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Skill 29 · Knowledge Base For Startups
Subchapter 29.248
references/learn/getting-started/building-a-technical-foundation-as-a-non-technical-founder.mdMarkdown5 KBView on GitHub
It might surprise you to know that many startup founders consider themselves to be non-technical people. For example, Airbnb’s co-founder Brian Chesky was an industrial designer when he first hit on the idea of renting out people’s homes for money.
Non-technical founders can build great technology companies. With the cloud becoming more accessible to all skill levels, you typically only need to know the basics to get started. The trick is to keep learning, cultivate strategic partnerships, and build on your technical foundation, regardless if you’re a beginner or a pro.
When it comes to building a startup on the cloud, one of the best ways to begin is to ask for help.
Typically, there are two ways this happens. First, many founders seek out someone with technical skills (opens in a new tab) to join them early in their journey, often as a technical co-founder (opens in a new tab), with the two working closely together to translate the idea into a cloud-hosted reality.
The other path is for the non-technical founder to hire a team of developers (opens in a new tab) to get them started or to partner with a professional services partner (opens in a new tab). This is often cheaper than employing people directly and is especially useful for testing out whether a new idea is viable, but obviously relies on you having some initial funding to cover costs.
The reason why these two paths work is that the startup community is filled with people who want to help and are looking for opportunities to work on the Next Big Thing.
At Amazon Web Services (AWS), our startup team’s deep connections into the community mean we are often making recommendations and introductions, as well as holding events (opens in a new tab) that can bring technical and non-technical people together.
With this goal in mind, in 2021 we began testing out a new program called StartBoost, which pairs non-technical founders with AWS consulting partners. This credit can pair with AWS Activate (opens in a new tab) credits, which could help you test out a new idea through building a minimum viable product (MVP).
Another path founders take is to simply gain some of the technical skills they need to build their idea. We offer an extensive range of online learning and development options – many of which are free – that are designed to build the skills of even novice cloud users, including:
Building a cloud startup can seem daunting, but it is good to remember that everyone is born non-technical, and everything that even the best software coders know is something they have learned.
Now that you’re equipped with the combination of community support, free learning and development opportunities, and a set of technology tools that are becoming progressively easier to use, building a cloud-based startup is now in reach of even the most non-technical founder.