Being a technical founder is arguably the strongest way to start. As with almost anything in the world, this strenght may actually turn into a weakness if not managed right. I’ve tried to condense the things I wish I knew when I started as a technical co-founder. startup If you feel you’re too late, it’s (usually) fine When I started to build Botsociety, it looked to me. It looked we were too late. There must be a solution to design conversational interfaces! For quite some time I suspected I was actually typing the wrong query. I later learned that this is Usually founders think they are too late, but they are often too soon. Keep that feeling as it’s a good forcing function to move fast. But don’t get overwhelmed. Shoutout to for teaching me this early on. inevitable Google normal for founders. Martino Bagini Pricing and marketing are just another code variable If you are a technical founder, you will be tempted to fast-track the product iteration compared to marketing/pricing/sales experiments. I did this mistake a lot. We were shipping 3 new features a week (product iteration) but we were not changing pricing or marketing for . This mistake almost killed the company. I later discovered that the best way, for me, to think about price and marketing is to consider them just another code variable — and change them with the same pace as the rest of the product. If you do this early on, you will learn a lot quicker on key areas that can make the difference between life and death. Shoutout to for teaching me this. chatbot months Chris Neumann Build, then articulate If you are a technical founder, you usually do not need to explain your idea to anybody in order to build anything. Co-founders do not count as they “live” with you. This is probably the best way to start, as you can move much faster. The downside is that you may the of being able to from day one. Being able to articulate your idea will allow you to get the message right, and will speed up the recruitment of users, customers and eventually employees. If you have never seen it, I suggest to watch to learn to articulate a 30 seconds pitch. The rest will probably stem from there. underestimate power articulate your idea this lesson You also have something you wish you knew when you started? Please share it in the comments!
