Welcome to the 10th edition of “Into the Ring” - my biweekly newsletter on how to successfully plan & execute on your startup fundraise. As a reminder, I’m Jorian Hoover and I’m a Startup Fundraising Sparring Partner. I guide Pre-Seed thru Series A founders through their fundraising processes, and you can check out how to work with me here.

Thank you to everyone who’s been a subscriber so far! I started this in late October 2024 and now that I’ve sent out 10 editions, I feel encouraged to keep going. I’m really grateful for the replies & encouragement I receive each time.

This week’s newsletter is all about how to start a venture as a non-technical founder. This is a topic I come across regularly, as many of my Harvard Business School founder classmates wish they had found a technical co-founder at the School of Engineering or at MIT. But alas, not every founder has access to a technical person to join you.

So to dive into this topic, there was no one I’d rather interview than Thaisan Tonthat. He is a Partner at Tidepool Labs, a venture studio that partners with early-stage founders to build products and launch companies. His background is in startups and engineering, and was co-founder of Foundry Hiring, a recruiting software company that was acquired by Dropbox. He also currently teaches two classes on entrepreneurship at Stanford University.

Below you’ll find my interview with Thaisan. If you’re interested in learning more about Tidepool Labs, you can reach out to him at [email protected]. 

My Interview with Thaisan Tonthat

1) JH: What are the most common challenges solo founders face when starting a venture without a technical co-founder?

TT: Solo founders often believe they need a fully built product before they can start validating product-market fit (PMF). This is generally not the case. I always encourage founders to figure out the minimum viable product (MVP) they can create to start getting real signals from the market. Many overestimate what the "minimum" actually is, or they hit a mental block, feeling they can’t move forward without a fully functional product.

That said, sometimes it really is necessary to build something to validate PMF. The key question then becomes: how much should you build, and when?

Another challenge is fundraising. Many VCs tell early-stage founders they need a technical co-founder. I recommend pushing as far as you can without one. Fundraising is much easier when you have traction > product > idea rather than just a concept. Recruiting a technical co-founder or founding engineer also becomes easier when you have more than just an idea—think about an engineer’s opportunity cost. Why would they leave a stable FAANG job to work on an unproven idea that only exists as a pitch deck?

Ultimately, risk decreases in a step-function manner: product > funding > early traction > revenue. The further along you are in this sequence, the easier everything gets.

2) JH: How can non-technical founders validate their business ideas without a technical background?

TT: Validation isn’t about showing people a finished product—it’s about deeply understanding the problem space and your customers.

Ways to validate without technical expertise:

• Talk to customers and deeply understand their pain points.

• Get letters of intent (LOIs) or commitments to do a pilot.

• Run demand experiments (ads, landing pages, pre-sales).

• Create prototypes, demos, or design mockups.

Many founders mistakenly believe they’ve validated an idea after conducting 50 user interviews and hours of research. But the real test comes when your plan meets reality. Run experiments to force a decision. Get potential customers to commit—whether it’s signing up for a waitlist, sharing proprietary data, or actually buying the product. If they aren’t making a real decision, you’re not truly de-risking your idea.

Identify your startup’s biggest risks (typically the top one is “Am I building something people actually want?”) and prioritize de-risking those through structured experiments.

3) JH: Why do you believe the advice to find a technical co-founder is often overstated?

TT: The biggest challenge for early-stage startups isn’t coding—it’s finding product-market fit. The exact tactics you use to get there are secondary.

How much it matters depends on what you’re building. Ask yourself: is software the product, or is software just the means of delivering value?

For example, if you're building a marketplace for matching patients to therapists, the core value is in creating liquidity in the marketplace—software is just the delivery mechanism. But if you're building a spam detection company, then the software is the value, and having deep technical expertise from day one is crucial.

Most early-stage companies spend one to two years fumbling through before things start to come together. This is what I call the "-1 to 0" phase—the messy, ambiguous period before product-market fit. During this time, the highest leverage activity is iterating towards something customers actually want.

If you're in the software business, a technical co-founder is a big advantage—but not a requirement from day one.

4) JH: Are there any scenarios where having a technical co-founder might be necessary?

TT: If you're building a highly technical product, you need experts in that field on your team. It would be foolish to attempt something deeply technical (e.g., AI-driven drug discovery, quantum computing) without the right expertise.

That said, for many startups—especially SaaS—understanding the industry, users, and workflows is often more important than writing code. The real challenge is often in distribution and adoption rather than pure software development.

5) JH: What are some of the most effective no-code and low-code tools available for non-technical founders today?

TT: There are many powerful tools that allow founders to build without writing code:

• App builders: V0, Lovable, Bolt

• Coding copilots: Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf

• Design: Figma, Canva, Webflow, Wix, and AI-first tools like Polymet, Gamma

• All-in-one tools (AI for starting a business): Audos, Woz

These tools have drastically lowered the barrier for non-technical founders to launch and iterate quickly.

6) JH: How are you seeing non-technical founders leverage AI tools when prototyping and developing their product?

TT: This is the best time ever to be a non-technical founder. AI tools can take you from D+ to B+ very fast, accelerating early prototyping and communicating your idea.

However, expectations have shifted. Years ago, launching a half-baked product was acceptable. Today, people are bombarded with new apps—and expect a certain level of polish. AI tools can help non-technical founders meet these higher expectations faster.

7) JH: What should non-technical founders consider when deciding to outsource development work to agencies or freelancers?

TT: Vetting outsourced technical work can be difficult, especially for non-technical founders. Key considerations:

• Get help from a technical advisor. Have someone in your network interview candidates and review their work.

• Work within your trusted network. Personal recommendations are invaluable.

• Get references, but don’t rely on them completely. They’re not foolproof.

• Timezone matters. Remote work is fine once things are defined, but in the early “figuring it out” stage, same timezone (or in-person) collaboration is much easier.

• What are you relying on them for? Are you hiring a thought partner or just someone to execute? If they’re only executing, you’ll need to be very explicit about your requirements.

[sidenote from Jorian: Thaisan & Tidepool Labs solve this by taking an equity stake in partner companies and maintaining an amazing team they’ve worked with for years, that works as true thought partners to founders—not just code writers. This means they have aligned incentives to founders.]

8) JH: Can you provide examples of successful companies that started with non-technical founders and later incorporated technical expertise?

TT: There are countless examples of successful companies started by non-technical founders.

Even companies founded by technical people often had to scramble for resources in the early days—hiring contractor engineers, working with agencies, or bringing in a designer to create the first version.

The first few years of any startup are about marshalling resources, iterating, and pushing forward with whatever you have. There is no magic formula for success—your job as a founder is to keep moving forward, whether that means coding yourself, hacking together a no-code prototype, or finding the right partners to help execute your vision.

Thaisan Tonthat is a Partner at Tidepool Labs, a venture studio that partners with early-stage founders to build products and launch companies. He is also an exited founder (sold to Dropbox) & instructor at Stanford. If you’re interested in learning more about Tidepool Labs, you can reach out to him at [email protected]. 

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