How non-tech founders can build great technology companies
If you’re a founder from a non-tech background, you may feel disadvantaged when building a technology company. You may need to figure out where or how to start. But with the right advice and resources, you can overcome these challenges and create a successful tech company. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some tips for non-tech founders and helpful resources that will guide you through the process. So don’t worry – you got this! Just follow these simple steps, and you’ll be on your way to success.
Building a product/service without understanding of the underlying tech can be tricky. You may face some challenges like:
Hiring a technical team
Building a tech team is the most challenging part of setting up a start-up. You need to find tech talent that is suitable for your business needs. Sourcing, engaging, and hiring tech talent takes a lot of time. If you are looking to hire developers, you need to figure out the entire development pipeline. Assigning them roles and responsibilities can be challenging if you don’t know the tech.
To overcome this, non-tech founders can benefit from the expertise of a reliable pre-assembled plug-and-play tech team. Instead of worrying about recruitment or team leadership, you can focus on developing your product or service.
Finding a co-founder with a tech background
While having a co-founder with the tech expertise is not mandatory, they can help build a tech team. They can also be critical players in business-related activities such as networking, pitching to investors, presenting your products at conferences, and gathering user feedback.
Many benefits come with finding such a co-founder. But recruiting a technical co-founder can be challenging too. Many non-technical start-up founders need help figuring out where to start looking for such experts.
Solution?
Outsourcing with an external tech company means that you’ll be benefiting from the technical expertise of teams that may be located all over the world. This helps broaden your search and find people excited about your product. Plus, you can always leave the door open for bringing a tech co-founder on board when the time is right.
Non-tech founders have succeeded and how!
Wonder if you can succeed as a non-tech founder? There are plenty if you are looking for some inspiration. Founders with no education or work experience in the technology space have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs.
Brian Chemsky is one such name. He and co-founder Joe Gebbia famously built the 100 billion dollar business Airbnb without an iota of coding skills. The duo were industrial design/graphics design graduates from Rhode Island University. Today, Airbnb is over six million rooms strong in over 81,000 cities globally as of 2020.
For another non-tech entrepreneur, the journey began in 2012. Falguni Nayar, the founder of the Indian online cosmetic marketplace Nykaa, was a banker for two decades before dipping her toes into entrepreneurship at age 55! Nykaa specializes in multi-beauty and personal care products. Today, the e-commerce giant is valued at approximately $13 billion after its recent listing on India’s National Stock Exchange.
Similarly, Alexis Ohanian, a non-technical entrepreneur, co-founded Reddit. As a prominent news aggregator, Reddit receives over 1 billion page views per month and can convert a news topic into a viral hit. Ohanian co-founded Reddit with co-founder Steve Huffman after graduating from the University of Virginia in 2005 with degrees in commerce and history.
We could go on and on. But the bottom-line is, if they can do it, so can you. Let’s see how. Start by building a solid tech team.
How can you build a strong tech team?
Finding tech talent is difficult for many CEOs. After all, even if you know your business well, it might be tough to discern if the person you hire can truly accomplish what is required of him/her. According to a McKinsey survey, 61% of HR professionals believe building a tech team is the most challenging for them in the years ahead.
Regardless of the daunting hurdles in finding tech talent, established organizations can only expect to survive in the digital era if they are technologically strong. As a result, IT talent should be the CEO’s top focus.
Here are a few tips that will go a long way if you want to build a tech team as a non-technical founder/entrepreneur.
Multi-pronged approach
Filling your tech-talent demands is becoming a multidimensional competition. Companies must spend concurrently throughout the “hire to retire” life cycle.
This begins with creating a digital-talent engine; a dedicated team is tasked with managing the whole employee experience, from hiring and onboarding to generating new career pathways and continually upgrading capabilities.
Bridge the talent gap
Do your employees have the skill required to fulfil your business needs? Analyze the skill gaps of your employees periodically and develop training sessions to refresh their existing talent or upskill them.
Focus on candidate experiences
To find the perfect tech talent, a more effective approach is to focus on the candidate’s experience. You need to improve the virtual candidate experience since 70% of companies in a recent survey said their recruiting and onboarding was at least half virtual. Some ways of doing that include the following:
Tech talent want to meet other technologists, so ensure that engineers and other relevant roles are part of your interview team.
Promising applicants are ambitious and have a wide range of possibilities. Create an interview and evaluation strategy that can result in a decision in as little as one day.
Because IT talent isn’t only going to job boards, be active in non-traditional channels like hackathons, open-source channels, and skill-specific curated sites.
iView Labs as a talent partner
iView Labs can be a potential partner that helps businesses find tech talent. We have a team of experts who know how to find the best tech talent. This way, businesses can focus on building their product or service and not worry about the nitty-gritty of hiring. iView Labs is a reliable partner that you can trust to build a tech team for your business. To learn more about iView Labs, kindly log on to our website www.iviewlabs.com and to get in touch with us with your queries and needs, write us an email at info@iviewlabs.com and sales@iviewlabs.com. Download the latest portfolio to see our work.