{"id":1379,"date":"2015-02-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/?p=1379"},"modified":"2015-02-18T14:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T22:45:09","slug":"advice-non-technical-founders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/development\/advice-non-technical-founders\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for Non-Technical Founders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Creating a product is an often complex process that\u00a0requires a mixture of skills to ensure\u00a0things run smoothly.\u00a0One of the necessary skills is technical ability. So how should you proceed\u00a0as\u00a0a non-technical founder?<\/p>\n<p>My goal with\u00a0this post\u00a0is to utilize my experience as an engineer and entrepreneur to give advice to\u00a0non-technical founders who are\u00a0working with external developers\u00a0to build their products.<\/p>\n<h2>How deep is your understanding of\u00a0technology?<\/h2>\n<p>As\u00a0a non-technical founder, your main priority\u00a0is obviously <em>not<\/em> learning how to code. But you must have some understanding of technology. For example, as basic as it sounds, if you are creating\u00a0a mobile app for iOS\u00a0or Android, you should at least own\u00a0a smartphone. (This probably\u00a0sounds funny, especially to founders in the US, but I&#8217;ve seen this\u00a0happen\u00a0with clients.)<\/p>\n<p>Try to review examples in order to learn the concepts involved with your product. You don&#8217;t need to learn\u00a0the actual programming language, but just familiarizing yourself with\u00a0some of the basic concepts will allow you to better communicate with\u00a0your technology partner and to understand\u00a0the feedback that you receive\u00a0from him or her.<\/p>\n<p>This advice also applies\u00a0to shortcuts that developers sometimes take, such as utilizing cross-platform tools (for example, to build for iOS and Android simultaneously). It&#8217;s possible for those types of tools to help, but only in specific cases. In order to truly understand and evaluate your developer&#8217;s recommendations, you\u00a0should\u00a0<a title=\"Should I Develop for iOS or Android? 10 Cross-Platform Tools That Make Both Possible\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/development\/develop-for-ios-v-android-cross-platform-tools\/\" target=\"_blank\">read up on the pros and cons<\/a> of that type of approach.<\/p>\n<h2>Has\u00a0the idea been validated?<\/h2>\n<p>It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your idea is the best and that no one else has thought of it before. That&#8217;s why it&#8217;s\u00a0important to consider these questions before you begin working with a developer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it really true that no one else has tried building this product before?<\/li>\n<li>If so, why not? (For example, the answer may be that there isn&#8217;t really a\u00a0market for the concept.)<\/li>\n<li>Who will use the product? How large is the potential user base?<\/li>\n<li>How will you\u00a0<a title=\"App Monetization\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/post-launch\/monetize-apps-paid-apps-vs-app-purchases-vs-freemium-vs-subscription\/\" target=\"_blank\">make money<\/a>?<\/li>\n<li>Which features will comprise your <a title=\"MVP\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Minimum_viable_product\" target=\"_blank\">Minimum Viable Product\u00a0(MVP)<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Do you understand the development process?<\/h2>\n<p>Understanding the development process is a\u00a0key component of creating your product. You can have a disruptive idea and talented developer but still end up with a mess if there is not a clear sense of how the product will actually get built.<\/p>\n<h3>How involved do you want\u00a0to be?<\/h3>\n<p>When it comes to building your\u00a0product, the\u00a0developer team will follow some type of process (e.g. agile, scrum, etc.). If you want to be highly involved, it&#8217;s important for you to understand the ins and outs of that approach (including aspects like how often code will be pushed and the process for review and feedback).<\/p>\n<p>Even if you don&#8217;t have the time or inclination to understand all of the details, be sure that you are aware of the various stages (e.g. prototyping, visual design, coding, testing, etc.) so that you can track the progress your team is making.<\/p>\n<p>Based on\u00a0my experience, it\u2019s better for non-technical founders to be involved <em>throughout<\/em>\u00a0the process, so they can see how the product is evolving\u00a0and\u00a0get feedback at each\u00a0stage, which will\u00a0make it easier to make any necessary changes along the way.<\/p>\n<h2>Better done than perfect<\/h2>\n<p>Non-technical founders sometimes focus more on making the product perfect than on having it finished. The perfectionist impulse is understandable &#8211; after all, this is your baby. But\u00a0I have witnessed many\u00a0good products go\u00a0bankrupt because of the quest for perfection.<\/p>\n<p>This happened to one of my former clients. They wanted to have absolutely everything done before launching. We tried to explain that the idea is to launch and fail fast, gather feedback from users and then pivot if necessary. Unfortunately, they ignored our advice and we ended up spending a year re-designing the product three times, only to have them run out of funding by the time the process was finished.<\/p>\n<p>I understand that it&#8217;s hard to launch something that&#8217;s not perfect, but it&#8217;s even worse to\u00a0launch nothing at all. That doesn&#8217;t mean you should\u00a0launch a product riddled with bugs, but instead try to truly launch an MVP (emphasis on the &#8220;minimum&#8221;), so that you can get feedback and then continue working with your technology partner to make improvements.<\/p>\n<h2>What is your feedback loop?<\/h2>\n<p>Feedback is <em>the<\/em> most critical part of product development. After all, how can you improve without it?<\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When soliciting feedback, be sure to target the individuals or businesses that you hope will become users of your\u00a0product.<\/li>\n<li>Be sure to share feedback with your development team so that it can be incorporated into the next sprint or phase.<\/li>\n<li>Not all feedback will be equally important. Be sure to differentiate between comments you hear repeatedly from potential users and &#8220;nice-to-have&#8221; features that were only requested by a few.<\/li>\n<li>Try not to get upset if the feedback\u00a0doesn&#8217;t match what you wanted to hear.<\/li>\n<li>Be specific about your target audience. For example, &#8220;kids&#8221; is not the same as &#8220;kids between ages 8-13.&#8221; (I saw\u00a0that mistake a lot with\u00a0mobile games.)<\/li>\n<li>You can collect feedback in a variety of ways, such as conducting in-person interviews, recording reactions of a group of potential users, or sending out\u00a0surveys.<\/li>\n<li>And don&#8217;t feel like you have to wait until the product is finished to get feedback! You can use\u00a0wireframes or mockups\u00a0to measure potential users&#8217; reactions in the meantime.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Start selling early<\/h2>\n<p>Don&#8217;t wait until the product is finished to begin selling, especially if you&#8217;re <a title=\"Why You Should Build For the Enterprise\" href=\"http:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/entrepreneurship\/how-start-startup-build-enterprise\/\" target=\"_blank\">building for the enterprise<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Building\u00a0customer relationships\u00a0takes time. This means that, after a couple of months of development (if you&#8217;re lucky!), you still might have to wait weeks or\u00a0months until you begin getting prospects. So that&#8217;s why you should take wireframes or a slide presentation\u00a0and start selling while the product is still being built.<\/p>\n<p>I remember that we once sold a product after sending a mobile mockup (completed in about five hours) to the prospect. They liked it and bought it, and then it took us three months to deliver. Bottom line: don&#8217;t waste any time.<\/p>\n<h2>Does development ever really end?<\/h2>\n<p>Assume\u00a0that development is an ongoing process even when you have the main feature set completed. Technology itself is ever-evolving, and your product must keep up!<\/p>\n<p>A few things to keep in mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>iPhone\u00a0apps will need to be updated as Apple releases new phones (especially with different screen sizes) and new\u00a0operating\u00a0systems.<\/li>\n<li>Android is also likely to release\u00a0new operating systems, which will require app updates. In addition,\u00a0Android has a large variety\u00a0of\u00a0devices, and you will likely need to increase the number of devices you support as your product and user base grows<\/li>\n<li>If you have a web product, you will probably need to make updates as changes are made to the browsers (e.g. Safari, Chrome, Firefox).<\/li>\n<li>And last but certainly not least, you should never stop collecting feedback from users so you can ensure future versions of your product continue to get better and better!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Startup Stock Photos\" href=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/StartupStockPhotos\/20140808_StartupStockPhotos\/83.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Featured image credit<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An engineer and entrepreneur shares his advice for non-technical founders who are working with an external developer to build their products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":1829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[85,56,364,25,189],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advice for Non-Technical Founders | via @thinkapps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An engineer and entrepreneur shares his advice for non-technical founders who are working with an external developer to build their products.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thinkapps.com\/blog\/development\/advice-non-technical-founders\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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