How to Start a Tech Company Without a Technical Background

A "unicorn" is a startup with a valuation north of a billion dollars, so-called because of their extreme statistical rarity.

In order to build a unicorn, a founder will need the magic combination of:

• A disruptive idea
• Great tech
• Even better timing
• Product-market fit
• A dedicated, well-organized team

This might make anyone think that the only way to launch a successful tech startup is to come from a background steeped in product and engineering. However, the opposite is often true.

Of the 1,200 unicorns worldwide, research by the VC firm Cowboy Ventures shows that 40% of them were founded by entrepreneurs who don't have technical backgrounds.

Instead, building a successful tech startup company is all about leveraging your strengths and then strategically building a team to complement your weaknesses. We'll share some tips below.

Tech Unicorns With Non-Technical Founders

More than a handful of non-technical visionaries have changed the world with their ideas over the last few decades. This list includes current and previous unicorns like:

• Canva, Melanie Perkins - As a communications major in college, Perkins worked as a graphic design tutor. She had noticed how many students were struggling to learn Adobe Photoshop, and she identified it as a hole in the market. 
• Airbnb, Brian Chesky - A former bodybuilder, Chesky was making $40,000 per year as an industrial designer while he was getting his idea for a peer-to-peer rental service off the ground.
• Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Heard - Heard was previously the VP of marketing at Tinder, where she identified a market need for a matchmaking app that was safer for women. 
• Pinterest, Evan Sharp - Sharp holds a degree in history from the University of Chicago, and he hatched the idea for Pinterest as a virtual bulletin board that could also serve as a catalog.
• Snap, Evan Spiegel - As an art student in college, Spiegel and one of his fraternity brothers created what would eventually become SnapChat, which now has 397 million daily active users.

Of course, we should also mention that Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman also launched their companies without technical backgrounds.

What Do All Of These Founders Have In Common? They Knew Someone Who Could Code

Each of the founders we listed above works closely with a technical cofounder.

In other words, even though you don't need an engineering background to found a technology startup, you do need engineering expertise to bring your startup idea to life and scale it.

If you aren't lucky enough to get introduced to Steve Wozniak by a mutual friend, or have your technical cofounder sitting across from you at your college dorm, what can you do?

• Of course, start with your network. Do you know someone, or do you know someone who knows someone who'd be passionate about building your idea?
• Check online meetups and directories, like Ycombinator's cofounder matching service.

If you are still coming up empty-handed after trying the above, you can also:

• Work with an external software development agency. Outsourcing can rapidly speed up the development of a minimum viable product, with the downside being that you'll be working with a vendor rather than a partner.
• Finally, as Poppy founder Avni Patel Thompson recently said, it might be good to keep your idea in your back pocket, find a job at a tech company and meet as many people as you can in the hopes of meeting your future CTO. Patience can pay off, sometimes.

In the end, launching a successful, disruptive idea can require creativity and outside-the-box thinking on your part. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.

Don't Be Afraid to Get Scrappy

As an early stage company, especially when you're pre-investment, being successful is all about turning constraints into opportunities.

That starts with resources. As Brian Chesky told Forbes:

"We had a saying that you would do everything by hand until it was painful. So Joe and I would photograph homes until it was painful, then we get other photographers. Then we'd manage them with spreadsheets until it was painful. Then we got an intern."

Being strategic with how you spend money can keep your costs low and extend your runway.

Whether they be financial, human or material, maximizing your resources involves prioritizing what really matters for building a product for your customers and being creative with how you do it.

That is what led us to build Archie, our AI-driven product architect.

Archie Can Be Your 'Someone Who Knows How to Code'

If we take a step back, we are standing at a transformational point in the history of the tech industry.

Rapid advances in generative AI have made it possible for workers in a range of industries — from human resources to software development, customer service, film and writing — to do their jobs more quickly and more effectively.

We're not suggesting that AI replace anyone doing these jobs, but rather that it helps them do their jobs better.

That's the benefit that Archie offers to non-technical founders. It helps compliment your weaknesses and handle the technical aspects better.

The way it works is simple: Give Archie a short description of your product idea. Archie will quickly get to work with end-to-end ideation and architecting of your business plan.

Ideation Benefits

With Archie's AI-driven capabilities, non-technical founders can seamlessly transform their ideas into structured, actionable plans. Here’s how Archie enhances the ideation process:

1. Rapid Conceptualization - Archie compresses months of brainstorming and planning into minutes, delivering a comprehensive digital blueprint of your application. This acceleration enables founders to quickly iterate and refine their ideas.
2. Enhanced Creativity - By automating the tedious aspects of ideation, Archie allows founders to focus on creativity and innovation.
3. Thorough Exploration - Archie ensures your project is well-defined from the start. It detects potential issues, such as compliance and security concerns, and makes suggestions to enhance the value and feasibility of your project.
4. Collaboration and Clarity - Archie’s digital blueprints provide a clear, shared vision of the project, making it easier to communicate your ideas to potential partners, investors and team members. This clarity fosters collaboration and ensures everyone is on the same page from the outset.

Architecture Benefits

Archie doesn't just help you mull over ideas; it excels in providing detailed, accurate and scalable architectural plans.

1. Detailed Requirements - Archie dives deep into the specifics of your application, creating detailed requirements, user types and module definitions. 
2. Visual Architecture - Archie generates a complete user interface system and wireframes for your application in minutes.
3. Technical Blueprint - Archie defines the technical architecture based on the captured requirements. This blueprint includes everything from data models to system architecture, providing a clear roadmap for development teams to follow. This also makes it easier for you to communicate with technical members of your staff.
4. Future Proofing - Archie’s architecture plans are designed to be scalable, accommodating future growth and changes. 

By using Archie for both ideation and architecture, non-technical founders can confidently navigate the complexities of starting a tech company. 

Next Steps

• Give Archie a try! (It's free to get started)
• Find out more in the Archie docs