's make this really awesome video game where you can do anything" but unless you are actualy coming up with some practical direction for the team your "vision" is useless.

No one said they just stand there are shout words off a task list.

How many non-technical founders do you know? There are a ton of successful ones out there, and when you meet them [as long as you don't say what you just did] you'll understand why they are successful.

Fair enough. I know a couple of non-technical founders actually and they seem to be focusing on sales and marketing + VC connections. I don't get that impression from some of the founders I'm reading on HN though. I certainly appreciate the stories but the impressions I get, and this may be incorrect, is that they are taking credit for the "design" (in the overall looser sense of the term) of their product when they have just given broad reaching goals and let the actual employees make all the little decisions that make or break the product.

It sounds like you have only ever come across poor business people. It's pretty easy though, they are about as common as poor coders and designers.