- As a non-coding founder you can contribute excellent product management skills.
- You can specialize and add huge value in areas like feature definition, UI, metrics and interaction design
- Don’t try to learn or be a coder. Focus on what you are really good at and grow yourself in areas that will counteract / compliment your more technical co-founder.
- You can focus on life cycle of the product. Make sure the design, user experience, and vision of the product is on point.
- Make sure marketing materials, go to business strategy, strategic alliances, pre-selected hires are properly crafted and handled.
- Bring customer perspective – if the technical folks won’t leave the building to talk to users or customers, you should.
- Sell, Sell, Sell
- Do interviews , meetups , surveys . Anything else to get real data on pain points , UX , competition and then turn that into product vision or features that the team can collaborate on.
- Planning/Strategy – Whether it’s sales, monetization plans, future features –there’s a ton anyone can do in this department.
- Blog/Tweet! – Having a blog is a great way to connect to customers and is a full-time job in itself. Comment on other blogs, tweet it etc. Anything to get the message out there about your product.
- Other important tasks like calling people, supporting users, blogging, tweeting, PR, marketing, doing deals, getting to people are vital steps and roles that can take a startup to the next level.
- You can also focus on business development, partnerships and fundraising
- Be the man outside the office.Your job is to bring back useful information that makes the product better.
- Stay abreast of the competition and news in your space. Know who’s doing what and when.
- Track and manage financials: Handle accounting matters or deal with the person who does. Pay taxes, payroll, HR (if applicable), etc.
- Track and manage legal issues: Try to stay abreast of laws and regulation that effect your company. Handle meetings with lawyers, keeping the business in good standing, etc.
- You cab handle these tasks: Technical documentation, blog posts, test plans, web site updates, internal how-tos & policy docs (for sharing, potential new partners, compliance, just so’s you don’t forget, etc.), press releases, customer support FAQs, drafts of any legal docs that you may need to work with lawyers for: patents, privacy policies, terms of service, etc.
