Ideas are cheap, execution is everything, says Chris Sacca, an Investor in Twitter & Uber. Don’t underrate execution. It matters more than just a great idea. It’s the difference between successful founders and those who just dream about launching a startup.
Execution takes hard. You are not alone if you have lots of ideas but haven’t executed on any of them yet. The bitter truth is that you probably don’t have the skills to build the product. Many talented founders with smart business models have a hard time finding a CTO in communities where tech cofounders are scarce.
Hidden Founders wants to change that. The company not only bridge that gap between technical and non-technical founders, but also supports early stage startups at a time that they’re most vulnerable to failure.
The company helps non-technical founders build an MVP and get it to market to test their hypothesis at a minimum cost.
The idea of starting such a company came up as an inspiration from the rising entrepreneurial shift in different startup hubs in the world, especially the U.S. where a lot of people, from fresh graduates to executives from big corporates, want to take on their own innovative projects and build their tech company, but end up figuring out that their first challenge is: Looking for the right CTO or technical co-founder. Hidden Founders exists because we want to bridge a gap in the startup world” Hicham says, Head of Growth at Hidden Founders.
Idea stage no longer competes, especially with that the market offers CTOs these days. Why would a technical talent give up on a luxurious life in Google or Dropbox and follow you? even better, why would he choose to do that and not start his own startup? Idea stage is a myth. Traction is the only currency that matters today. The more of it you have, the more nice things you can afford. Nothing is free, he further says.
Hidden Founders assists non-technical founders get early traction by moving them from idea-stage to MVP stage that results in product/market fit. Early traction means seducing accelerators, business angels, CTOs and gaining more credibility, which is all in all the currency of the startup world.
With their leasing contract, founders can start work on their project with a 14% down payment, while the remaining sum is spread over 18 monthly installments. After six months, founders can opt to cancel their lease with no questions asked and all further payments forgiven. To keep the founders’ cash investments low, the company asks for a 3% stake in each startup.
The team at Hidden Founders are convinced that helping promising founders get through the prototype-building phase will be the beginning of amazing things: good business models would get traction and attention from potential co-founders, incubators or investors, and technical talents would converge faster on these new poles of activity.
They work with a select group of no more than 14 startups per batch and are completely invested in the projects they take on.
While building the product is their focus, they also assist their first-time founders by connecting them with mentors and offering business assistance during office hours.
So far, Hidden Founders has worked with two batches of 20 startups, which were chosen from an applicant pool of over 200 companies globally.
Hidden Founders is opening its third batch for non-technical founders to apply. Join in to take your startup to the next level.