Business Registrations

How to Start a Technical Startup as a Non-technical Person

Technical start-ups may not seem to be the cup of tea of a Non-Technical person. But running a Technical Startup doesn’t necessarily demands you to be a technical guru. There are so many examples, which broke the myth of technical startups belongs to technical person only.

• Founder of Alibaba, Jack ma holds a degree in English
• Founder of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky have a design background
• Founder of Groupon, Andrew Maon holds a music degree from Northwestern University

These are just the few names ruling the world of tech startup. Further, in this blog, we will see how these people were able to break out of the gloom? How they plan their technical startups and turn it into a huge success, despite not having any link to the technical background.

How to Start a Technical Startup?

There are few basic things that need to be taken in to consideration while formulating your idea of a tech startup.

We will get down to the every step one by one and crack down the procedure so that you can formulate your idea into a successful technical startup.

Planning

Planning is the initial step of any task, you wish to accomplish. If you have an idea to start a tech-startup, get down to the task, and start planning.

Sketch out a rough plan at first that will help you to stick to your defined path. Make a note of what is under your horizon and what not.

Get Down to the Research

Give your time to the research, you need to evaluate the options and note what you can achieve with the knowledge you already have.

Start with building a prototype for the startup. You should connect with the potential users, so that you could receive the validation from them.

It will help you to understand your customers and sketch out a design accordingly. Right kind of research can take you to the step ahead of your competitors.

Be Ready to Learn

Whenever you start a business or learn anything, it would always be impossible to know everything regarding the business, you wish to pursue.

So be ready to learn lots of things. You cannot the run away from the fact that although you do not belong to the technical field, but there will be parts you need to have knowledge about, whether you want it or not.

Startup demands you to be flexible regarding your actions. There are options to fill these technical gaps, by hiring a good coder or bringing in a tech co-founder.

But let us inform you, either ways you need to have a basic technical knowledge, so that you are able to understand the process of work.

This will not make you feel aloof and help you to control the decisions in the startup.

Being Cautious with Technical Startup Milestones

Entrepreneurs are always very excited about their new ideas. In the middle of this excitement they need to understand there is a need to trust the right ones instead of first ones.

Not every coder is a fine coder, so you need to be careful when you hire somebody. If you are able to find a good coder, then it is not necessary to that coder be a great Co-founder. You need to give yourself enough time while building a team.

How Do You Present Your Idea?

You are not the tech guru of your company; however you are the face of the company.

You must know the every bit of your business, because you need to present your ideas to attract the investors. Bring out the businessman out of yourself.

When you run a company, you need to know explore every corner of your company, how you represent your company and improve your skills.

You must have the skills of negotiation, to do great presentations and be a confident public speaker.

When you run a company, you need to know explore every corner of your company, how you represent your company and improve your skills.

You must have the skills of negotiation, to do great presentations and be a confident public speaker.

Investors invest their money in a team; you are responsible for that team be a successful.

You are not getting the money from investors, if there is nothing serious coming out their way.

It is almost impossible to have someone invest in the Idea directly. What matters most is the execution of that idea.

Be a Leader, not a Follower!

Finding your place as a non-technical person in a technical startup could be a task, however there will be times when you need prove your mettle.

You must know what you are good at and be good at it and strive continuously to be the best at what you do.

Your work must convey the message to the team that you are the heart and soul of a business you are a part of.

Essentials non-technical person requires to build a successful Technical Startup

• Fundraising
• Design Mockups
• Networking
• Conversion optimization
• PR-writing and outreach
• Accounting
• Sales-especially pre-sales
• UX testing and design
• Writing Product Description
• Customer Interviews
• Surveying Customers
• Legal issues- interviewing attorneys, researching legal issues
• A/B testing landing pages
• Guest blogging/ guest posting
• Team Building/ Recruiting/ HR
• Blog Post Writing
• Web Copywriting
• Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc social network marketing
• Ad writing

Answer the questions while contacting Potential Customer

When you contact a potential customer, you must have answer to these questions-

• What challenges your technical startup solves?
• Is your technical startup solving a real problem or just creating a vague solution to the problem that doesn’t even exist?
• Are people ready to pay the solution your tech startup provides, if yes then how much, consumers are ready to pay? The only proof that people will pay for the technology your startup offers is to pre-sell. Most companies avoid pre-selling, which proves to be one of the reasons these startups fail.

Validation of Your Business Idea

You need to test your business idea, before building it completely. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create a landing page and try to drive some traffic to it.

You can create your own landing page without a single line of coding. There are third party tools available such as Unbounce or LeadPages.

You can use the paid services offered by Facebook, forums, or other social networks and note the number of signups. This will help you understand the cost of bringing in a new customer.

How do you get the validation of your tech startup idea?

There is need to seek the validation of your business idea, but how do you do it?

• It is a mistake to keep your idea secretive. You need to go out and share with people from varied backgrounds and see how they perceive and react to it?
• As per Travis Steffen, who has scaled and sold six giant tech startups, the idea comes from the customer, not from you. He adds that the idea must be marketable to make profits out of it for the validation.
• Every business in the market has a competition, try to find these competitors. Don’t be sacred of the competition, it only shows that there is a market for your products and services.
• While creating software for a business whose rivals are already present in the market, you need to make sure to make better version, already existing in the market.
• You must be willing to listen to your customers, many a time you come across the business opportunities and new avenues when you are involved in the business.
• When your product is ready, try crowd funding. Look for investors, it is great way to get the funding.

Try Pre-selling your Idea

The main proof lies in the sales. Give your best shot to pre-sell your product. It is much easier to find a co-founder, customers, and investors, if you can pre-sell your product. Pre-selling requires a viable business idea and a thorough customer research.

What you can do to pre-sell your product

Below are the numbers of steps that one can follow to pre-sell their product-

• Pre-selling to few customers is not going to make you earn millions, however it instills a level of confidence and validation
• Try offering discounts to the people buying early. Avoid the lifelong discount, and instead provide discounts for the next 1 or 2 years.
• Put a limit to the number of customers that can pre-order and avail the discount prices
• Mention the influencers and strong people who buy and believe your products and services. Create an excitement for your product.

How and where do you find a Technical Co-founder?

It is better not to embark on the mission to find a technical Co-founder for your technical startup. It is less likely to find someone right away as per your requirements.

You can start working with technical people on smaller projects. And take a note, if there is any chemistry. See if you can work well with that person and move on to the next project.

If the person doesn’t fit, move on to the next one. Try taking small steps, meet programmers personally. Don’t forget technical skills are the requirements that you need to achieve the bigger picture in future.

There is a list of online platforms where you can look for technical co-founders-

• Forums-Coders, platforms, technical
• Network- Seminars, LinkedIn, meetups
• You can reach out to the accelerators and investors
• Connectors- Try to connect with people from the similar industry
• Read a lot on news sites, forums, and blogs. Keep an eye on the people, who are fired, quit, or has an unsuccessful project. These people can be great entrepreneur.
• You can also leverage the websites such as, CofoundersLab, Fouderdating, or founder2be.
• Make use of Craigslist- Post a job on this site.

Conclusion

Staring a technical startup as a Non-technical person may become little difficult. But if you try to follow the above tips and steps, your chances to be successful are more than the rest of the people or competitors. For any further information please contact Enterslice.