The technical founder's role involves intense commitment, leading product development, and being willing to take on any task. They should focus on shipping "good enough" versions rapidly rather than perfect architecture.
In the ideation and MVP stages, the goal is to build prototypes and MVPs in days/weeks using quick, simple tools and processes to get feedback from users as soon as possible.
After launch, the focus shifts to rapidly iterating based on data and user feedback, balancing new features and technical debt, as the startup works towards product-market fit. The technical founder's role then evolves to be less hands-on coding and more architectural/leadership.
Meeting Notes:
The Role of the Technical Founder
Diana Hu defines a technical founder as a partner with intense commitment and continuous learning in the startup journey
Responsibilities of a technical founder:
Lead building the product and talking to users
Take on roles like CEO, CTO, or others based on the product, industry, and team composition
Key differences from a lead developer role:
Must do all tech tasks - front-end, back-end, DevOps, website, UX, IT supervision, etc.
Bias towards shipping "good enough" versions rapidly over perfect architecture
Get comfortable with technical debt, inefficient processes, chaos - prioritize company success
Willingness to do any task required, regardless of expertise or "pay grade"
Building in the Ideation Stage
Goal: Build a prototype in days to demo the idea to users
Guiding principles:
Build extremely quickly using prototyping tools/software to keep it simple
Avoid over-building - prototype just needs to demonstrate the core idea, not be perfect
Get the prototype in front of users fast to gather feedback
Examples:
Diana Hu's startup Essoreality built a prototype in weeks by running computer vision on phones
Optimizely created a clickable prototype in days using JavaScript on S3 for A/B testing
Remora (hard tech startup) used 3D rendering to prototype their carbon capture solution
Building an MVP to Launch
Goal: Build an MVP that works to launch quickly, ideally in weeks
Diana Hu cautions against hiring early as it can slow the launch
Guiding principles:
Do things that don't scale - use manual processes and "clever hacks" to learn fast
Create a "90/10 solution" - focus on core functionality, not comprehensive product
Choose tech for iteration speed, not perfection - use frameworks, APIs, tools
Examples:
Apollo Outdoor Delivery launched with static HTML/CSS front-end and Google Forms backend
WayUp used Django/Python to build their MVP quickly, though Ruby on Rails was more popular
Iterating After Launch
Goal: Iterate towards product-market fit
Guiding principles:
Quickly iterate based on analytics (hard data) and user interviews (soft data)
Continuously launch new features and improvements
Balance building new features vs. fixing technical debt (debt is okay at this stage)
Examples:
WePay pivoted based on data showing B2B opportunity
Cutnet did 5 launches in 1 month, rapidly adding new integrations based on user feedback
Technical Founder's Role Evolution Post Product-Market Fit
Less hands-on coding (< 50% with 5-10 engineers), more architecture/leadership
Decisions: Remain in architect role or transition to people management/VP Engineering
Scaling involves:
Determining which tech needs rework to handle scale
Defining engineering culture and processes
Initial hires from founder's network, then building out larger team