He Wants To Start A Company Without Knowing How To Start A Business.

< p > over the past few months, I have talked with many non-technical entrepreneurs who want to start or are setting up a href= "http://www.91se91.com" > Company /a.

It's the difference of opinion that attracts me to these conversations.

I am a technical person, and I often have the idea of seeking after action. First, I will establish ingenious ideas and then ask questions.

But I noticed an interesting phenomenon: < /p >

< p > non-technical personnel often have the idea of seeking after action.

If they want to develop ingenious things, they will go out to win customers, even though their ability is to "sell".

They have an idea that maybe this idea is sketchy, and is hindered by the lack of technical personnel who can realize their ideas.

They only need a programmer. In this case, the programmer will be very sad to think why I need this person. < /p >

< p > so I have an idea: do not seek technical co founders, do not learn programming.

Use your current capabilities to try to serve the first business.

< /p >

< p > * * * < /p >.

< p > I graduated from YCombinator a few months ago.

One of the most interesting parts of this experience is the very close relationship with the same group of students.

I can see and experience almost all small struggles and successes in real time.

I can see a large number of different types of skills distribution - some of the founders are technical, while others are mainly non-technical - in many different ways to study their respective fields.

< /p >

< p > as a technical person, I have a special eye to see these companies that solve non-technical problems.

I appreciate and admire these "touting" skills.

In general, their way is: initially almost nothing was developed. Instead, they ran to the sidewalk to get customers to buy the services they provided manually. When they got more customers, they developed things to relieve the pain of manual labor.

It even works for a technical team, enterprise API.

When invoked, the API sends emails to the founders, who will do the work manually, and then return the results.

< /p >

< p > this method has been printed on my mind. Now I think there are two types of startups: technology first and service first.

< /p >

< p > < strong > definition < /strong > < /p >.

< p > technology first type products are those products that need to be developed to show how to work.

Google (micro-blog) is the first technology product, game, productivity application software and so on.

The main point of technology first product is that you can't get users before product development, because it depends very much on technical work.

You can't forge new search engines or file synchronization utilities.

Mark Anderson (Mark Andreesen) defines this as technology or product risk.

Elimination of product risk requires technical personnel.

< /p >

< p > service first type product takes service or community as the core.

Groupon, Airbnb, Exec and TaskRabbit are typical examples.

These companies rarely need technology at the very beginning - the risks of technology and products are inherently low.

They are just peddling around.

Perhaps your idea is a market that links developers of windows to people who buy windows. First of all, the relationship between developers of windows and those who buy windows can be seen without technology.

The technology used later is to help expand the scale.

The first service product may be a subset of the tractive start-ups called by Ben Pal (Ben Parr).

< /p >

< p > < strong > only service first type product < /strong > /p >

< p > in almost all cases, my conversation with non-technical personnel shows that their ideas contain the idea of technology first.

Don't do this! < /p >

< p > take advantage of your strengths and find the idea that you can use this advantage immediately.

< /p >

< p > the technology needed for research is just the idea of blog or simple website.

Do not consider technology, consider how to make services or communities run in micro ways.

100% provide your services manually until no more people or technology can do it.

< /p >

"P" as a non - Technical founder, you may be good at building and maintaining relationships.

You may be good at selling.

You may be good at propagandize, so people look at the prospects or ideas you describe.

These are amazing and hard to acquire skills.

These skills do not need to be used immediately when you develop photo sharing applications, but can be used immediately when developing a new market.

< /p >

< p > if you can prove that your service or community work can run in a micro way without much development, you will have great advantages when you are trying to find technical co founders, and there may be investors.

< /p >

< p > in practice, when I was at the party, I did not meet a non skilled worker who did such errands.

If they had, I could have treated them very seriously and their thoughts.

< /p >

< p > < strong > look for ideas < /strong > /p >

< p > How do you find these ideas? It seems that many of these ideas are in the market.

Do you know where there is potential supply? Do you have a new way to collect this information? Can you connect it with buyers? Can you bring expensive luxuries to ordinary people (such as hairstylists and personal assistants)? < /p >

< p > is it difficult for you to acquire skills? For example, in all vertical markets, businesses are afraid of marketing. Maybe you can help them? Maybe in a specific vertical market? < /p >

< p > what kind of people do you know? A lot of lawyers, engineers, builders, and maybe what they need can you provide? < /p >

< p > I am lucky enough to see some YC students doing a great job in establishing the first enterprise.

I can't write everything about them, so I chose only two examples and explained my views through these examples.

< /p >

< p > < strong > Vayable < /strong > /p >

< p > Vayable connects tourists to local people who provide experience.

It can be regarded as AirBnB of tourism activities.

Vayable Jamie Wang (Jamie Wong) wants to go anywhere in the world, hoping that the locals will tell her all the interesting places.

< /p >

In P months, Vayable technology contains only WordPress blogs.

She started from San Francisco, the first step is to find a tour guide.

All the work was wandering around the place.

She contacted friends, friends of friends and travel bloggers to be tour guides in San Francisco.

She even held parties to find interested people.

< /p >

< p > after having some tour guides, she began to look for tourists.

Her first group of tourists came from a gifted move: she entertained Airbnb guests, understood what they wanted to see and made travel plans for them.

< /p >

< p > for example, one of the guests wants to visit a new company.

Jamie, who knows new ventures, has recently been introduced to three people who once worked as professional tour guides.

They agreed to take a trip to the new company.

Then she hurried to find more people: she sent out leaflets, went to a new company party, and even invited some of her local friends to join.

< /p >

< p > Jamie discovered potential supply.

We know that people are very familiar with their cities and are eager to show their cities, especially to get some pocket money.

Tourists like remote roads and experience local flavor and personal experience.

She can find these things and let people pay her money.

She has no technology, only a blog that provides a little information, several tour guides' photos, some video recommendation guides, and others are peddling.

< /p >

< p > < strong > Tastemaker < /strong > /p >

< p > Tastemaker is the service that lets indoor a target= "_blank" href= "http://www.91se91.com/" > designer < /a > to owners.

They bring interior decoration services - luxury goods - to the owners according to the budget classification.

< /p >

< p > Tastemaker is actually developing a slightly different product -- Pinterest for home furnishings.

Their current product, the decoration service market, comes from simple tasks: understanding how people buy household products.

After digging deep into the problem area and talking with a large number of target customers, they find that people have many choices in shopping, but they really need help in design space.

< /p >

So p began to talk with interior decoration companies, and many of them were interested in online small businesses to fill the gaps in the schedule, but did not know how to find customers. Tastemaker

This is an epiphany.

Tastemaker knows that they will become the match, promote their interaction and bring decoration work.

< /p >

< p > they are the supply side of the market, but most owners do not need interior decoration services, so the market demand needs to be proved.

< /p >

< p > they asked some of the decoration companies in the initial conversation to become "inventory".

Three decoration companies agreed.

At this point, Tastemaker's two technology founders began developing web applications, but there are many unresolved issues about how to work.

The 2 non-technical founders are not waiting for them to complete, but go out to look for customers.

They do not have websites, so they do everything with pen, paper and e-mail.

< /p >

< p > by digging their personal network, they found the first customers.

They ask everywhere until they find someone wants to decorate the house, then talk to them about the needs, and contact the decoration companies that meet their requirements most.

< /p >

< p > the initial work went smoothly.

They made money and found that the interior decoration market is feasible and can become a real business.

Like Vayable, they didn't do any previous work in technology.

Tastemaker looks for suppliers in excess, helps them to contact buyers, interact and complete everything manually.

In the process, they understand that customer / decoration companies should be interactive, which helps them develop web applications and meet the needs of customers and decoration designers.

< /p >

< p > < strong > conclusion < /strong > < /p >.

< p > I hope you -- a href= "http://www.91se91.com" > technology < /a > founder -- find ideas in areas where your skills have advantages. You can make great progress without any technology in these areas.

I absolutely believe that technology is very important to business in my sample company.

But this is not the core, not the main.

Without services, technology is meaningless.

When the enterprise develops to a certain scale and eliminates manual pain, it needs application technology.

< /p >

< p > your skills are very valuable.

Vayable, Tastemaker and many other companies have proved that it is possible to start from scratch.

So I urge you to take advantage of what you already have.

< /p >