One other lesson that we learned from Startup School is that "advice=limited experience+generalization" so clearly I am not trying to give advice here. But I am trying to answer the original premise of the post which is that "can anyone start a startup without having a hacker as a co-founder?" And my answer is yes and what I tried to do is equate over-reliance on technology with over-reliance on money. In other words, if the original question were "can anyone start a startup without having $500K from a VC as seed money?", the answer would have been yes as well.
Keep in mind that I am talking about the initial stage of a startup. In other words, I am talking about going from nothing to something. Once you are done with the initial concept stage and you have a working model of your product and services and you have a workable business model, then everything changes and you are going from something to something more, which is very different again (in other words, I will need a lot more than $180).
What I have learned is that success of a startup requires both vision and peripheral vision. Having lots of money and lots of technical talents in the beginning help a great deal in terms of executing your vision, but unfortunately they tend to cloud your peripheral vision. In other words, if you have too much money in the beginning, you are going to spend it pushing the market as opposed to finding an opportunity to get the market to pull you. And by the same token, having a strong "hacker" as a co-Founder also can have the same unintended consequence which is that you are going to hit every nail with the same hammer (in the first year of my previous startup, I had to change out the technical team when it was clear that our initial business idea was incorrect).
Again, I am not trying to offer advice here (by generalizing my own limited experience). I am merely trying to answer the original question and my answer is a resounding yes. Anything is possible ... entrepreneurship is the great equalizer.
One other lesson that we learned from Startup School is that "advice=limited experience+generalization" so clearly I am not trying to give advice here. But I am trying to answer the original premise of the post which is that "can anyone start a startup without having a hacker as a co-founder?" And my answer is yes and what I tried to do is equate over-reliance on technology with over-reliance on money. In other words, if the original question were "can anyone start a startup without having $500K from a VC as seed money?", the answer would have been yes as well.
Keep in mind that I am talking about the initial stage of a startup. In other words, I am talking about going from nothing to something. Once you are done with the initial concept stage and you have a working model of your product and services and you have a workable business model, then everything changes and you are going from something to something more, which is very different again (in other words, I will need a lot more than $180).
What I have learned is that success of a startup requires both vision and peripheral vision. Having lots of money and lots of technical talents in the beginning help a great deal in terms of executing your vision, but unfortunately they tend to cloud your peripheral vision. In other words, if you have too much money in the beginning, you are going to spend it pushing the market as opposed to finding an opportunity to get the market to pull you. And by the same token, having a strong "hacker" as a co-Founder also can have the same unintended consequence which is that you are going to hit every nail with the same hammer (in the first year of my previous startup, I had to change out the technical team when it was clear that our initial business idea was incorrect).
Again, I am not trying to offer advice here (by generalizing my own limited experience). I am merely trying to answer the original question and my answer is a resounding yes. Anything is possible ... entrepreneurship is the great equalizer.
Thanks again.