I’ve been asked to further explain why it is hard to build a tech startup (and raise money from tech investors) if you outsource software development...
Even a super talented non-technical founder is going to run into a situation where they need code written. At this point they will need to spend money to outsource...
The problem is they will have a very hard time figuring out if the code they receive was high quality and they will have no way to maintain/iterate on that code without spending more money.
Good founders iterate quickly so suddenly more and more money needs to be spent outsourcing.
No the founder wants to try to raise money from tech investors but the use of outsourced dev (especially for first time founders) is such a red flag that early funding attempts are unsuccessful.
Now the founder is caught. If they had more progress/traction they can probably raise but they already spent most of their money on outsourcing so they don’t have any runway.
As a result they often go into zombie mode and die.
Now this is a very typical path I see from hundreds of conversations with founders over the past 5 years who are trying to build tech companies and/or raise money from tech investors.
If you aren’t trying to build a tech company or raise money from tech investors please ignore this because I have little experience outside of tech and I’m not qualified to give you advice.
