Totally fair point. We do have four paying customers, so we're seeing some early meaningful traction. And it was definitely tricky to come up with something worthwhile.
Technical teams are strongly preferred by Silicon Valley angel investors right now. I think part of the reason for that is that the current generation of those angels came of age in the 90s when highly technical teams were required to build anything that worked. That's the model they know.
However, these days technology has diffused and become componentized in a way that makes it much easier to build products that customers will buy using contractors. That's not to say that using contractors is easy - I only tried it because I have several years of experience managing outsourced technical teams. I think the strong bias for technical founding teams may shift or moderate in the future.
That said, I continue to look for a technical co-founder because I believe that technology decisions will need to be made day-to-day as my start-up matures. Fundamentally, I think that outsourcing only gets you so far.
I've got a startup that's just starting to gain traction (~$4,000 in SAAS license sales, pipeline of more customer prospects). I've taken a tiny amount of angel funding, with a larger angel round pending more product validation. I'm a single, non-technical founder looking for a techie or two who can help build out features. I'm also just to the North of you in Nebraska, well within driving distance. Email if you'd like to chat.
I think the benefit to you is a real-life business that has a business driver (me) with business connections and already has some market validation. I've got a completed business plan that you can pull from to create a great case study. My technical advisor can also give you guidance from someone who's "been there and done that" (and will prevent me from making requests that are technically unsound). Instead of starting from scratch, you have a base to build on.