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, the Cost of Engineering is relatively cheap because they can do the initial work. Therefore, they do not need the upfront budget to collaborate with the engineers to create the first MVP. That means the First Two Months of a Startup can be spent making the product rather than focusing on the team or preparing for funding.

This can mean good and bad things for them:

On the bright side. If the technopreneurs are lean enough, it may be much more efficient to check the Product-Market Fit. Essentially, they can Cut the Fat. There are dozens of examples, like the early days of Mark Zuckerberg, the creators of Obsidian, or even Mr. Levels.

On the dark side. Whether that can be sustainable enough — it's a different story. If the technopreneurs are genuinely talented, they can beef up the speed of innovation and continue the steam. However, 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.

Also, knowledge can be a curse; sometimes, they become too technical and tend to create a product that leans toward a specific portion of society. Technopreneurs also take certain learning curves for granted, making mass-market products impossible. In this case, think of 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 does not mean falling into overconfidence. It's a good thing that entrepreneurs have a technical background, but superhero technopreneurs rarely exist.