00:00 oh yeah well Michael I could go do sales
00:03 that's not hard I can definitely reply
00:05 to emails yes you know I could well
00:07 doter are you going to do
00:13 that welcome to Dalton plus Michael
00:16 today we're going to talk about do you
00:19 need a business co-founder so many of
00:23 you have seen our video do you need a
00:25 tech co-founder I think we can summarize
00:30 yes now a far more complicated question
00:33 do you need a business co-founder it
00:35 would seem like these are you know yeah
00:38 okay one-on-one why are we making this
00:39 video why why do why is this interesting
00:41 question I think the short answer is yes
00:44 asterisk and I think this comes down to
00:48 definitions what does it mean to be a
00:52 non-technical founder and so if we
00:53 Define this as does every startup need
00:56 one person who can't Code full stop the
00:59 answer is of of course no that is what
01:02 why would you even ask that question no
01:03 but like I think people think like I
01:05 think we think that but we'll explain
01:09 we'll break this down and so let's talk
01:10 about the as so basically every company
01:13 has stuff that needs to happen yes right
01:17 and so to enumerate some of the tasks
01:19 that need to happen that are not related
01:21 to to writing code y let enies of these
01:25 incorporation yes Bank payroll like yes
01:29 you know bureaucratic filling out forms
01:32 paying taxes every year back office back
01:34 whatever you want to call it someone's
01:36 got to do that if not you are breaking
01:37 the law yep problem so someone has to do
01:40 that yes talking to customers someone
01:43 has to talk to a customer you don't need
01:44 to know how to write code to talk to a
01:46 customer right do not no so someone
01:48 needs to do that yes hiring people
01:51 that's not writing code but you have to
01:52 interview people whatever right people
01:54 won't just show up yeah sales is a
01:57 really important one we talk about this
01:58 a lot if no one on the team considers it
02:01 their job to do sales we have a problem
02:04 no sales will happen right and someone
02:06 that doesn't know how to code could do
02:08 sales yep fundraising is another one do
02:10 you need to know how to code to
02:11 fundraise no negative customer support
02:13 as well totally like replying to yeah
02:16 amen yes and so the point is as we're
02:18 enumerating all these anyone that is a
02:21 Founder could be doing these and is
02:23 qualified to do it yes but a technical
02:26 co-founder is just as qualified to do
02:28 these tasks as a non technical
02:30 co-founder these are smart human tasks
02:33 yeah smart generalist tasks and so we
02:36 have seen lots of cases where everyone
02:39 on the team may have a technical degree
02:42 yes but there's still a clear someone
02:45 knows they have to do this stuff right
02:47 man yes well I think that this is what's
02:49 so interesting is that it's much easier
02:52 for a technical person to do things that
02:55 just require general intelligence than
02:57 it is for a business person to learn how
02:59 to a code indeed as a business
03:03 person I can attest to this fact but I
03:06 think that you know you've brought up a
03:08 really good point um having the ability
03:11 to do these tasks is different from
03:13 having the appetite to do these tasks
03:15 and to do them well and let's triple
03:17 underline that word appetite yes it's
03:20 not oh yeah well Michael I can go you
03:22 know yeah do sales that's not hard I can
03:25 definitely reply to emails yes you know
03:28 I could well doter are you going to do
03:33 that long pause long pause I think maybe
03:36 I think you should look into
03:38 that I think this is extremely important
03:42 right and I think that when we're
03:43 looking into this question we have to
03:45 ask ourselves like who is going to adopt
03:47 these tasks and responsibilities it
03:49 could be a technical person it can be a
03:51 non-technical person you need someone on
03:53 your founding team who's willing to
03:54 adopt these tasks and do them well yeah
03:56 with Vigor with excitement with like
03:59 want to be the best in the world at
04:01 those tasks and not be grudgingly full
04:04 of excuses why they don't want to do it
04:06 or that work is beneath them or whatever
04:08 right bringing toxicity into the company
04:10 like no not that I also think what's
04:12 interesting is that if you are a
04:15 technical person and you happen to be
04:17 solving your own problem the idea that
04:20 you would need a business co-founder is
04:23 not only um confusing because you know
04:26 let's say You're Building A Dev tool
04:28 like your business co-founder probably
04:30 is not the right person to sell or
04:33 fundraise or hire or talk to customers
04:36 yeah um so literally the idea that you
04:40 couldn't do those tasks is actually
04:42 silly like a technical person should be
04:45 doing those tasks yes and if you're
04:47 solving your own problem it's technical
04:48 problem like it's kind of a no-brainer
04:51 that you don't need a business
04:52 co-founder maybe you need another Co I
04:53 mean this is an example you know we'll
04:55 talk about examples a little bit later
04:56 but like if you look at something like
04:57 Nvidia yeah all the found were technical
05:00 all of them were electrical engineers
05:01 with you know master's degrees or
05:03 something in electrical engineering when
05:04 you think about it how could a business
05:07 person with no technical background even
05:09 come up with the idea for NVIDIA or been
05:12 in a position to execute on it versus an
05:15 electrical engineer yeah and so the CEO
05:18 of Nvidia I don't think he spends a lot
05:19 of time coding to be honest with you but
05:21 the fact that he was a trained
05:23 electrical engineer with a history of
05:24 doing electrical engineering helped with
05:26 a specific vision of how to build a new
05:29 yes CPU company excuse me GPU company um
05:33 that seems important right seems
05:34 important I don't know if a a non-tech
05:36 Founder would have helped in video way
05:37 back in the day no um and certainly if
05:40 they would have helped it's not obvious
05:43 they would have been essential correct
05:45 and so I think that um this idea oh the
05:48 business person the MBA is essential
05:51 that's not like it's possible that the
05:54 technical person is essential and the
05:55 business person's not essential I think
05:58 the other thing that we think about
05:59 about a lot is let's say you don't want
06:02 to believe our Theory right talking
06:04 about Theory let's say Theory right I
06:08 don't like this because this is not
06:09 flattering to me Michael I'm I don't
06:12 like what you guys are saying because it
06:13 exactly doesn't help me um you could
06:16 just look at big companies and ask
06:20 yourself do there exist big companies
06:22 that have only technical Founders what
06:25 would you say to that question yeah I
06:26 mean let's look at the most valuable
06:28 companies on on the stock market Google
06:32 obviously two technical Founders yes in
06:35 video we just talked about is all
06:36 technical Founders yes Microsoft was two
06:39 technical Founders when they started
06:40 pretty valuable company pretty valuable
06:42 company so wait that's of the most
06:43 valuable companies in the world that's
06:44 three of them so far yeah you know
06:47 Facebook is complicated about who's
06:48 countered as a co-founder or not but
06:50 like you know Zuckerberg was a technical
06:51 founder in movitz and all that and then
06:53 if you look in the YC portfolio you know
06:55 strip yep Dropbox yep there's a theme
07:00 so sometimes I like to say like hey even
07:02 if you don't want to believe these
07:03 theories you know you could just look it
07:06 up right if this is your question do I
07:07 need a business co-founder you could
07:09 just look it up and be like well if
07:10 Google didn't need one yeah but people
07:12 will be able to point to other examples
07:14 and that's fair we're not we're not
07:16 saying that you shouldn't have one we're
07:18 just saying you don't need it yes this
07:20 is we're not arguing this is the
07:21 exhaustive truth yeah we're just saying
07:24 it is not absolutely necessary and we
07:26 are providing proof of said argument and
07:28 furthermore if you're using this as an
07:30 excuse to not make forward progress
07:33 that's kind of and here's a
07:35 here's a Cory to this is sometimes we
07:38 see when you're selling into an industry
07:41 where a non-technical Founder has does
07:44 have industry expertise and knows the
07:45 language of their customer that can be
07:47 very helpful again I'm not arguing
07:48 necessary smart people can learn
07:50 anything in my opinion okay but imagine
07:53 you wanted to sell uh legal software
07:55 sure if you had one of the founders who
07:57 instead of learning how to code in
07:59 college they went to law school and they
08:00 were practicing attorney and they knew
08:02 how to sell to attorneys that could help
08:04 that sounds pretty legit that could help
08:06 right let's say that you're selling
08:08 software to doctors in hospitals it
08:11 might help that there's someone who's a
08:13 doctor or yeah maybe you're making a
08:15 prescription drug or maybe you're making
08:16 a drug Distribution Company like yep
08:18 might help what I will say though is
08:20 that like don't let yourself be held
08:24 back by these fake limitations yeah
08:26 these are fake I think that's such a
08:28 great way to like close off this
08:29 thinking I think the reason we got a lot
08:32 of requests to this video I think it was
08:34 from technical Founders yeah that had
08:36 been told by like investors orb you need
08:40 you need a business founder yes and are
08:43 kind of looking for Our advice about
08:44 that or like they're not really sure
08:46 yeah and I think a lot of times when
08:48 investors give a Founder that feedback
08:49 which is you need a business co-founder
08:52 yeah they're actually giving you direct
08:55 feedback on what they see as a
08:57 deficiency in your appetite to do the
09:00 work yes yes in a polite way or or or
09:04 the quality that you did the work the
09:07 quality of your Petra the quality of how
09:09 you set up your your your company um but
09:12 that doesn't mean you don't have the
09:13 skills to do it yeah like if you meet
09:14 with someone like I don't want to do
09:16 sales I hate doing sales sales is bad
09:18 yeah a lot of advice would be yeah maybe
09:20 you should get an on- Tech founder right
09:21 well by the way that's why I hate that
09:23 advice because that advice is suggesting
09:25 the solution versus telling you the
09:26 problem which is like hey it
09:29 you might have to talk to your customer
09:31 like you don't seem like you like that
09:34 that's going to screw you there are many
09:36 ways of solving that you you could learn
09:38 to like it you could hire someone who
09:39 does you could hire an engineer who does
09:41 you can hire um but I do think that
09:44 don't believe this idea that there's
09:46 some magic with like one business person
09:48 Plus One tech person equals startup win
09:52 no no and I think along these lines
09:54 sometimes people have a lot of push back
09:56 of our advice on why you need a
09:57 co-founder full stop but our argument is
10:00 not you need a business co-founder to
10:01 teach you business because they went to
10:03 business school no it's just that this
10:05 is so hard you need another person to go
10:07 through this experience with it's not
10:09 that there's any one particular bit of
10:11 experience that is necessary right like
10:13 100% you need someone to offer emotional
10:16 support CU this thing is going to be
10:18 hard yeah yes yes all right good shot
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