Giving value to your startup as a non-technical
cofounder
It's not technical or non-technical superiority; it's the value addition one is bringing on the
table.
Things you can do to add value as a non-technical founder / early team-member:
1. Bring customer perspective - if the technical folks won't leave the building to talk to users
/ customers, you should. Do interviews / meetups / surveys / anything else to get real data
on pain points / UX / competition and then turn that into product vision / features that the
team can collaborate on.
2. Be the competitive intel / Biz Dev guy - if you are out in the ecosystem, you'll get very
useful data on what your competitors are doing and get wind of partnership opportunities.
All of those have strategic and product path implications that can make or break the early
days.
3. SELL!! - If you're doing 1 and 2 well, this part should flow pretty naturally. Use those
conversations to uncover and pursue revenue operations. Remember, coders can't code if
the business guys don't keep the lights on.
4. Finance / Admin - less glamorous (unless you are helping / driving fund-raising) but pretty
critical to keeping everyone happy / focused and running on time. Consider this an
\unsung hero\ role
5. Morale - with everyone working at full-tilt, it's easy to forget about carving out time for
beers / genuinely bonding as a team. But making that investment pays HUGE dividends on
a start-up roller-coaster, so lead the charge.
Even though a core necessity of startups nowadays is based on technology, there are other
aspects that are indispensable to a startup and play an important role in its success.
Also look out for deals and offers like being offered on StartupArena.in, which helps the
founders get their business moving in their initial stage with lots and lots of deals, services
and offers for startups.
1. Find what your customers really want, and make sure your product provides the same
(Product Management): The product your Tech team is building has to have a market.
Achieving product-market fit is one of the most important aspects for a startup to succeed.
So, it's best to talk to a lot of potential customers & run online/offline surveys to get
insights on their exact requirements. Consumer insights will be required continuously as
the startup will keep evolving. Using these insights, it is very important to structure your product to meet the user's need. This will require coordinating with all stakeholders
involved in making the product (Tech and Design).
2. Get Supply on board and your deliveries sorted: If you are selling a product/service,
you will require setting up processes to manufacture/ procure/streamline it. It might
require strategic tie-ups in case you are procuring it from somewhere (Business
Development) and making sure it is delivered to your customers (Operations). This team is
particularly large, if the startup is following a marketplace model. BD involves getting the
brand-authorized service centers on board and our operations make sure that these
services are perfectly delivered to the customers.
3. Find the right channels to reach out to your customers (Marketing): No matter how
good you make your product/service, it won't add any value if it's not reaching out to a
large chunk of the market. You can play an important role in finding and streamlining
channels to reach out to your end users. A majority of efficient and inexpensive channels
will be online, so digital marketing will be a major part of your marketing plan. As an
example in our space, we realized that a very important channel to reach out to potential
customers is at the place where electronics are sold - offline and online retailers.
4. Get more people to work with you on achieving your vision: Hiring happens to be a
major bottleneck to expanding quickly. If you talk to more start-up co-founders, almost
everyone tell you how challenging this is. You can focus on identifying the kind of people
you require, and explore possible networks/firms to get you in touch with people you
would want to work with. Typically in our case, exploring possibilities in your network will
really help in getting great people on board.
To start off, you might not be the best person suitable for these roles. However, you can
catch-up on the learning very quickly with a lot of dedication and by putting sufficient
efforts in the right direction.
If you do all of the above, you're a huge asset, and you'll never have to apologize for not being a
coder.
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