Evan Carmichael explains why launching a tech startup without coding skills requires finding a technical co-founder, not just hired developers. He points to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at Apple as the model: one handles vision and sales, the other builds the product. Equity partnership keeps your technical founder committed long-term.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. In today's video, I'm going to answer a question from one of my readers, Tumi Sang, who is asking about starting a new technology company. So he wrote in saying, "I wanna start an IT firm that deals with apps, uh, but I'm a creative person and I don't have the coding skills." I just finished my university program in finance and economics, and I've been running a promotional business for 4 years. Where do I start? Where do I go? So, Tumi Sang, thanks for the question. Very common question I get asked by a lot of companies who are trying to get started in technology. Usually in technology, you'll find you need 2 people to get it going. You have the guy who's really good at coding and the guy who's really good at sales and marketing. And very, very rarely, do those skills overlap? You should meet the person who's super good at that coding, and usually those guys are not really extroverted and want to go out and do the sales and marketing. And usually the sales and marketing guys have an understanding of technology, but they're not the high-end coders who can really take your company to that next level. So it's very common in technology. Just look at Apple as an example. You had Steve Jobs, who was a sales and marketing guy, the visionary, you know, building the company. And Steve Wozniak, who was the coder, the engineer who was creating all the great technology for the company. So for you, it's finding that extra person. So there's two ways to do it. If you're the sales and marketing guy, you need to find the coder. You need to find the technology genius who's gonna help you build your company. And together you can do great things. So the two ways to do it is one, find a partner. So like Apple, and you have your, you know, co-partner, and you find your Steve Wozniak. Or you hire somebody to come on and help you. What I found is the partnership route is usually the best way to go, but it all depends on finding the right person. Starting a partnership is like getting married, and make sure you have to have that right person on board you have a good relationship with and you can be with for a very long time, because it's gonna hopefully take that long with your business. Uh, if you're hiring somebody, then you're always at the mercy of their knowledge, and they may not be emotionally tied to the company because they don't own a piece of it. It's really hard to be a technology company without having a technology person who's really committed to the company. So if they walk up and leave because they don't have any kind of equity stake in the business, you're really stuck. And so you really want to have that person on board as much as possible. And you may at the start just start off hiring some people to get you going, build the technology up, but I would look for an eye for the future, to have somebody that you can really trust, be your partner in this business to help get it going. So I wouldn't lose hope. I think there's a lot of opportunity. You just need to make sure you find that right person to be able to work with to build the company. And there's a lot of guys who are on the other end of the situation where they're the coders, they're the technology guys with great ideas, and they just wish they found somebody who could help them be the Steve Jobs in sales and marketing and grow that business for them. So hopefully that helps. If you guys like the video, I'd love to hear what you have to say. If you want to leave a comment under the video, and I'd also always appreciate any thumbs ups you want to give us on YouTube, and stay tuned for the next episode.
