Do you need to be an expert in coding to build a successful startup??

[Ankesh]

Thanks Duane for starting an interesting discussion. My thoughts are of course biased - as I'm a non-technical founder of a tech startup.

What good developers want is not a technical founder. What they want is a good working environment. Challenging work. Reasonable pay.

Now, to create a good working environment - the developers do require that other awesome developers sit next to them.

And a non-technical person really has no clue on how to go about hiring awesome developers. There in lies the problem. Most non technical founders end up hiring mediocre folks who seem awesome. (And I've been guilty of this too in the past.) Which creates a boring work environment.

So a non-technical founder has to figure out a way to get past this. And hire awesome folks. Maybe ask awesome developer friends to conduct the interviews. Maybe sponsor hacker events and hire folks who win a challenge. But find a way to hire people that are awesome. If he can do that, he can succeed without learning to code himself. If he can't do that, it'll be a struggle to execute the ideas and achieve success.