Question
How do you start a tech startup as a non-technical person?
Answer
If you really have serious "capital" (like north of 200k from a trust-fund) become an investor, not a founder. Find a couple of other older people with some experience and their own warchests, form an angel group. 200k will allow you to participate in like 4-5 good ideas within a year, and as an investor with good partners, you'll learn far faster than on the founder side. Founding is for people with no money, or people who've done it before. Money can buy you into the game in smarter ways. In particular it gives you the luxury of portfolio diversification which most founders lack.
Another benefit of investing over founding is that, as a guy with some spare cash and founder ambitions, you will attract smooth-talking coder-conmen eager to flatter your "business savvy" and part you from your money. If you introduce yourself as an angel investor, you immediately trigger a very different and more honest courtship ritual. You can always dive into one of your investments as an active player if things work out right.
Capital is valuable. Don't blow it on ill-conceived "I want my own vanity startup" fantasies you are obviously unprepared for ("sort of an aggregator" and "no tech skills" hardly inspires much confidence).
Spend the time to prepare. Prepared people do significant things whether a bubble or bust is going on. Unprepared ones don't.
If by "capital" you only mean you have enough to last 6 months after graduation, I'd say don't do a startup at all, either as investor or founder. Get a job, learn some basic business or technical skills, soak up a local tech scene, build either a marketing asset like a blog or a little piece of useful open-source technology to establish some goodwill/street-cred on github. Save the money for when you are more prepared to use it well.
I am beginning to be very skeptical of the college-to-founder direct route. Very few people have the maturity to pull it off. And you need the maturity AND a lot of luck.
If you can't find a job, offer to work for free to get your foot in the door. Be prepared to schlep at copywriting, cold-calling and other tasks most people find unpleasant, while you learn the rules of the game.
Bottom line: some money+youthful energy+idea does NOT equal adequate preparedness anymore. That was 10 years ago when the game was far simpler. The environment is more complex now. Deliberate moves will get you further than a ready-fire-aim rush to action. In the 2.0 chess game we are now in the complex mid-game and headed towards an end-game that promises to be an ugly, bloody brawl among big 800 lb gorillas who are pouring enough money and business and technical muscle into the game to destroy brave little dinghies.
This isn't 2002.
Another benefit of investing over founding is that, as a guy with some spare cash and founder ambitions, you will attract smooth-talking coder-conmen eager to flatter your "business savvy" and part you from your money. If you introduce yourself as an angel investor, you immediately trigger a very different and more honest courtship ritual. You can always dive into one of your investments as an active player if things work out right.
Capital is valuable. Don't blow it on ill-conceived "I want my own vanity startup" fantasies you are obviously unprepared for ("sort of an aggregator" and "no tech skills" hardly inspires much confidence).
Spend the time to prepare. Prepared people do significant things whether a bubble or bust is going on. Unprepared ones don't.
If by "capital" you only mean you have enough to last 6 months after graduation, I'd say don't do a startup at all, either as investor or founder. Get a job, learn some basic business or technical skills, soak up a local tech scene, build either a marketing asset like a blog or a little piece of useful open-source technology to establish some goodwill/street-cred on github. Save the money for when you are more prepared to use it well.
I am beginning to be very skeptical of the college-to-founder direct route. Very few people have the maturity to pull it off. And you need the maturity AND a lot of luck.
If you can't find a job, offer to work for free to get your foot in the door. Be prepared to schlep at copywriting, cold-calling and other tasks most people find unpleasant, while you learn the rules of the game.
Bottom line: some money+youthful energy+idea does NOT equal adequate preparedness anymore. That was 10 years ago when the game was far simpler. The environment is more complex now. Deliberate moves will get you further than a ready-fire-aim rush to action. In the 2.0 chess game we are now in the complex mid-game and headed towards an end-game that promises to be an ugly, bloody brawl among big 800 lb gorillas who are pouring enough money and business and technical muscle into the game to destroy brave little dinghies.
This isn't 2002.