Since 100% of the business relies on having the product and I don't have the skills to create the product, should I drop the idea or find a tech cofounder?
Because then I'm 100% reliant on the tech cofounder to build it and how do I know the person doesn't just build it and market it themselves?
I'm a former early-stage SaaS co-founder and growth-stage SaaS CTO.
Many tech startups - including the ones I've been personally involved in - are co-founded by one person who focuses on business and operations and another who focuses on tech.
You should definitely focus first on gaining validation. Early validation doesn't usually require technology. For example, it is easy to conduct surveys and interviews, it is easy to deploy ads and landing pages, etc. Once you have some meaningful validation, you should ask *yourself* some key questions:
- Why are you and your team uniquely suited to grow this business?
- Why now?
- Why isn’t anyone else already doing it or why do you have the upper hand on them?
If you can answer those questions - fairly and confidently - then you have every right to consider yourself an important half of a co-founding equation. You will - of course - at this point need to bring in someone more technical. You will be reliant on them for the tech, but they will be reliant on you for everything else - business acumen, inside knowledge, connections, the things only you can bring to the table. A good technical co-founder will understand that an idea is just a seed, but it takes the right business partner to make it come to life.
Check out this recent blog post I wrote on the role of an early-stage CTO, how to find one and compensate one, etc:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/startups-burning-questions-ctos-answered-anthony-putignano/
If you have any further questions, let me know!
