I started my first big endeavour without having any proper knowledge about the tech I wanted to build nor entrepreneurship. Yes.
To make things worse, the people who talk tech are often not interested in people skills and communication. There is an undeniable gap between those that focus on the tech-hard skills versus those that focus on the business-skills part. And it often come to situations that feel like the tech-development team versus the stakeholders. (Internal and external)
As a founder, you will, at some point, experience that crossfire of tech versus stakeholder, undoubtedly.
Scaling up organisations and work structures involves being able to guide, lead, and build up people, so they can help others grow as well. This is an intersection where you stand Here is what is beneficial to know if you aim to start a software startup as a non tech founderbetween interest groups.
There are skills that are beneficial to know of, if you aim to start a software startup as a non tech founder
Generally, the non tech founder profits from having knowledge about people skills, next to the business, project management and planning skills you have to build up.
This means to understand communication, change management, team organisation, and empathetic problem solution. The non tech founder needs to be able to think critically and to be adaptable leaders.
Computer / Technological Skills.
Not a joke. You need to understand the broad handiwork you deal with. Not in detail, but when you look at the code/diagram/app architecture, you get the gist when the programmer simplifies it for you. I chose Python as my base programming language. I am not good at it. However, the logic behind different computer programming languages is almost always somewhat similar, so I can sit next to my dev and, along the lines, understand what we are talking about and why it is important.
At the very least, it allows you to simplify the upward feedback and create different levels of abstractions, depending on the audience. A positive effect is that this takes the fire away from the developers and aims it at me so that they can do their job.
Persuasiveness.
Listen to the team and stakeholders and convince them to follow a path, an idea, to identify themselves with your goal and mission. If you can't, you can not keep them all on track, as all have vastly different experiences and approaches for the same problems. You don't have to be a wordsmith or manipulator, but distinctive politeness and the steadfastness of saying NO make a whole lot of difference when talking to people. Ask questions, let them think and investigate so they get interested and invested. I they think they had the idea themselves, I do not say no to them. And usually, neither do they.
(My book recommendation: Flip the Script)
Analytical and Quantitative Skills.
You have to be able to follow and apply logic, interpret data and use it to base your arguments. Else you are lost when having a group of data analysts. Learning some analysis also makes your life easier, especially if you have to link tech data to finance and business strategy folks. If you have difficulties with diagrams and numbers, open Youtube and go over some crash course videos about what you need to know to get you up to speed, and then have the others explain you the details in Person. Let them see you are interested and invested in the principle of what they are doing, and people tend to share their work with you. If you don't care, neither will they.
Contextualise / See the Big Picture.
Taking the one step back to keep the team on the overall mission & seeing where it leads to is what you do as a founder. You have to be the stakeholder, product manager, scrum master, and strategic business lead in one when building a startup. Seeing the big picture means you stay on track.
This is tough if you are into development yourself. Make sure you reserve some block times on a regular base where you can go to your project wall to see where you are, and what needs to be done. I took a product owner course and online scrum courses simply for the reason to understand the idea behind sprints in scrum and how to plan the items on the todo list (called backlog) for my team. Two days of study for me, it paid out 100times for my team.
Communication and Interpersonal Skills.
Precise communication is a superpower. If it is not clear what you want, how you get there, what people do and how they measure success, you probably start to experience a high employee turnover rate at some point. Be concise and clear with your communication, so people understand what you want to say without you having to repeat the same thing several times.
Emotional Intelligence.
Building a remote team, especially over different time zones and cultures, is super hard. You need to know who needs attention and how to integrate everyone to feel like a team.
If you are not good with empathy and prefer to rely more on facts, data and output/value, I recommend that you start by listening more when people are having hard times and that you talk less during these times. Things like
I hear you.
How are you?
What can I do for you?
If you need help, let me know, my door is always open for you'
make a big difference.
You don't always need to come up with a solution on the spot, even if it is your job to do so as founder. People are not rational machines and often times just listening without saying a lot is all that it takes for your team to know that you care and that you are willing to listen.
Curiosity and Learning Desire.
The market changes, clients do, your team's needs do, so you have to be a person that wants to stay updated. You can also foster it in your team. Offer possibilities to expand their horizon and grow as individuals, to keep improving, to have somewhere to develop themselves towards - if they want that, that is. If you have a team that wants to stick with you for the long run, you have a team that sticks with you when things get hairy. And it will.
No one is born into leadership with extraordinary skills; instead, we develop skills, we learn from others and become leaders through experience and even more practice.
We need to accept that leadership style may need to change depending on the circumstances. Like a professional athlete, we must constantly learn to adapt and change with the industry, technology, and personal growth. You, and the people you put in charge.
In general, I recommend that the people that link the tech side to the business people or those who lead teams do get some soft skill training.
It will make your life a lot easier in the long run.
Thanks for your time
cheers
Andreas
Additional Notes
Balcar, J. (2016). Is It Better To Invest In Hard Or Soft Skills? The Economic and Labour Relations Review. 27(4), pp. 453–470.
Jones, M, Baldi C, Phillips C & Waikar A. (2017). The Hard Truth About Soft Skills: What recruiters look for in business graduates. College Student Journal, 50(3), pp. 422ff.