By Olivia Koenig

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Some of the greatest tech success stories began with founders who couldn’t code, had no prior business experience, or didn't really "get" tech.  Their secret to a stellar launch? They understood when to partner (and how to delegate). They lived and breathed product development, while maintaining an internal culture of strong belief in their core value proposition.

Through locking down these principles early on, the following 4 founders took their ideas from zero to unicorn–without the computer science skills of a Zuckerberg or Musk!

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1. Melanie Perkins–Canva

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Melanie Perkins was a Photoshop tutor for her fellow university students when she first envisioned an end user-centric, drag-and-drop interface for graphic design. She was the perfect authority on who her future customer might be. However, her expertise ended there.  Instead of delaying Canva’s birth through personally learning to code and engineer an application, she dedicated time to recruiting two high quality technical hires. As a result, today's Canva is not only known for its ease of use; it has grown into a de facto showcase for the community of "power user" designers who love the platform.

Perkins had to learn far more about business (and kitesurfing) than she ever imagined to get there, but as the current CEO of Canva, her area of concern remains protecting the integrity of her original vision for the application. She may not be a development whiz, but she has managed to guide her company to a 40 billion dollar valuation (sans selling out to a bigger company).

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Founder Takeaway: Finding good engineers early on was a directive from Canva’s very first investor. If you find traction with angel investors, listen to them: they might not be experts in your concept's market, but they have proven success in the business world (also known as "cash").

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2. Tim Westergren–Pandora

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Who doesn’t love using Pandora to discover new music?  Given its popularity, you’d think that Pandora was an instant hit with a smooth path to success.  Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, was a lifelong musician with an impressive degree in political science from Stanford.  After going on to become a music producer, he envisioned an app that mastered the art of selecting music for a person based on what they already liked.  You might be surprised to find out, however, that Westergren masterminded  The Music Genome Project; not the construction of Pandora's platform itself.

As the founder and original CEO, Westergren was totally responsible for the conception of Pandora. Interestingly, it was originally intended as a retail solution for in-store playlists.  Co-Founders Jon Kraft and Will Glaser were the engineering authorities, with Kraft specifically adding valuable business experience as a former corporate employee in the enterprise software world.  Glaser once explained:

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“There was me to do technology and product. There was John, who was the business guy, and Tim, who was a musician. John and I had each started and run companies before and had exits of medium success…John and I were each moderately [successful] entrepreneurs, and Tim [worked in the music industry], and we started the company that way.”

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Pandora faced many ups and downs on its way to success.  At one point, Westergren was even sued for not paying employee salaries on time.  By delegating responsibilities within the company based on strengths and experience, his startup grew to become one of the most well-known streaming apps, producing over 1 billion in revenue in 2021 alone.

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Founder Takeaway: Jon Kraft and Will Glaser knew Tim Westergren as college students.  Never underestimate the power of your personal network!

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3. Ben Silbermann–Pinterest

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In terms of engineering alone, Pinterest is an iconic application.  As the world’s “first visual discovery engine”, this platform integrates cutting edge UI with search and organizational components.  It’s no surprise that their engineering team(s) have a dedicated blog!  

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Anyone might logically assume that such a technically innovative (prolific, even!) concept would have well-seasoned tech veterans as its cofounders.  This is not the case, however; Pinterest is the brainchild of Ben Silbermann, Paul Sciarra, and Evan Sharp.  Before these 3 teamed up, Silbermann was an internet enthusiast (not a coder) who worked in advertising at Google, Sciarra found success as a finance whiz at an investment group, and Sharp was an architecture graduate student at Columbia.  None of them had formal education in computer science or had ever worked professionally as engineers.  Silberman's passion for software entrepreneurship (not software engineering) collided with his childhood love of collections.  Sciarra understood finance and fundraising.  Sharp was a real-world structural design genius–who knew enough about coding from his father to conceptualize an initial foundation for the app.  Silbermann and Sciarra had worked together on previous concepts, but the duo became a trio when, as Silbermann described it, “It was like [Evan Sharp] was the only who understands what [I] was saying.”  

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Founder Takeaway: Like many founders, the minds behind the first version of Pinterest brought three different areas of expertise to the table.  They did not cover every possible area of need–and they did not expect one another to.  Their success was rooted in a shared vision. All three could vividly imagine a world with Pinterest before it existed.  As an entrepreneur, seek out this level of belief in your core team.  

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4. Tim Chen–NerdWallet

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NerdWallet is a website with a mobile app component that helps consumers compare financial products (among other services).  Founder Tim Chen inadvertently conceptualized NerdWallet while trying to distinguish between a high volume of credit card offers while working as a banking analyst in New York City.  He was not dabbling in coding or product design in his spare time; what he knew was spreadsheets, and–believe it or not–a plain Excel file was the initial inspiration behind what has become a publicly-traded company worth over 700 million dollars.  

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Founder Takeaway:  If truly knowing your product–and its market fit–would require venturing into a whole new area of education or experience, you might be out of your realm as a founder.  Stick to what you intuitively know and can speak to.  Chen was not only a young professional comparing credit card offers when the idea for NerdWallet dawned on him–he was also a professional “giver” of financial advice.  In other words, he understood both sides of the problem NerdWallet was addressing.  Through keeping his focus on the idea itself, NerdWallet was conceptually sound enough to become a real-life website.  Remember: any idea can be coded up into an application.  It’s the platforms that are needed–and can deliver to those in need–that succeed.

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