Non-Technical Founder? Where to Start Building Your Software Team

Who carries the technical direction

Someone has to turn what you want into technical choices, say what to build in what order, and check whether the result is good. In a young company that is rarely a job of its own. It usually goes one of two ways:

• Your first developer carries it. That works when the person is senior enough to make the choices on their own: pick the technology, set up the code and the tools, and tell you when something won't work. The developer reports to you and works for your company. You can hire that developer yourself or through Tunga.
• A technical co-founder takes it on, while also building the product. A co-founder shares the risk and owns part of the company. That search runs through your own network or founder communities.

Either way, you decide what the product does and for whom, and they decide how it gets built. When the team grows, they help you choose the next developers, and at some point carrying the direction can become a job of its own (see just raised funding?).

What goes wrong is a first developer who isn't senior enough for that, because there is nobody else. They build, nobody checks the choices, and the problems show up when the product has to grow.

What stays with you

• What the product has to do, and for whom. The customers, their problem, what the first version must do and what can wait. Write that down before the first conversation; your first developer turns it into a plan.
• The priorities. What gets built first is a business decision, so it stays yours. Your developer tells you what each choice costs in time.
• The company's accounts. Code accounts such as GitHub, cloud accounts, domains and app-store accounts in the company's name from day 1, never in a developer's (see what to do when a key developer left).

How do you judge a senior developer if you're not technical?

You judge what you can see yourself, and ask someone technical for the rest. Three things you can see without reading code: whether the person explains choices in words you understand, asks about your customers before the technology, and tells you early when something will take longer. For the technical side, bring someone you trust who is technical, a CTO you know or an adviser, to one of the conversations.

Everyone in Tunga's pool has also been through its selection: at least 3 years of experience, interviews, technical tests and a review of their code (see how Tunga selects professionals). When your first developer will also carry the direction, say so at the start, so the shortlist holds people senior enough for it. And if you still get it wrong, in the first 4 weeks either side can end the engagement at one working day's notice.

Building the team through Tunga

You can start with that one developer, part-time if the first version is small, and add developers when the plan asks for them, so the team grows with the product. What that costs is on terms and pricing. Everything the team builds is assigned to your company and lives in your company's repositories, so the product stays yours, whoever built it (see who owns the work).

When an agency fits better

If you would rather buy a finished first version for a fixed price than build a team, an agency that delivers a product fits better. The knowledge of how it is built then sits with the agency, so agree up front that the code lives in a repository in your company's name from day 1, and that documentation is part of the delivery.