Ask HN: What value does a business guy bring to a startup in the early stages?
As a technical co-founder will be building the actual product, what should a business co-founder be doing in the mean time?
3 comments
So far I have started a total of three companies with non technical co-founders / aka "biz person". I definitely recommend it. Start ups are really a great example of where anyone brings something unique and helpful to the table... as long as their great people you should be good to go.
My three golden rules for the biz person:
- do not get wrapped up in "there isn't tech, so I can't sell". I had my current co-founder develop our application while I was busy building it, she found a great tool that turns power point presentations into an iphone app and was able to demonstrate the application without me
- focus on knowing the space, and provide a reading list with notes to the co-founder focused on building the product. Investors, particularly at an early stage, are looking for co-founders that are knowledgable in the space, focused on doing the right thing, driven. That is, most investments are the founders, not the product. So two founders that know the space well comes across as a very strong co-founding team.
- consider everything a race - can your co-founder build the product before you get traction on your side? I bet the answer is no, but once the requests start coming in for tweaks, etc, you'll find that you do not have any idea on what you should be doing now - this, in my experience, is primarily as result of failing the first rule. If you treat your biz processes the same as dev tasks and keep moving forwards fast you'll yield better steps.
and a fourth...
- know your analytics inside out, get in place all of these parts. "We need a mixpanel event at this point and this point of the application" - etc.
Now, I noticed you aid "business guy" and not "non-tech co-founder". Early stage employees can be as important as co-founders, so take these rules and dilute them to taste... and remember you're a critical part of this effort.
My three golden rules for the biz person:
- do not get wrapped up in "there isn't tech, so I can't sell". I had my current co-founder develop our application while I was busy building it, she found a great tool that turns power point presentations into an iphone app and was able to demonstrate the application without me
- focus on knowing the space, and provide a reading list with notes to the co-founder focused on building the product. Investors, particularly at an early stage, are looking for co-founders that are knowledgable in the space, focused on doing the right thing, driven. That is, most investments are the founders, not the product. So two founders that know the space well comes across as a very strong co-founding team.
- consider everything a race - can your co-founder build the product before you get traction on your side? I bet the answer is no, but once the requests start coming in for tweaks, etc, you'll find that you do not have any idea on what you should be doing now - this, in my experience, is primarily as result of failing the first rule. If you treat your biz processes the same as dev tasks and keep moving forwards fast you'll yield better steps.
and a fourth...
- know your analytics inside out, get in place all of these parts. "We need a mixpanel event at this point and this point of the application" - etc.
Now, I noticed you aid "business guy" and not "non-tech co-founder". Early stage employees can be as important as co-founders, so take these rules and dilute them to taste... and remember you're a critical part of this effort.
Here's how I see it: the success or failure of the endeavor depends primarily on the business skills. However, without technical skills, you can't get in the game.
The business part of the startup should be focused on (1) finding problem/solution fit, (2) finding product/market fit and (3) developing a strategy for scaling up. A lot of this work doesn't necessarily require software to be built, so the business co-founder should have plenty of work.
Here's what you don't want to happen:
(1) The business co-founder notices a great business opportunity.
(2) They create a detailed description of the product they want built.
(3) They find a technical co-founder to build it.
(4) After it's built, they launch.
Because then this will happen:
(5) No one will buy it because the wrong product was built. :)
So the business co-founder is constantly working with customers to make sure the technical co-founder is building the right product. :)
The business part of the startup should be focused on (1) finding problem/solution fit, (2) finding product/market fit and (3) developing a strategy for scaling up. A lot of this work doesn't necessarily require software to be built, so the business co-founder should have plenty of work.
Here's what you don't want to happen:
(1) The business co-founder notices a great business opportunity.
(2) They create a detailed description of the product they want built.
(3) They find a technical co-founder to build it.
(4) After it's built, they launch.
Because then this will happen:
(5) No one will buy it because the wrong product was built. :)
So the business co-founder is constantly working with customers to make sure the technical co-founder is building the right product. :)
Business and partner development, pre-sales, soliciting investment, building sales material, pitching in on testing, market research, competitors analysis. Basically anything that you can do to help the developers do their job as well as all of the things the developers can't do, or can't do well.