English majors start companies too

Advice for first-time, non-technical founders on approaching development

BY  JAY  DEVIVO    CoFunder  

©  2016  CoFunder®  LLC      All  rights  reserved.  

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This paper will cover:

- Why you do not need a technical cofounder (yet) - How to hire a freelancer - How YOU can slash development costs (no coding required!)

You’re excited about your idea and confidant it will transform your corner of the world. You know the next step is to give potential investors and clients something to react to beyond your idea. It is time to create a demo and scrap that free template that came with your domain. That can feel daunting when your background is poetry rather than PHP. As a non-technical, first-time founder, it is easy to get intimidated when the conversation turns to “development” and “demos.” Many believe they need a technical cofounder to join their team to handle all of this for them. You don’t. First, you should lead this process; it will prove to be a valuable (and imminently manageable) learning experience. Second, bringing in a technical founder too early can do more harm then good. Here are 4 reasons why you should wait.

English Majors Are Entrepreneurs Too!

1. Your company is NOT the technology

If you are a non-technical founder or team, chances are you will use various existing technologies to enable your vision; you won’t be breaking much new ground. That is not to say that technology choices won’t one day be critical, but because you are applying technology and not creating technology, it is not what makes your idea compelling when you are going from Step 0 to Step 1. This is true even for companies that are ultimately tech intensive. Take Airbnb. Today they employ an army of Software Engineers, but what got the attention of Y Combinator and Sequoia was not there use of isomorphic JavaScript, but how they sold breakfast cereal repackaged in election-themed boxes to rent more couch space. 2. Your demo is not your first product

The purpose of your demo or prototype is not to create the foundation upon which your product is built. The purpose of your demo is to demonstrate the value of your idea to potential investors, clients, and partners. Your goal should be to spend the bare minimum you need to tell your story. Don’t worry that a demo that cannot be incorporated into your first product iteration is simply “thrown out.” If it wins you an investor, client, or partnership, it was hardly wasted.

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When it comes to evaluating technical talent, trying to determine who is the real deal vs. who just talks a good game is very difficult if you don’t have the background. You will never be more poorly equipped to do that than now. Before you jump into a relationship, educate yourself by talking to other entrepreneurs, potential partners, clients, and investors. This is particularly critical if your technology choices will be dependent on those of your customers, because…

When you are ready to build a demo or prototype, you don’t need a technical cofounder or a technology lead; you need to hire a freelancer. Fortunately, they are easy to find and quite cost effective. If you can’t find a designer or developer on campus, there are several tech-for-hire web sites. Freelancer and UpWork have two of the larger bases of designers and developers. You do need to vet the freelancers on these sites carefully; the process can be time consuming but the effort well worth it. Some tips:

- Read the feedback left by prior clients - Review the certifications of skills, testing, and identity done by the site - Look at their portfolios to see the work that is similar in nature to what you need - Cross-reference their profiles with other sites such as LinkedIn

Toptal is another alternative worth considering. It is different from most of its competitors in that you are assigned a person that discusses your project needs and then provides you with some highly vetted designers or developers for you to consider. The freelancers on this site are top-notch and their client list includes companies like Airbnb, J.P. Morgan, and Pfizer. You are going to pay more at Toptal and they generally don’t accept small projects, but it is a good resource to keep in mind when you are ready to begin “real” development work.

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3. You don’t know what you don’t know

4. Stuff changes

The only constant, as they say, is change. Between your first demo and the launch of 1.0, most of your early plans on features, pricing, and markets will change. If you seek out a technical founder based on what you think you need (see #3) even a seemingly perfect choice could prove to be the wrong one. Suppose your target market is X, and your research shows the market has standardized around Technology A. You seek out a Technology A expert and find Bill. Bill comes highly recommended from people you trust, and he has been deploying Technology A in Market X. You ask Bill to join as a cofounder. As you get feedback from potential customers, it becomes clear Market Y is a much better fit for your solution. Market Y has standardized around Technology B. Parting ways with Bill may be messy and expensive.

Hiring a freelancer

©  2016  CoFunder®  LLC      All  rights  reserved.  

www.cofunder.co    

Do not hire anyone until they have signed a Work for Hire Agreement (or a Consulting Agreement that makes clear the relationship is “Work For Hire”). The most important function of the Work For Hire Agreement is to make it crystal clear that your company, not the freelancer, owns whatever the freelancer produces. It should also provide that the freelancer did not appropriate anyone else’s intellectual property in creating the work product, they can’t reuse the work they did for you for other clients, as well as confidentiality protection.

Freelancers can be very cost effective, but since it is unlikely that you will be working side by side with your freelancer, it is critical to be clear about the requirements and deliverables. Some additional tips:

- The most important thing you can do is Learn how to wireframe (see next section). - Write the project requirements very carefully. Err on the side of more detail, but… - Avoid long, complex sentences. Assume your first language is the freelancer’s

second. Use bullet points in your requirements and a deliverable checklist. - Have frequent check-ins with clear expectations as to feedback and turnaround

times. - It should go without saying, but I will anyway: never pay a freelancer, contractor, or

any service provider with equity. Always pay in cash. For more on that topic read Protect Your Equity.

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Don’t hire a freelancer without one of these…

Why you need a Work For Hire Agreement

Any time you hire a freelancer, always, Always, ALWAYS make them sign a Work For Hire Agreement. Even if the freelancer is your brother? Yes. (especially!) Here’s why: When you go out to raise money (or if you get acquired), part of the due diligence process will be to make sure your company owns your products, trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual property free and clear. You will be asked about any work that you outsourced and will be expected to produce the agreement for legal review. If you hired someone without a Work For Hire Agreement, it won’t reflect well on you. More importantly, getting the deal done may hinge on you tracking that person down and having them sign something where they give up any ownership rights to the work. When people are asked to sign those documents after the fact, they sometimes seek an incentive to do so. You don’t need to spend a thousand dollars in legal fees getting one of these agreements. If you already have a law firm, they should have a standard form agreement that you can use. If you don’t, you can find several templates online. The law firm Cooley LLP has document generator for a number of documents critical to running your business, including this one for a Consulting Agreement.

More tips on hiring a freelancer

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Wireframes are basically a mockup of a web site or application. Wireframing tools offer drag and drop objects that allow you to easily illustrate virtually any element in a web site or application. You can even capture elements of other web sites /applications that you want to borrow into your wireframes. They allow you to visually convey to your designer or developer the look and feel, functionality, and even workflows that you need for your demo or web site. Wireframes let you create mockups that look pretty darn close to what you want built. When you can go beyond words and show your designer or developer what you need, you’ve done half their work for them. Providing wireframes upfront will help you:

• Think through what you really want/need. When you go through the design process yourself, it helps you prioritize and see things from the user’s perspective.

• Get more competitive bids. When designers and developers really understand what you want out of the gate, it reduces the number of iterations slashing development and design costs.

• Ensure you and the developer you choose will be on the same page from Day 1. • Get in front of potential customer, partners, and investors more quickly.

Learning a wireframing tool is the best development investment you can make. Mastering a wireframing tool does take a bit of practice, but it doesn’t require any specific technical skills. After a day or so of playing around, you’ll be off and running. There are a number of wireframing tools available, the one I use is Balsamiq. I don’t know how the ease of use and functionality compares to others, but the support is great.

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(It’s better – and easier – than learning to code!)

A popular refrain of late has been that “everyone should learn to code.” It makes for a great Medium post, but if you are starting a company, do not try and learn to code. There are a number of reasons why; I’ll give you 3:

1. It’s hard. Learning to code is like learning a foreign language; you need to make significant learning investment before you can even begin to do anything useful with it. You don’t have the time to learn to code.

2. Coding languages and frameworks are constantly evolving, so unless you are using it regularly, what little you learn will soon be irrelevant.

3. You are a “non-technical founder” for a reason. Your role in design and development is to communicate what you want the demo/prototype/web site to do and look like to people that know what they are doing. The best way to do that is to learn how to use a wireframing tool.

What a wireframing tool is and why you need to learn one

Wireframing

©  2016  CoFunder®  LLC      All  rights  reserved.  

 

©  2016  CoFunder®  LLC      All  rights  reserved.  

www.cofunder.co    

Getting web sites, demos, and prototypes built are things any non-technical founder or team can do with bringing on a technical cofounder. That doesn’t mean you need to do it all on your own. You are starting a company for the first time. The expectation is that there is a lot more that you don’t know than you do know. Most people are genuinely happy to help entrepreneurs just starting out. If you don’t run with a tech crowd, your university and alumni community are probably the best places to start. There are loads of free resources available. Here are just a few:

- Local business incubators and accelerators - Quora - LinkedIn - Meetups - Startup Stash

You have a license to ask a lot of questions; don’t be bashful about it!

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I’ve referred several times to demos and prototypes, but before you create those, you will probably be looking to put up a web site. Templates have long been available, but have generally been stale, “turn of the century” web sites. Professional looking sites required hiring a professional developer. No more. Wordpress themes can be purchased for $25 to $100. Themes are much more than templates; they are feature-rich site foundations created by developers that typically contain tons of customization options. Instead of paying several thousand dollars for a web developer, you can purchase a Wordpress theme and pay a web designer several hundred dollars to create your web site (if you are ambitious, you could even DIY). Once your site is created, you can do the vast majority of maintenance on your own. The UI is very intuitive making it simple to edit text and headers, swap out graphics, and even change the page layout. Wordpress isn’t just for startups; lots of big names use Wordpress because it deploys fast and cheap and is easy to maintain.

Wordpress – Your Shortcut to a Webby

Help Is All Around You