Four insights. Three years.

What did you do for your last birthday? I am looking for recommendations for New York City celebrations because yesterday, Tech for Non-Techies turned three years old!

Unlike most three year olds, this one likes champagne, and prefers diamonds to play doh.

In the last three years, Tech for Non-Techies has penetrated the world’s most elite institutions: our programs have been taught at Oxford University, the University of Bristol, Blackstone and Constellation Brands to name a few.

Our?students?have created tech businesses, led digital transformation and become smart money investors.

Today, I am writing this to you from New York City, where most of our audience and clients are.

But, this was never the plan.?The Tech for Non-Techies growth story goes against what I learnt at business school, which is why I think it’s worth telling.

At Chicago Booth, we were taught to plan and analyze. We were supposed to have a vision and a target customer. These plans would then help us get investment and our company would grow.

I followed this directive for my last business: Enty. It was retail tech platform that served thousands of happy customers, was lauded as one of the world’s top retail tech platforms by Forbes and Grazia, but did not survive the retail apocalypse of the pandemic.?

Having a plan, investment and a team helped me the first time around. But it was the opposite of what I did the second time.

Shame, monetized

TFNT’s start lay in something I was thoroughly ashamed of: being a non-technical person in tech. Tech bros told me that I needed to learn to code if I ever wanted to stop being a second class citizen.

I tried and it was horrendous. In Stanford’s Computer Science 101 course, I spent 3 hours turning a little blue square into a little black square.?

This experience drove me into existential oblivion: if this was to be my life, was it really worth living?

So I decided to swap the nihilism of Albert Camus for Vicktor Frankl’s search for meaning.

Surely, there was some benefit from being a non-technical leader of a tech business??

I began exploring this in my?Forbes?column. I interviewed non-technical founders of successful ventures, spoke to investors and digital transformation leaders.

I?wrote?to demystify tech in articles like?What Data Scientists Do And How To Work With Them?and?Competing In The Age Of AI Is Simpler Than You Think.

My Forbes articles spread quickly and, led to requests by London Business School students to teach them, consulting opportunities and sold out events.?

Eventually, I realized that a personal interest became a business and on 9 March 2020 finally created a company.?There was no website, no plan and no customer avatar, but I already had paying clients.

Three years later, I have a small but mighty team, a top rated podcast, and most importantly, very cool client successes.

• Gustavo Juarez?used what he learnt at Tech for Non-Techies to lead digital transformation as the CFO of?BMW?in Mexico
• Nasi Rwigema, a non-technical founder and one of my first?London Business School?students set up Umwuga, a platform that helps blue collar workers in South Africa find jobs.
• Navdeep Sachdeva, a procurement leader at a?fintech?company, said Tech for Non-Techies made him feel “more powerful” as a business leader surrounded by tech
• Dr Marilyn Sandor, a dentist and non-technical founder, created GoodCheckUp, a?teledentistry?app, which saved patients’ teeth during pandemic lockdowns

There are many more impressive client stories, but I know this is already getting long. So, here?are four useful learnings for you.

Four useful points

• When creating something new,?lots of market analysis from your desk becomes useless. Test demand in low cost ways, e.g. with content or a?simple version of the product.
• People value simple explanations of hard concepts. Do not use fancy words and jargon to sound clever.?
• Everybody, business-people and the most senior tech people, yes,?everybody feels overwhelmed by the digital revolution. There is simply too much for any brain to handle and it is changing very quickly. If you think that you’re the only one who is winging it, trust me, you are not alone.?
• If you’re solving a problem for people that you have solved yourself, you will have the kind of empathy that?your competitors don’t.?Empathy + your example help your clients achieve hard things?(like the ones above).

Get involved!

And now, if you want to help me take Tech for Non-Techies to new heights, here are some ways to get involved:

1. Introduce us to new clients: we help business professionals thrive in the digital age. If you know people who want to:

• Succeed in companies going through?Digital Transformation
• Start tech ventures as?non-technical founders
• Invest in tech?as corporate leaders or angel investors

Then please introduce them to me.?

2. Event space in NYC: if your office has a lovely room for 10 – 30 people that we could use for an event, just reply to this email

3. Book me to speak at your next event?(this is a popular choice. See?Speaker details and testimonials here).

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Thank you for reading this far and being on this spectacular journey with me.

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Speak soon,

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Sophia

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