Hi guys,
I was just wondering if you were someone who had little to no grounding in tech as a founder of a tech (mobile app) company. Would you direct your efforts into CS/learning how to program or would you develop your business acumen / softer skills, potentially considering an MBA in marketing? I have no intention of writing the program but hope to find a tech confounder who would or at least be able to liaise with a dev team.
TIA
Business and marketing. The hardest thing us approaching businesses which are often apprehensive.
A tech co-founder is the best move as it would be difficult for you to get to the level of expertise required to read code and advise developers. The key risk you now face, assuming you have outsourced development: 1) loyal staff 2) are they really working or saying it’s 10hrs for a 5min fix 3) Is platform /infrastructure the best etc. etc. In effect you have no control and that’s not a good place for a CEO.
Depends on what you’re trying to do. If you want to be an indie hacker (that’s what the kids call em these days) and try building out a SaaS using a combo of low-code tools and basic coding, people have done that and a few have been successful. But depends on the complexity of what you want to create.
Marketing, networking, storytelling, and sales are huge skills and if you can partner with a technical cofounder someone or find a good outsourcing option, you could focus just on those.
I wouldn’t bother with a MBA.
I would find a partner with the tech background, it’s not too hard to get the basics down and I would encourage you to do that anyway, but I wouldn’t put any effort into CS or learning how to program. It’s more important to put some effort into UX strategy and marketing, and then find someone to monitor the execution.
Do you know how to find one ?
Maybe try incubators, accelerators, etc. I’ll be looking for a tech cofounder in the near future so I was thinking where do I find a like minded person with tech skills. Maybe there’s a better place to find them so let me know where you plan to find what you’re looking for
I would not pursue the MBA in marketing unless you really just want to. MBAs are more about working in existing companies than starting and running a startup. Some of the stuff will be valuable but you can learn way more by self-study and doing.
Is your mobile app B2C? If so, go all in on learning how to build an audience, content, social media, and whatever other traction channels you think my work. There’s a good intro book called Traction.
If your app is B2B, go all in on cold calling and sales. This is a super power.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt to learn the basics of programming and product management so you can speak the language and help drive direction.