A couple of months ago I wrote an articled titled Do You Need to be a Programmer to Found a Startup?. My main point was that, despite not being strictly essential, having a technical background helps A LOT if you want to found a tech company (be it a website like Digg or an app like Instagram).
The main argument of people who say otherwise is that you can be a business person and hire programmers (either freelancers or full-time) to take care of the technical part.
Whoever says this, in my opinion, either never tried to do it themselves or were incredibly lucky and picked the right people the first time around.
This model works sometimes, sure, but what I see 90% of the time is the project flopping completely or getting launched much later than expected, with a much higher cost.
Now that my company is focusing on mobile and web development I see examples pretty much weekly with the clients that contact us.
Just yesterday a guy called me asking for a quote. He told me he and his partners had this really great idea for a mobile app, but that the company they hired to code it took $6,000 upfront and failed to deliver a working version of the app. Not only that, they waited for five months before they realized no app would be coming their way anytime soon…
Now they are desperate to get another company to develop it before someone else comes up with the same idea, though they have a much smaller budget to get it done.
If the founders had a technical background I am pretty sure they could have developed the app in two months. And that’s the main advantage of being able to do the stuff yourself: you don’t need to rely on other people, and you can put the amount of effort you find necessary to get the project done.
Also, it’s unlikely that they will hit a home run with their first app/business, so imagine what a nightmare it’s going to be if every time they come up with a cool idea they need to go through this process again.
I am not saying you must become a world-class programmer. But getting to learn at least some of the technical aspects of your business can help you a lot, be it HTML, CSS, PHP, web hosting, WordPress, graphic design, copy writing, and so on.
Is it tough to learn that stuff? Sure. Is it worth it? You bet.
Original Post:
Here’s Why Being Technical Helps, A Lot 
