Top Challenges Faced by Non-tech Founders

If you have a great idea for an app or software, starting a tech business might seem like the obvious choice.

But it’s not as simple as it seems. The world of technology can be intimidating for non-tech founders who may not understand the ins and outs of these products.

With the right preparation, skills, and support team, you can take a leap of faith and launch your own successful tech business.

So to start the prep, here are the top 5 challenges faced by the non-tech founders in 2023.

What’s inside

• Top challenges a non-tech founder can face while building a tech business.
• Expert solutions to problems with detailed stats.
• Accounts of non-tech founders who proved the system wrong and built a booming business.
• And words of goodwill to inspire new non-tech founders to the mix.

How we got this “confidential” information

We had a long chat with our PMs and Analysts to know the challenges they have seen non-tech founders face. And they dropped some heavy truth bombs.

Let’s dig deeper.

Challenges ahead, proceed with caution

Building a business is not a cakewalk, and you will face these challenges in one form or the other. Better to be cautious than sorry.

1. Finding a tech co-founder

Every non-tech founder needs a technical counterpart who understands their visions and values.

There will be many tech maestros, but handpicking the one who understands you is never easy.

You’ll need a tech guy to help you with the product’s development costs and infrastructure. They can take the wheel while attending meetings with investors, incubators ..etc.

We are not explicitly saying that you can’t build tech without a technical partner, but it will be hard.  We’ve seen and helped companies out of the hole they dug themselves into due to the lack of tech expertise.

Here’s an interesting stat for you:

Companies with tech and non-tech founders perform 230% better.

Read more here to know more about how you can find the perfect tech co-founder for your company.

2. Clear-Cut Roles and Responsibilities

A founder is the first employee in a startup. As the company grows, they must clearly understand their roles and responsibilities.

Without the proper contribution, they will become a ghost from the past.

“A person who can’t contribute is not an asset but a liability” ~ Faiz Mohammaed,  NeoITO.

A great product won’t sell itself. You need proper market research and devise a plan that meets your customers’ needs. A non-tech founder can focus his attention on this business side of the company.

3. Hiring challenges

You can find this challenge in almost every write-up with its reasons.

Hiring the right people is a crucial part of building a startup. Building a great team from scratch is a herculean task. Amidst all the traffic of product ideation, development, and launch, things get crazy.

The real challenge is understanding whether the person is right for the business in the long run. As a non-tech founder, you can’t assess a tech person’s skill with certainty, but you can assess his humane qualities.

According to CB Insights, not having the right team is among the top 20 reasons startups fail.

Developers are like wolves. They work effectively in a pack to skyrocket productivity. Hiring a developer team of devs with synergy is a great productivity hack that many don’t know.

Outsourcing your development process or integrating with devs is a great option you can try out. If you are looking to integrate your team with expert devs, NeoITO can help you out.

4. Challenge of “unrealistic” deadlines and cost

The deadlines that your PMs put in front of you might seem a bit far-fetched, and you feel they are slacking off.

In 90% of events, that’s not the case.

Development tasks take time, and as a non-tech person, it might be hard to wrap your head around it.

Unrealistic deadlines are realistic when it comes to building a quality product. Our wired super devs can vouch for that.

The development cost may also seem like a lump sum to the common eye, and some people take advantage of the lack of knowledge. Software development costs include the following:

A good tech expert can help you out here. They can estimate what it would cost and how to cut down costs effectively.

5. Challenge of balancing business and product

This is a mental trap for a founder, non-tech and tech alike.

While the business aspect is important, the product is the base of the business, and you need to focus on that too.

Ultimately the market becomes your primary concern. Whether your product or service is a solution, the market needs, or is it something you need to hard-sell?

Doing the proper research to meet the target market goals and tweaking your product to suit it.

The roller coaster ride begins when the business aspects affect your product’s identity. Balancing the scales will be the challenge waiting for you in the dark.

For example, the first iPhone was a product that balanced what the market wanted and with a unique identity. But the latest iPhone 14 is an overpriced market bait that lost its identity.

How to tackle these challenges

You can deal with challenges in your own way. If you hit a roadblock, here are a few hacks to power you through.

HACKS

• Know your product development process and your team. So that you can understand what they are capable of and how they are doing it.
• Acquire basic knowledge like what APIs you use, the stacks…etc. so that you are on page with your PM.
• Hail services from hiring agencies
• Find a tech founder or a well-experienced CTO.
• Build connections through social events like Techathons. Establish professional relations through social media platforms.
• Surf websites like AngelList, CrowdForge, CoFoundersLab, etc., to find potential candidates.

Takeaway

Being a non-tech founder in a tech-savvy environment can be tricky, and these challenges will come to haunt you one at a time or all at once.

There are a lot more challenges that a non-tech founder may face along the way. The stages of MVP development will have challenges like what features to include, how to keep it within a budget and so on. The trick is to be prepared for anything.

These challenges in this write-up are rarely discussed, but those are faced by every non-tech founder alike in 2023. If you want to skip the tech hurdle and launch your product faster, get in touch with our product development experts today.