Validate a concept and find a dev partner as a non-technical founder

Being a non-technical founder doesn't have to be a limitation

You might have a concept for a digital product, or an idea that you think might have potential. But there's one major problem: you're non-technical, and don't have the knowledge or capability to validate the concept and develop the solution. Below I lay out a guide for how non-technical founders can shape and validate their concept, and find a development partner to build with. There are many ways non-technical founders can validate their concept and find a partner, and the one I share below is the one I've had most success with.

In short, this guide covers sharing/validating a technical concept (steps 1-3), as well as finding a technical partner (steps 4-5):

1. Articulate the concept on paper

2. Test and refine with technical people

3. Refine your concept and software requirements specifications

4. Find and secure a dev partner/solution

5. Set up your workspaces and start building

This process took me ~2 weeks, from idea to secured dev partner, for my SaaS business Forma (www.getforma.shop) which helps Shopify brands affordably run customer research while boosting conversion.

1. Articulate the concept on paper

As a non-technical founder, you need to communicate your ideas as clearly as possible, even at their earliest stages, with just enough detail for a technical audience to react and help push your thinking. At this stage, it's better to be more concise than verbose, and to be comfortable with the unknowns. This is where technical audiences will contribute.

For Forma, we prepared two slides (Images A + B below), which had:

• The concept and high-level proposition

• Trends in the market / the "why now"

• Benefits for the customer (i.e., for brands and consumers)

• An initial UX/wireframe that visualized how the product might work

Tip: Don't get too tripped up on this step. It's more important you are clear about the "what" behind the idea and not "how" it's delivered or the form it takes. For example, we initially tested this solution as an open SDK but through the process pivoted to a Shopify app. This is part of the process, so be comfortable being loose at this stage.

Image A: An overview of the solution, including the concept's proposition, market/macro trends, and high-level benefits for the customer.

Image B: An initial UX/wireframe visualizing how the solution would work.

2. Test and refine with technical people

Since I didn't have immediate access to many engineers to discuss, I turned to my available online resources to get the idea in front of developers and engineers. The most valuable effort was posting a job post on Upwork (Image C below), and using that to tap into their community of engineering talent by sharing my concept and discussing the scope of a build with engineers.

Note that I posted a job with generic language of my concept, and saved the concept slides (Images A + B above) for the virtual calls. I did not ask for a NDA, given I wanted to learn from these conversations and expected the concept to evolve, but this might be something you want to consider when sharing your concept.

Image C: Initial Upwork job post to find developers to share the concept with.

Once the job post was live, I immediately had an inflow of developers interested in learning about the project. I scheduled virtual meetings with ~25 developers over three days to share the concept slides and get feedback. Over these calls, I asked the same set of questions to help me understand the technical requirements:

• How would you approach this project?

• What do you foresee as the biggest challenges?

• What ideas might you have to improve the concept?

• How many hours would you expect this to take? (How much would it cost?)

These conversations are not only to learn, since you can also meet high-quality development talent to potentially hire or work with on your project. Either way, I was able to gather the necessary intel I needed to get smart on the feasibility, costs, timing, and appeal of the project.

Utilizing freelance networks is a great way to share your concept with developers, get feedback and input, establish your software requirements and scope, and refine your concept. The networks I used for these initial conversations were Upwork, Fiverr, and Reddit, with Upwork generating the most conversations for me. One development team in particular, Rolustech, was extremely helpful in helping shape the scope of my project, which I'd encourage others to connect with: https://www.rolustech.com/

3. Refine your concept and software requirements specifications

Many developers asked for a high-level Software Requirements Specifications (SRS) document, which outlines the scope and requirements of an initial build. Given the questions I asked during initial developer calls, I was able to create a high-level version of this document to help refine my concept and sharpen the scope of the MVP. This also served as a way to "speak the same language" with technical people moving forward.

My SRS included the following sections:

1. Introduction & MVP scope (proposition, benefits, why now)

2. MVP product overview (UX/wireframe)

3. User requirements for MVP (required user interactions)

4. Functional requirements (required infrastructure)

5. Budget, timeline, working model

6. Future roadmap (not for MVP; potential future features)

1 and 2 were evolutions of the initial concept slides, and 3-6 were additions informed by my conversations. See below for an example of the first version of the user and functional requirements for Forma's MVP build. As with every aspect of product building, this was meant as directional guidance and designed to evolve as we went into development.

Image D + E: Initial User and Functional requirements for MVP build of Forma.

Once I finalized my concept and SRS, I felt my initial non-technical "idea" became a refined concept in technical-enough language for a development partner to work with. Based on the costs, timing, and your own excitement, you can now decide if you'd like to move forward with the concept and find a development partner, or abandon/pivot. I decided to move forward, and re-publish job posts with intention to hire.

4. Find and secure a dev partner/solution

With a SRS in hand, I went back to freelance networks with more knowledge and enthusiasm. This time, I expanded my reach, and added Contra, Lemon, and TopTal to my outreach. Contra is a free-to-use platform with no commissions, which was appealing given my intention to hire: https://contra.com/

I also learned that my dev solution options mostly fell into two categories:

• Individual freelancer

  • Higher likelihood of being local / US based

  • Hourly rate / less defined timeline

  • Exact total costs more unknown

  • Potential to be partner/cofounder

• Small dev team/agency

  • Higher likelihood of being resourced internationally

  • Fixed project rate / more defined timeline

  • Exact total costs more defined

  • Low potential to be partner/cofounder

I decided I wanted to hire/bring on-board an individual, given I valued the partner being local/same time zone, and liked the potential prospect of finding a great partner to bring on in a technical cofounder capacity.

Contra also had a great AI-enabled job posting tool that essentially converted my SRS document to a friendly job posting (Image F below). I found the platform to be easy to use, and the engineering leads I found through Contra were high-quality. The platform also has helpful features like legal contract templates, digital signing, seamless billing, etc. I ended up bringing on a freelancer found on Contra as a cofounder/partner.

Image F: AI-supported Job Posting for Forma on Contra.com

5. Set up your workspaces and start building

Once I found a partner, we established our working rhythms and workspace tools. Our ongoing collaboration tools include Linear.io for backlog/task management (Image G below), and Slack free for daily communication. We've worked in weekly sprints with a weekly ~3hr worksession to review past week progress and align on next sprint focus.

Additional tools used for product building, deployment, and web development:

• Railway.app

• GitHub

• Loops.so (list building)

• Framer (web front-end/hosting)

• PostHog (analytics)

• Systeme.io (now inactive)

  • Mentioning Systeme.io here as it was a helpful tool for doing both website and email collection in one free tool. The website design and functionalities were limited, so we moved to using Framer + Loops.so.

Image G: Linear.io workflow management tool used for Forma buildout.

Shared language is better than shared knowledge

As a non-technical partner, your intuition and tone might naturally be more strategic/high-level than technical/tactical. Though the key unlock is in realizing an effective technical partner doesn't build a deep technical knowledge base, but learns to translate strategic concepts into a more technical language. The process laid out above demonstrates how to take non-technical concepts and, step-by-step, translate into a technical language for effective collaboration.