How to build a tech startup without a technical Co-Founder?

We all know founders who have been burnt by developers who weren’t a good fit, or founders who paid crazy money for MVPs and have run out of runway because of it.?

So on the 20th of May 2022, CTOs, developers, no code experts, product folks & founders who have recently built startups gathered to share the do's and don’ts of building good tech, the right questions to ask developers, and processes to follow, who to trust and low/no-code options worth exploring. This doc captures someone of the advice and guidance shared.

Some of those sharing their knowledge were Eain Jones, CEO of Appliscale who demystified the build process, founders like Caoimhe Donnelly founder of Legitimate, Johnny Harte Founder of Sota, Allen Wixted Founder of Plop, and Evy Perez all shared their experiences. Mike McAuliffe, COO of Aspen Grove explained Technical Due Diligence at the investment stage and what investors are watching out for. Cathal Grennan and Shane Gray shared great tools and no code option and Niall Maher did some jargon busting.

So, the question Can you build a tech company if you are not techy? Short answer,

STEP 1 How do I start? Think about it like building a house. You may want this?

????????

But all you NEED is ????????(to start with anyway)

So when you are talking to your builder you are looking for a bog-standard bungalow, not a 5-story mansion with a wrap-around balcony. This is a hard pill to swallow. The theory is if I build a perfect product with all the features and exceptional UX AND gamification, not only will people be knocking down my door for the product, they will keep coming back, right? Wrong, the overwhelming advice is to build something fast that will prove there is a demand, get your first paying customer, and rebuild it better later….?

Once you accept you are building to throw away, it gets easier.?

Step 2: explore all the options for no or low code before writing a line of code.

What No Code/low code

No Code/low code lets you build your app or platform without writing a line of code.? If you want a review of the best tools – here is a little library of video tutorials. Is it scaleable you ask? Ya, it is and when you get to your €500k ARR then you can upgrade and build a dev team in-house

Having it all duct-taped together with some manual elements in the early days is ok and even expected. Its all part of the messy middle journey and helps to prove your idea without breaking the bank. This is a? website to check out no-code tools. There are great Twitter communities for no code and there are tones of founders sharing experiences of how they are using no-code/low code here. Figure our what low code tools will help you build what you need for a fraction of the price.

WordPress

Say you want to create an Airbnb for foodies, well there is a WordPress template that exactly clones the Airbnb UX, features, and functionality. Simply set up a WordPress install using a hosting? service like WPEngine this is a self-hosted WordPress option (which ensures access to all of your code) - you can then use Envato (Themeforest) to search for themes and plugins. If there are features and functions you would like that are not in this template… don’t worry… use Zapier or Integromat to connect apps and automate workflows in a few clicks.

Here is Cathal Grennan explaining demoing how to do this?

Step 3 : Write down what you need?

And if you are not sure what you need, talk to an expert – RDI Hub has a panel of technical experts who you can soundboard your build with. Email? [email protected] or sign up for NDRC Office Hours or check out this list of genius’ that you can access ADP list.org. All of these are free and agnostic. A book that was recommended a couple of times which might be useful is ‘The Right It’.?

Step 4- Find the right partner?

You wouldn't ask an architect to build a bog-standard bungalow because you would not end up with what you asked for. An architect has no interest in building a bungalow. They want to create something architecturally significant. The same applies in the digital world. You need to find someone that understands you need a throwaway MVP. Developers are artists, they want to create something beautiful not bog-standard. Be aware that what they are interested in building and what you need may be different so you need to be explicit about what you want.

So who am I looking for you you ask? Well, if you are going down the no code/low code route there are lots of places to find your partner – Upwork and Fiverr are home to lots of no-code/low code specialists. One of the founders at the session had a hiring policy where they hire 10 and fire 9. Give the Upwork Freelancer a small paid project for $20-$100 and you'll find out very quickly who's up to scratch.?

If you are going down the developer route first you need to know what everyone does:?

Types of Web Developer? Niall Maher did some Jargon Busting for us

Full-stack (rare and difficult to gauge)

Backend (many, many different flavours)??

Frontend Developer (UI/UX developers)?

Also developers that specialise with a very particular tool such as WordPress, Joomla Drupal, Shopify, Wix (or content management systems).

Then there are the Native App Developers?

• Mobile Developer (Usually specialising in one type of device iOS or Android but also might be )?
• Desktop Developer (those old clickable icons that everyone used to use)

AND Even more developers…?

• Game Developer?
• Data Scientist?
• Big Data Developer
• DevOps Developer?
• Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)?
• Embedded Developer?
• Security Developer

So now you know what everyone does, how do you find the developer for you? Get a recommendation from another founder who built something similar to you. Scale Ireland has a super slack ground of nearly 1000s founders and ecosystem builders who are always ready to give a recommendation. George Bullman, operations Manager in Rubicon has good relationships with Dev shops Green Global who happily does the introduction to.?

Step 5 -The build

Eain Jones, COO Appliscale does a great job of demystifying the process of working with your developer/ no code partner, how to approach packages of work and how you can plan and manage your budget here

A couple of things to remember – Always own the code and get access to their repository ( Usually Gitlab. There are many stories of talented founders who have been held to ransom over their code.?

A really good book for this part of Ask your Developer

Step 6 Smell Test?

This is when you get someone independent to have a look at what your partner built to see if it does what it is supposed to. This does not need to be a CTO, this needs to be your 20-year-old neighbor who has some experience or a computer science grad. AWS also does a code audit for any paying customer

Step 7 Investor Readiness

Mike McAuliffe, COO of Aspen Grove joined us to explain Technical Due Diligence at the investment stage and what investors are watching out for.?

What is Technical Due Diligence?

First of all, technical due diligence is not something to be afraid of. It’s when an investor or partner reviews your product, people and processes for opportunities and understanding the limits of what you can do. ?

The product view has 2 aspects;

1. Business
2. Business Model
3. Value Proposition
4. Roadmap
5. Technology
6. Tech Stack
7. Security
8. Scalability

From a people perspective, there are a few things to consider

• Who are the key people, skillsets & roles (this can be employees, partners, mentors)
• What processes do you employ within your company. What tools does your team use?

At what stage of investment is it done?

All stages, to different degrees. At seed level, you won’t have all the pieces of the puzzle but the outline still stands up. The expectations from a technical diligence perspective are different depending on the funding stage you are at, the more mature the funding level, the more detail you are likely to need

Start with a simple deck that has the main areas outlined, keep this document up to date, make it a living document, and constantly revisit

Keep pertinent documents and policies up to date – you don’t need to have 100s of documents, keep it manageable and use it as a process to keep things in check (team, partners, technology, processes)

What are you looking at and more importantly what are the watching out?

Technical due diligence isn’t designed to catch anyone out, it’s a framework to evaluate opportunities and challenges. Challenges are okay, sometimes we can learn a lot in the diligence process that we can feed back into the product, or the technology

Do the basics really well

• Have an NDA in place
• Ensure you have your IP protected
• Create a secure document room where you can make relevant information available to the investor
• When sharing documents, ensure they are in PDF format and are marked confidential
• Don’t just rely on the team doing the tech diligence to have a process, most will, but have some steps outlined yourself in case they don’t

1. Intro, product demo & roadmap
2. Technical diligence & document room
3. Follow up questions & potential further sessions
4. Report

Link documents, make everything accessible from your deck via click if possible, and don’t let the reviewer ‘go fish’. Depending on your stage, diligence will have different considerations – but the basics never change

In the earlier investment stages, security, scalability and potentially even the tech stack aren’t the most important aspects, however, if you can demonstrate that you’ve given them some consideration and are thinking about where they are going, it does help

Finding a Technical Co-Founder

If all of this is not for you and you still want to go down the route of a technical co-founder, it's often someone you know already so look at your network first. Alternatively, https://www.joinef.com/ or sites like that can be useful. Protect yourself, put a vesting agreement in place. Seedlegals have some great templates here?

General tools recommendation from founders?

• Memberstack and Outseta are great for user logins and platforms also
• Integromat and Zapier are great tools also if you find a platform doesn't do exactly what you want
• Optimizely and Hotjar are a great places to start for A/B testing.
• Webflow, and unicornplatform.com for website development (low code)?
• No loco , Bubble,? App Sheet – low code web app?
• Diagrams for, you guessed it, Diagrams ??
• Figma and Balsamiq for wireframing?
• Notion Building a Management system
• Intercom or Tawk for chat
• Cloudways – webhosting?
• Trello and Atlassain – project management?
• Clay - CRM System for tracking all interactions across all platforms?

And all the other recommendations I have every got view access here.

Thank you

Big thank you to everyone that shared knowledge and experience on the day.?

It is only through sharing and pooling our knowledge that we can hack our way from startup to scale up?

Thank you to the fantastic Eain Jones, CEO of Appilscale who has been support and mentoring startups for as long as I can remember and Caoimhe Donnelly founder of Legitimate, Johnny Harte Founder of Sota, Allen Wixted Founder of Plop, and Evy Perez. Mike McAuliffe, COO of Aspen Grove. Cathal Grennan and Shane Gray and Niall Maher. ??