I have been a "business co-founder" for many years. I learned to program at a professional level 5 years ago. Today, i spend most of my time as a "tech-co-founder".
Now that I am on the tech side (and argubaly, product development side), my value is through the roof. Here is what I mean:
- The business co-founder types will convince you that "selling" the product is the main thing. They are right. But sales starts with WHAT you build. That is, with product development. What you decided to build and what you are able to build is very much a part of the marketing.
- Selling a well positioned product (where position starts during product development) is much easier that 'force-raming' your product to people who do not want it. 'force-raming' is the main marketing skill most people have.
- Ideas mean absolutely nothing.
- Marketing is important but it's not hard to learn the important parts. In fact, I can give it to you right now: (1) start your marketing at product dev time. Decide which specific problem you will solve, then solve it, (2) Find a community to share your finished MVP to them. Don't just spam the community, join it for a while, make friends, chat, add to the conversation and (3) refine the early product with the early users from said community. Then supercharge marketing with some ads (FB or Google).
^^ this is the 0-1000 user plan. And developers can do this without a "business co-founder"
I have been a "business co-founder" for many years. I learned to program at a professional level 5 years ago. Today, i spend most of my time as a "tech-co-founder".
Now that I am on the tech side (and argubaly, product development side), my value is through the roof. Here is what I mean:
- The business co-founder types will convince you that "selling" the product is the main thing. They are right. But sales starts with WHAT you build. That is, with product development. What you decided to build and what you are able to build is very much a part of the marketing. - Selling a well positioned product (where position starts during product development) is much easier that 'force-raming' your product to people who do not want it. 'force-raming' is the main marketing skill most people have. - Ideas mean absolutely nothing. - Marketing is important but it's not hard to learn the important parts. In fact, I can give it to you right now: (1) start your marketing at product dev time. Decide which specific problem you will solve, then solve it, (2) Find a community to share your finished MVP to them. Don't just spam the community, join it for a while, make friends, chat, add to the conversation and (3) refine the early product with the early users from said community. Then supercharge marketing with some ads (FB or Google).
^^ this is the 0-1000 user plan. And developers can do this without a "business co-founder"