managementI have seen two types of companies. Some companies have a manager that he is the inventor of first products of that company (like Gates, Zuckerberg, Ellison, Wozniak, Page & Brin) and some others don’t have this type of managers and their boss are more businessman. My question is: if someone wants to create a technology company(In electronics and computers I mean) how much knowledge of electronics/computers should he have? should he be an expert in that field? If not, which knowledges and abilities are needed to create a new successful technology company? (I mean something like smartphone, laptop, etc company). Are there any successful companies in this field their founder/head didn’t know technical things in that field?If yes, how he could create that company?
I ask this because of 2 main resons:
1.Why if someone knows more than me and has more ability(in engineering I mean) must become my employee? Why he doesn’t make his own company and hire others?
2.Yesterday I wanted to order an Android/Ios application. I put my project in some freelancer sites. I got different suggestions with different costs and period times. So I searched more on google and found there are many ways to do an Android/ios project. And maybe only an expert of mobile applications can understand the underlaying codes and difference between them, and decide which one is better and what is the real value of that?
So, when I am not an expert in my field, how can I find the best solutions…specially when it’s a new company with a very limited budget!
If, as a founder or manager, you limit yourself to hiring people who are less talented than you are, you’re limiting your chances of success. As a manager you merely need to know enough in a desired skill set to be able to evaluate the skill level of those you’re hiring and whether they’re performing or not.
A founder with no technical skills whatsoever will usually be merely guessing at the technical skill level of their future CTO. But consider for a moment that they could (indeed should) be evaluating their future CTO based not on their technical skills but rather on their ability to hire and manage a technical team and to deliver projects on time and on budget.
This above is a lesson I learned at one of my first jobs: I was engineer at a telco startup. Our CEO hired a CTO a few months in. My new boss had spent his entire career in ceramics and knew very little about telecoms. But it didn’t matter the slightest. He knew enough to ask questions from time to time. He relied on the team’s judgement for everything, and stuck to keeping things streamlined and well managed.
Edit to answer your two extra points:
1.Why if someone knows more than me and has more ability(in engineering I mean) must become my employee? Why he doesn’t make his own company and hire others?
Many engineers couldn’t sell what they do even if their life depended on it.
Related: https://startups.stackexchange.com/questions/3151/how-to-find-and-convince-good-technical-co-founders-cto-for-my-startup
2.Yesterday I wanted to order an Android/Ios application. I put my project in some freelancer sites. I got different suggestions with different costs and period times. So I searched more on google and found there are many ways to do an Android/ios project. And maybe only an expert of mobile applications can understand the underlaying codes and difference between them, and decide which one is better and what is the real value of that?
First off outsourcing to a freelance site is, in my experience, a terrible way to get things done if you don’t understand what the freelancers are doing. Consider getting a (local) technical cofounder for your project(s) and have that person outsource grunt work as needed while you focus on sales.
Related in case you try to manage this yourself regardless:
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