From JeffreyTalajic.com
One of the chief problems with being non-technical and starting a technical startup is that you can’t evaluate talent or evaluate the work that’s been done. A technical co-founder can do that for you, but recruiting one is more than just finding a tech guy with legit chops. He needs to share your passion and vision and be a true co-founder, not just a hired CTO.
Technical co-founders are not there really to write code. They’re present to help put together the proposal and costings. They’re important when doing the first technical hires as they can spot bluffers and talk to the talented.
In Crucible Design, I was the “technical co-founder”. In Mac-Sys, it was the same. I was the guy who knew the bits and bobs about the product or service even if I didn’t know everything about the business. And in both cases it stood us well because I’m pretty competitively curious when it comes to things I’m interested in. For Infurious, I was no longer the technical guy and I think I felt redundant because of that.
But for the next venture (whether that is Alien Salvage, Furukontakuto or whatever), I’m likely to be the product guy and only partly the business guy. But I will need some sort of co-founder and I’m thinking they need to be more into design than code. I’m still looking.