If you look at many of the giant tech “unicorns” —private companies with over $1 billion valuation — and the major players in the public markets such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Google, and Amazon, you will find that the founders were often software or electrical engineers.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, graduated from Princeton summa cum laude with two Bachelor of Science degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. In a study, IBM researchers found the 33% of the S&P 500 CEOs’ undergraduate degrees were in engineering and only 11% were in business administration.

So what if you are not a technical founder, engineer, or software programmer? Should you quit now because you’re wasting your time?

No.

To be fair, first we must realize that everyone started out as a non-technical person. Through education, experience, passion, and training, these people learned a specific “hard” skill.

You can do the same.

There is nothing stopping you from taking online courses to learn how to code, going back to graduate school for engineering, or reading books and practicing graphic design.

Okay, back to the point. This post is for the non-technical founder who has no time, money, or desire to become a technical founder. In other words, you are an entrepreneur, business(wo)man, or, what I like to call a “generalist” — someone who has many passions that to choose just one would be anguish. The opposite of a generalist is a specialist. The specialist tends to be a technical person, with one passion/skill.

To launch a startup as a non-technical founder, you will need the proper mindset and skillset.

The Mindset

You must understand that the technical person needs you as much as you need them. But what do they need from you?

Travis Biziorek, CEO and non-technical co-founder of Kibin.com, a tech startup that…