Gone are the days when only tech entrepreneurs were able to build a tech startup, followed by a lucrative business. The last decade has witnessed a host of non-tech entrepreneurs bringing out-of-the-box startup ideas to fruition and making hundreds of millions of dollars or even more annually. Airbnb, Uber, Alibaba, and Tinder are some of the most successful tech startups that came from non-technical entrepreneurs.

However, the most important question to ponder over here is how a low tech geek can turn their tech-startup vision into reality?

If you’re a non-technical entrepreneur looking forward to building a tech startup, you should be prepared to overcome various technology barriers from the outset. The most common technology challenges that non-tech entrepreneurs face include:

• No knowledge of coding and no clarity over where to start from and how

• Not aware of what new and trending technologies fit your dream startup

• Confusion over what all features the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) should have

• The high cost of hiring and training an in-house team of experts to cover all technology requirements of your bootstrapped startup

• Challenge to meet the deadline so the product can be marketed faster

• Keep pace with changing market requirements to stay ahead of the competition

• How to mitigate risks

However, there’s a way a non-technical entrepreneur can effectively overcome all these technology challenges. And that is, going for a technology partner or technology service provider. Let’s see, how?

How a Technology Partner helps Non-Tech Entrepreneurs bridge Technology Gaps

Hiring Techies

Finding the right talent is indeed the trickiest and the toughest part of a startup journey for non-tech entrepreneurs. Besides, a lot of time goes in the process of hiring and training, which often proves to be a bottleneck for a bootstrapped startup. This is where a technology provider proves to be a big help by providing top resources for your project in quick time and getting things started much sooner. So, a technology partner keeps you from scraping the bottom of the barrel and from getting your startup out of kilter.

Product Idea Viability Test via Proof of Concept

Most technology partners create a Proof of Concept (POC) before starting to code in order to test the viability and usability of your product idea. PoC helps determine whether a software idea can be implemented in the real world, what technology solutions should be used during the development phase, and what are the chances that users will adopt your product. Having the PoC is also a great means of convincing stakeholders that your startup idea is worth investing in and raise funds needed to strengthen the core business model.

Building a Successful MVP

Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the first attempt to take your tech startup off the ground. An MVP helps solve the most important and basic problems and include the most essential functions to capture and engage early adopters. But, creating an MVP is not as easy as it may sound and requires great technical expertise. If you’re an entrepreneur without a strong technical background, you should choose a technology service provider for converting your ideas and vision into an interactive product that has sufficient features to attract initial users and investors.

Reduced Operational and Infrastructural Cost

Since wages vary across the globe, the cost of hiring a technical workforce overseas with the desired expertise is much lower than that of hiring an in-house team. For example, offshore technology partners in India provide technical experts at a much lower cost than you would get in Western Europe or North America (The US and Canada). A technology partner also saves infrastructural costs for you as you don’t need to invest in expensive IT architecture and systems.

Nimble Product Development and Faster Time to Market

Increased speed to market (STM) has become a key to success for any startup. A technology partner saves you months of time that goes in hiring and building a team of developers before you start building your product. Many technology partners use Agile methodology for project management to quickly produce a basic version of the software product, tested after several successful iterations. Always remember, the faster your product reaches the marketplace, the higher the chances of your startup to become a success and stay ahead of the competition.

Increased Focus on Core Business Goals

One of the major benefits of hiring a technology partner is that it frees your energies from the operation and lets you focus more on your core business tasks, such as sales and marketing strategy, meeting other vendors, growing your network of potential investors, better client relation, product feature initiatives, value-added services, etc.

Better Risk Mitigation

Technology partners manage risks that come up during the development process much better than non-tech entrepreneurs, as it’s a part of their core business. They also supplement operations with disaster recovery mechanisms and detailed backup plans in order to quickly and effectively respond to situations such as natural calamities, accidents, market fluctuations or technical crises.

Quick & Effective Migration to new Technology

Technology service providers work on several different projects and keep updating themselves with the latest technologies, such as cloud computing. As a result, they help you easily migrate to newer technologies with minimum downtime and without hampering productivity. Technology migration allows us to have a high performing system that is scalable and easy to maintain at a low cost.

Conclusion

Being inefficient at IT skills is no longer a roadblock for non-tech entrepreneurs to shape their innovative business ideas into successful startups. They can always go for a technology partner that believes in their idea and treats it like their own. The benefits are quality code, high productivity, reduced cost, access to specialized IT professionals, the latest technologies, the timely development, increased speed to market and many more. However, there are certain things to keep in mind while choosing a technology partner for successful product development, which I will be explaining in the next blog.

How Evon Can Help

Evon, a software consulting company in India has 10 plus years of experience in software product development and consulting. At Evon, we are committed to providing expert-level technical assistance to entrepreneurs with disruptive startup ideas. Feel free to get in touch with us if you have a creative startup idea and looking for a technology partner to turn your vision into reality. We will be glad to address any concerns that you have related to your product idea and to get your software project started in the right direction from the outset.

What would you prefer for your tech startup, a technology service provider or an in-house development team, and why? Do you agree with the statement that emerging technologies are making technology service providers even more important for non-tech entrepreneurs to build tech startups of modern-day?