Do Technical Founders Need Business Co-Founders?

Oh yeah, well Michael, I could go do sales. That's not hard. I can definitely reply to emails. Yes, you know, I could.

Well, doter, are you going to do that? [Laughter]

Welcome to Dalton Plus, Michael! Today we're going to talk about, do you need a business co-founder? So many of you have seen our video, do you need a tech co-founder? I think we can summarize that as yes, yes, yes!

Now, a far more complicated question: do you need a business co-founder? It would seem like these are, you know, yeah, okay one-on-one. Why are we making this video? Why? Why is this an interesting question? I think the short answer is yes, asterisk. And I think this comes down to definitions. What does it mean to be a non-technical founder?

And so, if we define this as, does every startup need one person who can't code? Full stop, the answer is, of course no! That is what—why would you even ask that question? No, but like I think people think, like, I think we think that. But we'll explain, we'll break this down.

And so, let's talk about the "as." So basically, every company has stuff that needs to happen. Yes, right? And so to enumerate some of the tasks that need to happen that are not related to writing code: y- let’s say these are incorporation, yes; bank payroll—like yes, you know, bureaucratic filling out forms, paying taxes every year, back office, back whatever you want to call it. Someone's got to do that! If not, you are breaking the law. Yep. Problem! So someone has to do that.

Yes, talking to customers. Someone has to talk to a customer! You don't need to know how to write code to talk to a customer, right? Do not! No! So someone needs to do that.

Yes, hiring people—that's not writing code. But you have to interview people, whatever, right? People won't just show up.

Yeah, sales is a really important one. We talk about this a lot. If no one on the team considers it their job to do sales, we have a problem! No sales will happen, right? And someone that doesn't know how to code could do sales.

Yep! Fundraising is another one. Do you need to know how to code to fundraise? No. Negative! Customer support as well, totally! Like replying to—yeah, amen! Yes!

And so the point is, as we're enumerating all these, anyone that is a founder could be doing these and is qualified to do it. Yes! But a technical co-founder is just as qualified to do these tasks as a non-technical co-founder. These are smart human tasks, yeah? Smart generalist tasks.

And so we have seen lots of cases where everyone on the team may have a technical degree, yes, but there's still a clear—someone knows they have to do this stuff, right? Man!

Yes, well, I think that this is what's so interesting: it's that it's much easier for a technical person to do things that just require general intelligence than it is for a business person to learn how to code. Indeed! As a business person, I can attest to this fact.

But I think that, you know, you've brought up a really good point. Um, having the ability to do these tasks is different from having the appetite to do these tasks and to do them well. And let's triple underline that word: appetite!

Yes! It's not, "Oh yeah, well, Michael, I can go, you know, yeah do sales. That's not hard. I can definitely reply to emails." Yes, you know, I could!

Well, doter, are you going to do that? Long pause, long pause. I think maybe, I think you should look into that! I think this is extremely important, right? And I think that when we're looking into this question, we have to ask ourselves: who is going to adopt these tasks and responsibilities?

It could be a technical person. It can be a non-technical person. You need someone on your founding team who's willing to adopt these tasks and do them well! Yeah, with vigor, with excitement, with like want to be the best in the world at those tasks and not begrudgingly full of excuses why they don't want to do it or that work is beneath them or whatever, right?

Bringing toxicity into the company? Like, no! Not that!

I also think what's interesting is that if you are a technical person and you happen to be solving your own problem, the idea that you would need a business co-founder is not only confusing because, you know, let's say you're building a dev tool, like your business co-founder probably is not the right person to sell or fundraise or hire or talk to customers.

Yeah! Um, so literally the idea that you couldn't do those tasks is actually silly. Like, a technical person should be doing those tasks, yes! And if you're solving your own problem, it's a technical problem—like, it's kind of a no-brainer that you don't need a business co-founder. Maybe you need another co-

I mean this is an example. You know, we'll talk about examples a little bit later. But like, if you look at something like Nvidia, yeah, all the found were technical. All of them were electrical engineers with, you know, master's degrees or something in electrical engineering.

When you think about it, how could a business person with no technical background even come up with the idea for Nvidia or been in a position to execute on it versus an electrical engineer? Yeah!

And so, the CEO of Nvidia, I don't think he spends a lot of time coding, to be honest with you. But the fact that he was a trained electrical engineer with a history of doing electrical engineering helped with a specific vision of how to build a new, yes, CPU company—excuse me, GPU company! Um, that seems important, right? Seems important.

I don't know if a non-tech founder would have helped in Nvidia way back in the day! No! And certainly, if they would have helped, it's not obvious they would have been essential.

Correct! And so I think that, um, this idea, "Oh, the business person, the MBA, is essential." That's not—like it's possible that the technical person is essential and the business person's not essential.

I think the other thing that we think about a lot is, let's say you don't want to believe our theory, right? Talking about theory. Let's say, “I don’t like this because this is not flattering to me, Michael. I don’t like what you guys are saying because it exactly doesn’t help me.”

Um, you could just look at big companies and ask yourself: do there exist big companies that have only technical founders? What would you say to that question?

Yeah, I mean, let's look at the most valuable companies on the stock market. Google is obviously two technical founders. Yes!

And Nvidia, we just talked about, is all technical founders. Yes! Microsoft was two technical founders when they started! Pretty valuable company!

Pretty valuable company!

So wait, that's of the most valuable companies in the world, that's three of them so far!

Yeah, you know, Facebook is complicated about who's counted as a co-founder or not. But like, you know, Zuckerberg was a technical founder—in movitz and all that.

And then, if you look in the YC portfolio, you know: Stripe. Yep! Dropbox. Yep! There's a theme here!

So sometimes I like to say, like, hey, even if you don't want to believe these theories, you know, you could just look it up! Right? If this is your question: do I need a business co-founder? You could just look it up and be like, well, if Google didn't need one!

Yeah! But people will be able to point to other examples, and that's fair! We're not saying that you shouldn't have one; we're just saying you don't need it!

Yes! This is, we're not arguing this is the exhaustive truth. Yeah, we're just saying it is not absolutely necessary and we are providing proof of said argument.

And furthermore, if you're using this as an excuse to not make forward progress, that's kind of—it’s kinda, well!

And here's a corollary to this: sometimes we see when you're selling into an industry where a non-technical founder has industry expertise and knows the language of their customer, that can be very helpful. Again, I'm not arguing that it's necessary. Smart people can learn anything, in my opinion.

Okay, but imagine you wanted to sell legal software. Sure! If you had one of the founders who, instead of learning how to code in college, went to law school and they were a practicing attorney and they knew how to sell to attorneys, that could help. That sounds pretty legit.

That could help, right? Let's say that you're selling software to doctors in hospitals. It might help that there's someone who's a doctor, or yeah, maybe you're making prescription drug, or maybe you're making a drug distribution company, like, yep! Might help!

What I will say though is that, like, don't let yourself be held back by these fake limitations! Yeah, these are fake!

I think that's such a great way to like close off this thinking. I think the reason we got a lot of requests to this video, I think it was from technical founders, yeah, that had been told by like investors, "You need, you need a business founder!"

Yes! And are kind of looking for our advice about that, or like they're not really sure.

Yeah! And I think a lot of times when investors give a founder that feedback, which is: you need a business co-founder! Yeah, they're actually giving you direct feedback on what they see as a deficiency in your appetite to do the work!

Yes! Yes! In a polite way, or the quality of how you set up your company! Um, but that doesn't mean you don't have the skills to do it!

Yeah! Like if you meet with someone like, "I don't want to do sales. I hate doing sales! Sales is bad!"

Yeah! A lot of advice would be, "Yeah, maybe you should get a non-tech founder." Right?

Well, by the way, that's why I hate that advice, because that advice is suggesting the solution versus telling you the problem, which is like, hey, it—you might have to talk to your customer! Like, you don't seem like you like that!

That's going to screw you! There are many ways of solving that; you could learn to like it, you could hire someone who does, you could hire an engineer who does! You can hire—um, but I do think that don't believe this idea that there's some magic with like one business person plus one tech person equals startup win!

No! No! And I think along these lines, sometimes people have a lot of pushback on our advice on why you need a co-founder full stop.

But our argument is not you need a business co-founder to teach you business because they went to business school!

No! It's just that this is so hard; you need another person to go through this experience with! It's not that there's any one particular bit of experience that is necessary!

Right? Like 100%, you need someone to offer emotional support! CU this thing is going to be hard!

Yeah! Yes! Yes!

All right, good shot. Sounds good. Thanks! [Music]

Man! [Music]