As a "non-technical" person who has had success finding "technical" people to work with, instead of trying to learn to code:
1. Become a domain expert - know the problem you are trying to solve inside and out. Know the market size, sales cycles, etc. Make connections in the industry.
2. Find Customers - Bring an idea, along with a 14,000 name mailing list that you generated via blogging on the subject.
3. Bring a design - Actually mock up a set of flows for an MVP. Show it to 20 people, and iterate on their feedback. Find out what is important so when you do start building you build traction right away.
All of these are things that a good "Business Guy" should be able to do and will ultimately be responsible for when they do find a cofounder. Sure, pick up a little RoR or JS, but you aren't going to become a startup quality dev in 6-12 months (or likely more). However, in that same time you could do all of the above many times over.
As a "technical" person, this is exactly how to attract us. Bring knowledge, contacts, customers, reputation, something to show and actual feedback. This shows you have value to add. These are the things we cannot program up out of nothing.
I agree. For the last year I've been beating myself up because I can't code, and have tried teaching myself for years...something just doesn't click for me.
But, I have HUGE respect for devs. I honestly am amazed at the stuff my staff developer can do. At a certain point I just had to give and say, "Well, I just need to make sure I can attract good developers and treat them like the wizards that they are".
As a "non-technical" person myself, I hate when some frat-boy has a pizza/movie delivery service "idea" and is just looking for someone to build the website. Ughh. I never want to be that business guy.
I think that's why I love Hacker News. It gives me an insight into a world I really respect, and I want to understand as much as I can....without actually hacking.
Specific to you, I think you just added value to yourself even though you failed at trying to code because the act of trying to learn how to code itself made you discover that it's not as easy as it looks for just anybody, and thus make you appreciate your technical team better.
Not understanding what it takes makes it harder for non-technical people to appreciate talent. You could use your failure here as your selling point.
Of course, now non-technical "frat-boys" here are going to wave the "I tried and I failed" flag, but know that it's not hard for technical people to find out if you really tried or not.
Yes, even though I've failed to catch on each time I've tried, I keep picking up more and more of the concepts/lingo.
I do all the mockups and am orchestrating the product development, but the more I learn about programming the more I learn that a single extra box on my "mockup" can mean hours and hours on the backend.
It's so easy to do a mockup and say, "this is how it will work"...turning that into an actual application is where the magic is.
I've heard non-programming web designers say, "I've designed this app. Now all I need is to have it coded up" (as though the back-end is merely icing on cake and that the heavy lifting is already done).
disclaimer: I'm mostly a back-end person, and I appreciate how difficult it is to not have sense of design, and I don't take good design work for granted.
Great post. I just forwarded it to the 1,000 people on the co-founders meetup mailing list (http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/)! It explains very clearly the value a business person can bring, and debunks the idea that busines people are worthless. Thanks.
Exactly this. One thing I've learned from launching projects is that customers don't just come to you. Marketing is a huge factor in getting any traction.
To be fair, the author attended the NYC YC Q&A. I imagine that there is a dearth of programmers relative to the number of people who want to start projects over there.
1. Become a domain expert - know the problem you are trying to solve inside and out. Know the market size, sales cycles, etc. Make connections in the industry.
2. Find Customers - Bring an idea, along with a 14,000 name mailing list that you generated via blogging on the subject.
3. Bring a design - Actually mock up a set of flows for an MVP. Show it to 20 people, and iterate on their feedback. Find out what is important so when you do start building you build traction right away.
All of these are things that a good "Business Guy" should be able to do and will ultimately be responsible for when they do find a cofounder. Sure, pick up a little RoR or JS, but you aren't going to become a startup quality dev in 6-12 months (or likely more). However, in that same time you could do all of the above many times over.