From Non-Technical Founder to CTO, Part 1

I began my startup journey as a non-technical founder. I had just won a pitch contest and been invited into an accelerator program.

I had hacked together a working prototype and captured a few paying customers for my “Alpha” version and was ready to take this idea to production level.

My first goal in the program was to move my hacked together prototype into something that could be readily available to anyone who wanted to sign up. The first bit of “advice” I received from the mentors was to find a developer to begin building out the product.

Finding developers had proven to be a challenge for me in the past. After sharing this struggle, my next piece of advice was to “Find someone on Reddit.”

With their guidance, I would end up spending thousands of dollars and never end up with a product. While I never launched a beta version, I learned a lot along the way.

The biggest problem I faced in this process, was that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I took advice from people that I thought I could go to for help, but they were too busy trying to build their products to focus on mentoring.

Having a winning product is not the most important part of the journey, finding a guide that will help you along. As to you seek a mentor, find those that have walked a similar path and have a willingness to guide you on your journey.