The application process has taken us longer than I thought it would because it has made us question whether there really is a market for the idea. Yes, it does help to solve a problem, but we don't have a working product to get user feedback.
So for the past couple of weeks I've set the application aside and have focused on administering a market survey, so most of my time has been on the right wording for the test.
Hopefully with the help of social networks, email, WOM, etc... We'll be able to get a large enough sample to help us understand if we're heading in the right direction. If so, we'll submit our application with the survey results.
I am sure, though, that upon reading the questions, the person taking the survey will know quite easily what our start-up will be doing... which can be good and bad. Our positive spin on this is the survey will be our public declaration that we are up to something.
Oftentimes, working/thinking about my startup consumes my attention, such that my wife thinks I don't care about anything else... I find it hard to understand why other people just don't "get it" when it comes to entrepreneurship.
yes, my partner feels all i do is work work work. Always telling me to plan other things like vacations, or dates out. This has been a real drain on the relationship. However, i'm noticing that if i communicate more about what i'm working on every day, it smooths things over, and the same goes for friends and family.
It's the same with other things that you're passionate about. Your mind gets used to thinking about it and you don't even notice that it consumes all of your attention.
I'm sure your wife has something that she's very into but you just don't get/understand/grok.
I'm not sure whether the effectiveness of the federal contracting model can be accurately compared against a start-up, but here goes.
My paying job is that of a systems engineer and it is my responsibility to keep track of meeting customer needs against cost and schedule. This being said, part of my work is to correctly capture customer needs and then make sure that the development and environment teams are able to architect and design according to specs. From a business standpoint, this dual team environment is effective in that the company for whom I work continues to win contracts because the customer's needs are met.
I think the arrangement where the founders are not currently developers would be equally effective as a team of developers as long as they are able to accurately capture and understand their customer's needs prior to the start of coding.
"... I think the arrangement where the founders are not currently developers would be equally effective as a team of developers as long as they are able to accurately capture and understand their customer's needs prior to the start of coding. ..."
I wish all or some customer needs could be fixed at the start of coding but it's not likely to happen. For a start, exactly "who is a startups customers?" You can ask them, but you need a demo first. If you build new products (stuff that by definition has not been built before) a constant dialog with users is required 'at' the time of coding and development not before.
There is one other problem I can think of. Sometimes the customer is not in the position to know what is possible. So it's up to the developer(s) to build something not specified directly by customers. Zenter is an example. In a talk with Crosby & Walker (http://www.grid7.com/podpress_trac/feed/178/0/vCast070807_Ze... Podcast #24 - Founders of Zenter, 46Mb ) it becomes apparent that in developing Zenter it was not merely just a copy of MS Powerpoint. It required knowledge of what existing users require. Then extend it to the Web. Exploiting the Webs unique properties.
The gap of knowing what customers need (upfront or close to upfront) and taking a guess where users need now and in the future is what makes startups "late binding" in needs requirements.
I agree with everyone who've said that at least one founder needs to be a programmer/developer.
The initial technical assessment on the feasibility of an idea or feature is within the domain of a programmer/developer, but I think it would require a non-developer to help do the cost/benefit trade-off. The reason for this is I've worked with so many developers who are excited by a technical solution, when the cost of it is prohibitive. It may have been the "best" solution, but it would have been very costly.
I intend to submit my startup idea as part of the YC winter funding event, even though I do not have a developer on-board yet. It's been hard finding a developer who is able to take the plunge and sacrifice the security of a cubicle farm. I have advisors/friends who are developers, but they don't want to take the risk, despite agreeing with the idea.
Thank you to everyone who have shared their thoughts.
This is very helpful, thank you both!