How To Build A Tech Startup With No Technical Skills | Dalton & Michael Podcast

**Michael** (0:00)
You're offering adventure, you're offering the unknown.

**Dalton** (0:04)
And adventure isn't, here's my idea for a social network for dogs, will you build my website?

**Michael** (0:10)
No, let's build a company together. Yes.
Welcome to Dalton Post Michael. Today, we're going to talk about why business folks need great technical co-founders. So who's this video for? Let's talk about the business folks we're talking to.

**Dalton** (0:32)
Yeah, I think to set this up, Michael and I both talked to a lot of aspiring founders in any number of different venues, on the street, at conferences, in interviews, wherever, like they find us. And one of the more common opening lines is something like, well, I'm a really good business person.

**Michael** (0:50)
With a great idea.

**Dalton** (0:51)
I have the best ideas. Yes.
Do I need a technical founder? Or how do I find a technical co-founder? Or I can't find any good technical co-founders? Like this is one of the number one opening questions we get when we meet people in the real world.

**Michael** (1:06)
Yes.

**Dalton** (1:07)
And so this video is aimed at all of those people that ask all of these questions that we have met. Yes. And all the people that haven't met us. Yes. That might be thinking these questions.

**Michael** (1:15)
And what we want to do is give you the key secret to actually being the best business co-founder. And we're not gonna hide it. We're gonna put it right up front.
The best business founders recruit amazing technical co-founders.
And that is how they distinguish themselves. That is the number one distinction. So it's not what's on your resume, where you worked, the fact that you were some fancy executive, that you're tall, people like to go and have drinks with you, you've got amazing ideas. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks like that.

**Dalton** (1:52)
Yeah, imagine the set of people, imagine the intersection. There's the set of people that are great business founders, and there's the set of people that can recruit amazing technical co-founders. You want to be in the intersection of those two sets, and there's not many people that puts you in a very special class.

**Michael** (2:12)
Well, and I would argue it is so distinguishing that you're given amazing opportunities. But what's tricky is not only do people not see this or do people try and not get a technical founder.

**Dalton** (2:29)
Or they just dismiss it out of hand. It's too hard. They'll just kind of shut this line of thinking down.

**Michael** (2:33)
That's what's even more common. It's just they're like, well, I can't find this person, so I'm just gonna move along.

**Dalton** (2:38)
Yeah, I don't know anyone, okay.

**Michael** (2:39)
And this is the crazy thing, because a lot of people will pitch this to me, but this is the true spirit of an entrepreneurialism. Like, no barrier can prevent me from getting my product to market, right? Like, I couldn't find technical founders, so I just moved to the next challenge. I hired some engineers or I got a dev shop, and nothing will keep me, will hold me back.
And what's so sad about that way of thinking about it is that like, one, the percentage of chances of death just went through the roof, right? Like, you've just completely reduced your chances of success. But two, I bet if you would put the same amount of effort you put into getting a product to market without a great technical founder into finding a great technical founder, at least half people would be able to do it.

**Dalton** (3:26)
Yeah.

**Michael** (3:27)
And so it's just like, it's a shame because it's so much wasted talent.

**Dalton** (3:31)
Yeah, I like to think about it this way. Again, we are, what we're talking about implicitly, let's make it explicit. We're talking about a company that uses software as a deep part of it.
So if we're talking about a software start-up and you somehow don't have a technical co-founder, this would be like, I'm gonna build a rocket to the moon, but no one here knows anything about physics. We can, I have such a big heart, we can just like, I have such hustle, I'm Johnny Hussle, I'm going to the moon, Michael. Like, do you see how absurd that is? But the asterisk is, okay, if you want to start a new clothing brand or a liquor brand, okay, you don't need a technical co-founder.

**Michael** (4:09)
This doesn't apply, obviously.

**Dalton** (4:10)
But if you're saying, yeah, I'm going to build a software company, and you don't have a software co-founder, it just, you're not even in the ball game. You're not even in the stadium.