It seems impossible to build a successful tech company if you’re not a tech person. However, Apple, Airbnb, Alibaba, Pinterest, and Snap are all examples of successful tech startups founded by someone who wasn’t a tech person.
I, too, was a non-technical founder who started a tech company. Although I have a BSEE (Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering) and some patents, I had been on the business side of a tech company for years. I knew I wasn’t going to be the technical soul of the company I was building.
So the challenges I faced were similar to those a non-technical CEO would face. I think there are three unique challenges that all non-technical CEOs face:
“Who’s going to be your VP of engineering?” That was the question I was asked by Jack, an investor who was preparing to make us an offer.
My company’s founding VP of Engineering, “John,” had resigned almost a year earlier. I was running engineering on an interim basis, so I told Jack the truth. “For now I’m in charge of engineering until we find a replacement.”.
“That’s what I thought you would tell me.”Jack said. “However, there is too much risk for me to invest until you find a full-time VP of Engineering.”
I didn’t argue with Jack because he was right. Plus, I was very close to bringing Jeroen on board as the new VP of Engineering. Two weeks later, I sent Jack an email to let him know that we had brought Jeroen on board. I included his resume.
Jack responded instantly. “Great. His resume is impressive. Set up a meeting with him for me. I’ll give you a term sheet if the meeting goes well.”The meeting between Jeroen and Jack went well, so we received a term sheet.
The reality is that as a non-technical CEO, investors will not see you as technically strong enough.
Don’t try to be something you’re not. Instead, hire a great VP of Engineering who can help you. This brings us directly to point number two…
You’ve hired a great VP of Engineering. And yes, your great VP of Engineering is going to lead the technical recruiting effort.
But guess who the other technical recruiting leader is? That’s right, it’s you.
In my case, about half of the founding engineering team came from my efforts, and the other half came from Jeroen’s efforts. That doesn’t mean I didn’t interview the engineers Jeroen hired.
You’ll need to interview every first engineer your company hires. In fact, you’ll want to interview at least the first fifty employees you hire. Again, the key is not to try to be something you’re not.
Remember what I’m telling you. You will fail if you try to demonstrate your technical strength. Great engineers will immediately see you as a fraud.
Your first job is to assess potential engineers to see if they fit culturally into the company. Your second job is to sell potential engineers on your vision for the company.
You don’t need to be a technical wizard to do this. What you do need is to ask good questions, listen well and clearly articulate the company’s vision.
Now that you have a great technical team, you can’t ignore the technical part. On the contrary…
You have to continue to be very involved in the technical side of the business. I know this seems like the opposite of what I’ve been saying, but it’s not. Let me explain.
Being heavily involved in the technical side of the business doesn’t mean you’re going to try to solve the technical problems your team faces. Being heavily involved in the technical side of the business means you’re going to use your common sense to ask questions.
The best non-technical CEO I have ever seen was Jack Gifford at Maxim Integrated Products. Gifford had a BSEE, but had worked in marketing and sales for years before founding Maxim.
That didn’t stop him from asking logical, probing questions of the coaching staff when things went wrong. “Why don’t we ask that?”was a constant theme heard when leaving a meeting with Gifford.
In addition, you need to be very involved in the direction of the product and the characteristics of the company. Again, this requires common sense.
Let me give you an example. To stay ahead in a key product area, we needed to develop a product that could operate at +2.7V, but double the voltage of a key part of the device to +5V.
There are well-known circuit techniques that use an off-chip inductor and capacitor to achieve this. However, our customers did not want to use expensive inductors. They just wanted us to use cheap capacitors.
Chuck, a brilliant engineer I was working with on the product, told me it couldn’t be done. I challenged Chuck and said: “Why not? It seems possible to me.”
Chuck got angry. It was Friday afternoon, he stormed out of the meeting and presumably went home.
On Monday morning, Chuck came into my office and left a piece of paper on my desk. No, it wasn’t his resignation. It was a new circuit technology that would allow us to do what we wanted. By the way, we ended up patenting Chuck’s idea, too!
I wasn’t trying to be something I wasn’t. You can do the same. You just have to be logical and not be afraid to ask your technical team the hard questions.
Don’t try to be something you’re not. Instead, be comfortable with who you are and what you bring to the table.
Great technologists recognize the value that non-technical people bring.
Jeroen, who replaced John as founding VP of Engineering, and I used to have the following conversation all the time:
I told him: “I think the hardest thing to find is really good engineering talent.”
Jeroen said: “I think the hardest thing to find is really good marketing talent.”
I was amazed at the technological prowess of the great engineers. Jeroen was amazed at the skill required to do good marketing.
I never declared myself a technical genius to the team. I was comfortable with what I was and what I wasn’t.
The team respected me for what I brought to the table. I suspect that if I had tried to be something I wasn’t, we would have had a lot of turnover on our engineering team.
Remember: be true to yourself and you will do well.
