I’m Not Technical

What do Native Deodorant, the Milk Road, the Hustle, Kettle and Fire, and Spanx all have in common?

Two things, actually.

1. These are all successful, multi-million dollar businesses.

2. None of them are “software companies.”

I live in San Francisco ("no shit" - you, probably) and it feels like every single person and venture capitalist here expects you to be a software guru to start a successful business. I see friends in my circle start companies as former software engineers. Naturally, since this is all I see, I start thinking I need to build a software business too.

^Then I start to become this guy^

So what am I supposed to do? Learn how to code? Find a technical co-founder? Raise venture capital to hire engineers? No. I'd rather not fight against 22-year-old kids who are way better at coding than I am. I'd rather play to my strengths.

Here's where I've landed after some soul searching and experimentation:

• Health & Fitness

• Marketing

• Content

You know what all three of those have in common? You can build real businesses in each of them without writing a single line of code. One person can get pretty far using existing products and tools to sell a service. People are making stupid money through social media, coaching, newsletters, and productized services. It would be dumb for me to pivot my entire career to join the San Francisco B2B SaaS rat race just because that's what's in front of me. (If you don't know what B2B SaaS is, you're lucky.)

But here’s the thing that nobody is sharing.

Just because you don't need to be a software engineer doesn't mean you won't need to use software. You just don't need to build it from the ground up.

Every company I listed at the top needed software at some point. Native was dropshipping natural deodorant off Etsy because Facebook ads were stupid-cheap. The Hustle was just a blog that built enough of an audience to pivot into a newsletter. Milk Road was a crypto newsletter running on Beehiiv. Spanx was literally just a clothing company.

None of these were software businesses. But every single one of them had to figure out how to use software to make their business work better.

The real skill isn't coding. It's figuring things out fast.

Especially now, "I don't know how to code" is a terrible excuse for not making progress on your ideas. The bar has never been lower.

Which brings me to where I am today. I'm building a content, media, and services business. For a specific service, I needed a tool that makes it really easy to capture a picture of your food. And nothing out there worked. Did I learn how to code? No. I learned how to talk to AI because it was the fastest path to unblocking myself. I begged friends for help, asked dumb questions, and learned how to guide a coding tool to build what I needed. So yeah, I built an app, a website, and a dashboard. But I wouldn't call myself technical. I'm just someone willing to push through the bullshit to get to the next step.

Most of the job of getting something off the ground is pushing through enough bullshit to get things working repeatably. That's where I am now.

And if I can figure it out, so can you.

You don't need to become a software engineer. You don't need a technical co-founder. You don't need to raise money.

You just need to be willing to figure things out when you hit a wall.

Stop waiting to become technical. Start figuring shit out.

You’re Awesome,

Jared

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Things Worth Clicking

A few gems I found on the internet this week - no digging required

• The next play newsletter did a similar write-up to this post. Showing you a good way to go about finding a partner to work with. P.S. - they don’t need to be technical.

• How to make progress every day by doing the one big thing. For me - that’s making content and posting it.

• Casey Neistat made a motivational video that will make you feel soft. Watch it anyways

I Dig So You Don’t Have To

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