Questions & Answers

If you’ve never run your own startup before, you might not know what kind of experience or skills you’ll need to make it happen. I’ve taken the liberty of putting together a list of questions that a technical co-founder might have during different steps of the process, and I’ve answered them to the best of my knowledge as a CTO and a co-founder. This is meant to be a general guide for anyone who’s starting out as a creator or a startup founder.

The goal of this “Questionnaire” is to eventually build it into a Q&A community where we all try and help each other with non-trivial answers to simple questions. I’m hoping you can share your experience with me and help me answer these in more detail.

Those questions that are marked as ✅ are already sufficiently covered. Those marked with 🚧 still require more work / information.

Building the Product

1. 🚧 How to determine app idea is technically feasible as a non-technical founder? — Figuring out if your idea is possible is kind of hard if you’re not an expert in the field, especially if you’re non-technical. Here are some tips to figure out if it’s doable.
2. 🚧 How to build your SaaS with freelancers? — So what if you’re non-technical? There’s a lot of possibilities to build something for yourself that your users will love. You will have to spend some money though.
3. 🚧 Is it a bad idea if I build the MVP of my startup on my company’s pc? — If you’re thinking of building it on your company’s time and equipment, read this before doing that.
4. 🚧 How to promote your SaaS without being an ass? — If you’re being too pushy with your sales, people will get annoyed quite fast. Here we discuss a few methods of promotion without putting anyone off.
5. 🚧 Where do I find technical co-founder for my startup? — Being a solo indie Entrepreneur is fun, but having someone together in the business makes things easier. Especially when that person can take off the whole product building responsibilities off your shoulders.
6. 🚧 How do I tell my cofounder I need to quit? — Hope you never need this, but if things go south, you’re burned out or tired of doing startup, this should help you.
7. 🚧 Is 150K USD a reasonable rate to build a mobile app? — We discuss the reasonable rate that the agencies or contractors will charge you to build your app. Quick hint: Any rate is reasonable as long as it’s in your budget and brings the expected (or more) value.

Development

1. 🚧 How dangerous is over-engineering for a start-up? — Good question about maintaining the balance between building it Lean and overcomplicating stuff from the get-go.
2. 🚧 Build vs Buy: age old dilemma —You’ll probably have some thoughts if you should invest in building or buying or nocode solutions. This article will help sort it out.
3. 🚧 How to stop thinking as an engineer and start thinking like a business man? — We’ve all been there. You’re growing into a startup CEO role, but think like a technical guy. Here are some tips to help you put on a new hat.
4. 🚧 Can an offshore dev agency steal your code? — So you’re looking to offshore your development and have questions about the intellectual property. It’s good to know the basics of what dev agencies can do.

Finances

1. 🚧 How much equity should a CTO ask for? — One of the most frequent questions by visitors of the site.
2. 🚧 How to split equity fairly between founders? — It’s important to keep it fair to yourself and to the other co-founders when splitting shares of the company. I answer a question here about a situation that a fellow entrepreneur has.

Hiring

1. 🚧 How to hire first rockstar employee — Your first hire is a make it or break it decision for your business. Here I talk a bit how to find the right person for the job.

Career

1. 🚧 Should I quit my well-paid job to start a startup? — So you have a cushy job, and you want to dip your toes into the startup world, read this first. You need a plan and ramen-profitability before you quit. Going cold turkey is not the answer here.
2. 🚧 What to ask a startup before joining them? — A guide for employees number 1-20 on figuring out if a startup is healthy or not before joining.
3. 🚧 As a recent college graduate, should I work in a tech startup? — What should you do after college? Should you join a startup or a FAANG company.
4. 🚧 Is coding bootcamp better than university? — If you’re just starting in your career in software engineering and looking to get my opinion about coding bootcamps vs universities.
5. 🚧 Is software development the right career for me? — There will be moments where you question yourself if you’re doing enough, when it seems that everyone around you is coding 24/7.

Security

1. 🚧 How to protect my startup from bots or hacks? — The age-old question of how to protect your SaaS and your company from hackers and spammers.

Marketing

1. 🚧 Doing Self-Promotion on Reddit the right way — Community websites are an unlimited source of potential users that are just waiting to hear about your startup. Tap into it.

If you have a question that you want me to help you with (and maybe share this info with the rest of my friendly readers), write it in the comments below.