Tech for Non-Techies

Every app and site is made up of lots of different tech tools and languages. Like a house, one part is built on top of another and they need each other to function. If one part of the structure breaks, the rest can fall down too. These are called dependencies. To keep a product working, all the dependencies need to work together. This is part of the invisible work that software engineers do. Learning notes from this episode: A tech stack describes all the tools and programming languages used to build an app or a site. Some of those tools are custom made, some are rented as licences and others plug you into a bigger ecosystem. Examples of bigger eco-systems that many products depend on are the Apple App Store, Google Play and Amazon Web Services. If one of these ecosystems has a problem, the apps and sites they support will have issues too. An app on the Apple App Store depends on Apple, hence the term dependency. Product teams have to update their products to keep up with the changes in the external tools that make up their product. If Apple has an update, all the apps on the Apple App Store have to keep up with the changes. If you want to learn the system Sophia used to raise $1 million for her tech venture as a non-technical founder, join the Fundraising For Non-Technical Founders Workshop on 19 September. Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To watch the full session on video and access learning notes, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

Andi Govindia has gone through three accelerators on her start-up journey. This helped her build a business model, find co-founders and get her first major clients. Andi leads Riviter, a visual search company that uses AI to predict fashion and beauty trends, and counts L'Oreal amongst its clients. If you're interested in entrepreneurship and how non-technical founders can succeed in tech, this one is for you. Learning notes from this episode: Use Effectual Logic: ask yourself what the simplest and laziest way is for you to solve a problem. The simplest way is often imperfect, but results matter more than perfection. If you are applying for accelerators, link their speciality to your current needs. Andi participated in Chicago Booth's New Venture Challenge, Plug & Play and Founders Factory. Each accelerator has different strengths, and Andi used them for different purposes. Andi collaborated with her co-founders for a year before they made their agreement official. It is important to really get to know the people you are going to have a long term business partnership with. If you want to learn the system Sophia used to raise $1 million for her tech venture as a non-technical founder, join the Fundraising For Non-Technical Founders Workshop on 19 September. Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To watch the full session on video and access learning notes, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

Hiring developers and designers to build your tech product is always risky, because as a non-techie, you're hiring people to do things you don't know how to do. Is outsourcing more risky because you're far away from the team? Or is in-house more risky, simply because it usually costs more? Listen to this episode to find out. Learning notes from this episode: Always get employees and contractors working on your products to sign over the Intellectual Property to the company. If a person or a firm is refusing to sign an IP Agreement, this is a bright red flag. In the early stages of product development, your job is to test ideas, get an MVP out there and get initial traction. The focus should be on doing this as quickly and cheaply as possible, which often means working with an outsourced product studio in a cheaper geography. After you've proven market need, you can hire in-house to scale the product. Right at the start of product development, you don't know what tech tools and languages you need to build it. Because you won't know what you need in your tech stack, you won't know what skills developers will need. This is why hiring a product studio which has different tech stack specialists will often be the best option at the start. If you want to delve deeper, then check out the ebook: How to Hire Your Product Team & Go From Idea To App: Guide For Non-Technical Founders. In the e-book you will get: A list of product studios recommended by non-technical founders including a firm I've worked with A guide on how to set your budget for prototypes, minimum viable product and market testing What to do if you don't have a technical co-founder What to look for when hiring a user experience designer Difference between development shops, product studios and in-house development teams Examples of successful non-technical founders Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To watch the full session on video and access learning notes, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

More money is entering venture capital today than ever before. This means more career opportunities for investors, and funding options for founders. In this episode, you'll hear from Check Warner, parter at Ada's Ventures, and co-Founder of Diversity VC. Check talks about her career transition from advertising to VC, how the venture industry is changing and how that affects founders. Learning notes from this episode: Networking is a key part of a VC's job. If this is a career you want, build your network with founders, other VCs and larger funds that invest in venture. To be a successful tech VC, you do need to learn how to speak tech, but you definitely don't need to be a coder yourself. More money is entering the VC market and more funds are being set up. VC funds are often small, unlike other firms in the financing market. The widening VC market and the growth of no code tools means more opportunities for non-technical founders to succeed. Say hi to Check Warner here and check out Diversity VC here.

Why do some products go viral and others die a quiet death? The answer lies in growth hacking. Growth hacking is a type of marketing that combines working on the product, which is an inside job, and working on promotion, which is an outside job. It is a new discipline born with the tech sector, and growing in popularity today. Learning notes from this episode: The Dropbox growth hacking case study is still seen as the Holy Grail in the sector. The team created a double referral program to grow 3900% in just 15 months. A growth hacking effort is always done by a multi-disciplinary team, and will often involve a product manager, a designer, a community manager, engineers, someone with a marketing or PR background, and maybe a data scientist. Traditional marketing is outside facing: billboards, TV ads and articles in the press. Growth hacking is different because it looks at the inside of the product, and adjusts it to grow users and revenue. PR and growth hacking spur each other on: if something is going viral, journalists want to write about it. They write about it, which makes it go even more viral. Products very rarely go viral by themselves. Viral growth is almost always the result of investment and experimentation by the growth hacking team. Get Sophia's Recommended Reading List of technology sector books you will actually understand and enjoy, click here. Listen here on Apple Podcasts. Listen here on Spotify. ... Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter. Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Neither life nor business are linear. Startups often pivot their business models several times to find product market fit, just as we try out different careers. In this episode, you'll hear from Hannah Feldman, the CEO and co-founder of Kidadl, which helps families do fun and useful things with their kids. Hannah began her career as a corporate lawyer, then worked in banking, and then with Dragon Den's James Kaan before starting on her entrepreneurial journey. Her company, Kidadl also went through pivots before it found product market fit during the Covid shutdowns. Whether you want to build a business or transition into a career in tech, this is a great episode to learn from. Learning notes from this episode: "The business strategies employed by highly successful start-ups and the career strategies employed by highly successful individuals are strikingly similar," Reid Hoffman. Most startups have to pivot their business models several times to find product market fit. Career transitions from corporate to tech usually have an interim step in a medium sized entrepreneurial organisation. Hannah learnt about entrepreneurship by working with James Kaan after leaving UBS, which helped her spot the right start-up opportunity when it came her way. Say hi to Hannah here and check out Kidadl here. Join our free masterclass on How To Transition Into A Career In Tech on 4 August 2021. ... Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

"The business strategies employed by highly successful start-ups and the career strategies employed by highly successful individuals are strikingly similar," says Reid Hoffman in his book The Startup of You. If you want to have a great career in tech as non-techie, but don't know how to get started, this episode is for you. Learning notes from this episode: Hoffman says we all have 3 puzzle pieces in our careers: our assets, our aspirations & values and market realities. Plan your career 2 steps ahead. For example, if you work in finance and your aim is to get into product management, it's unlikely you'll just leap from one to the other. This is going to require an interim step, like volunteering with a start-up on weekends. Invest in learning transferable digital skills. If you learn the basics of how apps, sites and algorithms get made, and when tech decisions overlap with business decisions, so many opportunities will open up to you. Join our free masterclass on How To Transition Into A Career In Tech on 4 August 2021. Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

Space tech developments aren't just a battle between middle aged billionaires. Nor is it a Cold War leftover. The technologies we use every day to watch TV and hail a taxi rely on connections in space. As the cost of space tech falls, and VC investment in the sector rises, the opportunities for business and consumer innovation open up. Listen to this episode with Dr James Lambert, Head of Operations at private space tech company Pulsar Fusion, to get an overview of this fascinating industry. Learning notes: The cost of getting satellites into space is falling, which means more companies are using space technology. Space tech is particularly useful to scan images of the Earth to answer specific questions, such as: where shall we mine for gold? The companies that can reduce the cost of getting satellites into space or connecting space hardware with Earth level software, are those getting the most interest from investors today. Innovations by private space companies, rather than governments, have driven down the cost of space tech. Say hi to Dr James Lambert here. Enroll in How To Speak Tech For Leaders by 26 July 2021. If you want to sponsor several employees in your team to take the course and want a group rate, email us on info@techfornontechies.co ... Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

Big data and predictive analytics can help you make profits, sell clothes and strike oil. But, unless you know how to ask data scientists the right questions and then use their answers, data are just a collection of meaningless facts. Listen to this episode to learn what data scientists do and how to work with them. Learning notes from this episode: Every senior level professional today has to learn to speak tech: knowing the concepts of how digital products get made is now basic literacy. Working with data scientists can be broken down into three steps: 1) ask the right question, 2) get insight 3) take action based on the insight. Predictive analytics are based on past data, which does not make predictions future proof and does not take account of shocks to the system. To join the How To Speak Tech For Leaders course sign up here by 26 July 2021. If you want to sponsor several employees in your team to take the course and want a group rate, email us on info@techfornontechies.co ... Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.

Put on your party pants! In this episode, you'll hear from Julie Novack, the CEO & non-technical co-founder of PartySlate. PartySlate is a platform that connects event professionals to people planning events. During the pandemic, PartySlate had to quickly reinvent its offering, but managed to end 2020 with no revenue loss. This is a great story in about resilience, leadership and giving users what they want. Learning notes from this episode: Julie spent a year researching Houzz, a platform for interior designers, to get inspiration for PartySlate. If a company is doing something similar to you, but for different users, study them. PartySlate's content drives users to discover the platform and get inspired. This means that PartySlate will be front of mind when the user is ready to book an event. This is a great example of content marketing. PartySlate makes money by charging event professionals for premium listings. For this, they need to understand those professionals' needs intimately. The train of thought here is: what is the problem our customers experience? Can we build a solution? How can we make money from this solution? Check out PartySlate's beautiful Instagram and site. Sign up for How To Speak Tech: Masterclass For Leaders on 14 July 2021. ... Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here. To go deeper, join the Tech for Non-Techies membership community. As a community member, you'll get: Weekly live masterclasses with global experts Mini-course on how to go from idea to live app Supportive Online Community Library of masterclasses Monthly live coaching with Sophia Matveeva, tech entrepreneur & Chicago Booth MBA Exclusive Resources & Perks Learn more and sign up at https://www.techfornontechies.co/membership Say hi to Sophia on Twitter. Following us on Facebook and Instagram will make you smarter.