Dilemmas of Technopreneur

If you are in a competitive VC-funded space, it's foolish to compete without raising money. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson)

For 10x Technopreneurs, engineering is relatively cheap. They can do the initial work themselves, no upfront budget to collaborate with engineers to create the first MVP. The first two months can go into making the product rather than focusing on the team or preparing for funding.

This can mean good and bad things.

On the bright side.

If they are lean enough, it may be much more efficient to check Product-Market Fit. They can cut the fat. There are dozens of examples, like early Mark Zuckerberg, the Obsidian creators, or even Mr. Levels.

On the dark side.

Whether that can be sustainable enough is a different story. If they are genuinely talented, they can beef up the speed of innovation and continue the steam, but for the company to succeed and expand in the market, it needs to grow at some point. Still, if the company relies too profoundly on its founders, it may be easier to decouple the product from the technopreneurs.

Knowledge can be a curse too. Sometimes they become too technical and tend to build a product that leans toward a specific portion of society. They also take certain learning curves for granted, making mass-market products impossible. Think Steve Wozniak as a technopreneur. He had the talent and could make a full-blown product, but it never would've become Apple if it weren't for Steve Jobs.

Cutting the fat isn't a license for overconfidence. It's a good thing that entrepreneurs have a technical background. Superhero technopreneurs rarely exist.