Technical Teams Over Non-Technical Ones

By Edoardo Moreni - June, 9th 2014

Over the past few weeks, months, years, we have seen how the skills of a dynamic duo can bring an idea into the market. Especially in tech startups, two people are enough to start, design, build and deliver a first minimal viable product that gives a rough idea of what they want to achieve. The dilemma has always been the same, is a technical team better than a non-technical one?

There are still non-technical people who are trying to startup by breaking that dynamic duo and enlarging their team with one or more developers. The common thought or the one you generally hear from a business person is that “you can always find a couple of slaves with Computer Science degrees” to build the product.

What we see, with a Master of Engineering in Computer Science, is the inability to have a vision without technical skills. If you don’t know what is doable and what is not, you will be immersed in your own world and won’t have a clue of what your product might be. It’s so easy to overthink something, without having the cognitive ability, and end up with an imaginary product. When you face reality, it’s too late, because what you thought is worth nothing.

Technical people can’t manage and sell! That’s a lie, you can always learn how to interact, sell and even manage other people. Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t born as one of the most successful CEOs in Silion Valley, he just learned they way by actually making mistakes from his CEO role. Others have learned by giving up their CEO position to more experienced people for a brief period of time, such as Larry Page at Google.

In the same way a technical person can learn the business side, a business person, who wants to be part of this world, needs to start understanding it by getting the hands on the keyboard. Learning how to code is the key to build something, delegating or paying someone else is like not even taking part in what you are doing. We have seen thousands of people saying “I’ll pay someone”, but what are you gonna do after the developer delivers you the finished product and leaves?

Nothing. That’s why technical teams are the way to build products. The first steps are not growth or public relationships, the first steps are coding till you fall asleep and having something that other people can use. It’s easier for a technical person to learn how to manage than for a business individual to learn how to code. That’s why you should look for another technical co-founder rather than a business person, who might even slow you down.

If you are reading and you have a business background, start using the internet and learn how to get your hands dirty. It’s easier than what you have ever thought. “Yes, but I really can’t program.” Why are you trying to get into a market ruled by programmers if you can’t program? Writing the best code in the world is not what you are aiming at. Building something that other people can use and judge, even if minimal, is what you want.

That’s why every time I meet a non-technical team, I struggle to see them alive in the next twelve months. There are times where they don’t even startup, because they can’t communicate with the guy they are paying or they can’t build a healthy relationship with the technical co-founder. There are also times where a I see one technical co-founder, surrounded by three non-technicals, and I think what the hell is going on? Then after six months, they have more than 40 thousands users and a decent seed funding in their bank account.

Why did this non technical team survive? From a technical point of view, the product didn’t need algorithms that came from the future, but a basic structure, and it turned out the single technical co-founder was really good. From a non-technical side, the team needed more promoters to get the initial traction, which was they were looking at, instead of iterating more times on the product itself. They could have moved faster on the product side, but they opted to get more traction, which meant a better user experience in their case.

The lesson is that you always have to see what your market is and what you need at first, but if you are building a tech product, such as Snapchat, Whatsapp, Instagram, Quora, you just need a strong technical team. This is the nerds revolution, so why shouldn’t we all team up together?