284: The unexpected upside of becoming a tech founder (before you ever “succeed”)

Most people think the upside of building a tech company comes after success.

Turns out, a lot changes long before that.

The moment you start building something technical, your professional gravity shifts. Doors open. Conversations change. People listen differently.

In this solo episode of Tech for Non-Techies, Sophia breaks down the benefits that show up early — before scale, exits, or headlines.

Not hype. Not hustle culture. Just the quiet upgrades that compound over time.

This episode is for experienced operators and business leaders who sense a gap in their market and are wondering whether it’s worth acting on.

In this episode, you will hear:

• Why building a tech product instantly reframes how others see your judgment and credibility
• The CEO-level skills you develop early and why they raise your earning ceiling
• How becoming “harder to bullshit” saves time, money, and bad decisions
• The social and professional compounding effect most people never see coming

Resources from this Episode 

FREE class: From Business Owner to Tech Founder, without the $100,000 developer disaster

Join this class to learn:

• The 2-step framework to go from idea to scalable tech product
• Why smart business owners waste $100k+ on their first tech venture—and how to avoid it
• When AI helps vs. when it destroys products (and your ROI)

Sign up here: https://www.techfornontechies.co/january

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TRANSCRIPT

Sophia Matveeva  00:00

Becoming a tech founder changes what becomes available to you even before you actually succeed. This episode is about the side effect of building a tech venture, especially for experienced business owners, and why those side effects alone can make building a tech venture worth it in the first place you Hello and welcome to the tech for non techie podcast. I'm your host. Sophia matveiza, if you're a non technical founder, building a tech product or adding AI to your business, you're in the right place. Each week you'll get practical strategies, step by step, playbooks and real world case studies to help you launch and scale a tech business without learning to code. And this is not another startup show full of jargon venture capital theater or tech row bravado. Here, we focus on building useful products that make money without height and without code. I've written for the Harvard Business Review and lectured at Oxford, London Business School and Chicago Booth. So you are in safe hands. I've also helped hundreds of founders go from concept to scalable product, and now it's your turn. So let's dive in. This episode is sponsored by tech for non technical founders, the program that helps non technical entrepreneurs go from idea to market ready product without wasting $100,000 on avoidable mistakes. And if you're a non technical founder who has already spent 1000s of dollars and months of time on development only turned up with nothing release ready to show for it. Well, you're not alone. And if you haven't hired developers yet, and you're wondering where to start, well, that's even better, because the biggest mistake I see after coaching hundreds of non technical founders is not hiring the wrong people. It's actually hiring before you know what you're doing. It's actually hiring before you know what you're doing. And that's exactly why I'm hosting a free life class on January the 13th, 2026 called from business owner to tech founder without the 100k developer disaster. I'm going to walk you through the exact I'll walk you through the exact two step framework that I've taught at Oxford, London Business School and Tech Stars, so you can finally understand why smart, capable business owners blow $100,000 on their first tech venture. We'll cover when AI actually helps versus when it destroys your product, and we'll cover how to think like a tech founder instead of a developer client with a credit card. I also give you the behind the scenes preview of the tech film technical founders program, so you can see what's possible with the right guidance and the right process. So make sure to sign up to the free class on January the 13th at Tech fund. Techies.co forward slash January. And the link is also in the show notes, because the next 100k you spend, it should go toward growth and not towards painful lessons. Hello, smart people. How are you today? Are you ready for the holidays? Have you bought all your gifts? Are you in a panic? I am somewhere in between panic and denial, because frankly, I have a lot of work to do, and I don't like the fact that December can be this throwaway month where people are like, oh, you know, really, we only work for a week, and then the rest of the time it's just drunken party time. Maybe I was more into that in my 20s, but now I am an older, more mature woman. I think I want to get some stuff done. I want to finish this year really, really ready for 2026 anyway, in this episode, I want to talk to you about the benefits that I have had, and also my students have had from becoming tech founders. But this is not an episode that says, quit your job. Anybody can build a unicorn. Tech founders are special because there's a lot of nonsense out there online, and I don't want to add to that, this episode is about what actually happens to your professional life when you start building a tech venture, and I literally mean when you start, not when you're already, you know, a super successful tech founder. Because, like, that's obvious. I don't need to tell you that. Often I see business owners and very successful professionals and business you know, if you have built a business, you're a very successful professional. You underestimate the subside, which is why I wanted to make it clear. And because this episode is coming out at the end of December, I think this is really useful for you to know when you are thinking about what you want for 2026 and beyond. So let's talk about the tangent. All side effects of becoming a tech founder. So number one is that you start being seen as an innovator in your industry. So you are somebody who sees future trends, which means that you start getting invited into rooms that you basically, you know, didn't have access to before. So for example, when I first started my first ever tech company, and frankly, you know, I was really quite early on in my journey. I was already being interviewed by the trade press for retail. So it was a retail tech company that started, and I was being asked to give my opinion in the press, in the retail press, and I was being invited to speak at retail conferences, because basically, I had a view on what was happening in the industry. And this is by default, because if you have an idea for a tech venture, then by definition, you see a gap in the market, right? Like, that's why you have this idea. And so especially if you are a business owner, that means that you've been operating in your sector for a while, you've probably seen some sort of process that isn't super efficient, or some sort of way to scale an offering that's currently maybe just brick and mortar. And so basically, because you have this insight just on the possibility, even before you actually made that possibility come true. If you have insight just on the possibility, you're already a pretty interesting commentator. And actually, we can even look at this like look at Sam ultimate. You know, often he's talking about the possibility of generative AI rather than what it can do today, and it's working out for him. But honestly, if you have genuine insights. You are more interesting to the press, to conferences and to you know events on innovation, than just another provider in your sector. So one of the benefits is that you get these MIDI media interviews invitations. You get an invitation to speak at conferences, to speak at round tables, to give your expert commentary. And why does this matter? It matters because this builds your long term professional credibility, because the interviews that I gave, let's say now it would be like what eight years ago, anyway, a while ago, those interviews and those conferences appearance, those conference appearances are actually still useful to me today, even though retail tech is not where I'm operating anymore. But essentially, once you start being seen as an expert in innovation, you start being seen as a tech innovator. Then this compounds over time, and so let's say you decide to switch your focus, and maybe in 10 years time you want to become an investor. Maybe you want to get into venture capital. In 10 years time, having built up that professional visibility as a tech innovator is going to help you, then this is not about ego. This is about signal. This is about being known as somebody who's worth listening to. Number two, you earn the type of CEO level skills that a lot of business owners never, ever gain. And these skills are very lucrative, and you can actually monetize those skills while you're building your tech venture.

Sophia Matveeva  08:17

So when you are becoming a tech founder, you, for example, you might fundraise, and if you're fundraising from investors, even when you're just learning to do it, when you're just doing the fundraising before you even close, you have to learn how to pitch. That takes a while. You have to learn how to get those pitch meetings in the first place. You have to learn how to answer questions. You have to learn how to lead the conversation with investors in a very specific way. And you're thinking, Well, you know, if I'm a business owner, I've already learned how to sell stuff. There's a really big difference, let me tell you, because I have sold stuff and I have sold equity, and those are two really different things, because selling equity is like this very theoretical concept. And if I was just, if I were to say to you, look, I'm going to sell you this glass, you will understand, like what it is there is a glass of water in my hand. You might think, Okay, this is useful. This is not useful. You understand what it is. Selling equity is like this very theoretical concept. So I genuinely think once you can sell equity in a startup, you can sell pretty much anything. So when you're a tech founder, if you have chosen to go through the fundraising journey, whether it's through investors or accelerators, you've learned fundraising mechanics, you've learned investor communications, you've learned media positioning, you've learned how to position yourself. You've learned how to explain your product, even if you're not fundraising, the fact that you know product leadership, you know how to tell the story of your product, the story of your customer, and how to explain complex tech ideas simply, which you will have to do either to customers or to investors or, you know, to both a lot of the time. Basically, you. You get this, you know, frankly, very 21st Century future proof skill set. Why does this matter? It matters because these skills are transferable, and they unlock opportunities like being on an advisory board. So, for example, I am on the advisory board of an AI company that AI company is doing quite well. Just the fact that I am on the advisory board of this AI company opens me up to more opportunities, because people want to understand what that's like. But also, frankly, as an advisor, I have some equity in that company, so I'm hoping that's going to work out really, really well for me. Also this kind of role, this kind of skill set, opens you up to board positions. And a lot of boards are looking for people who have experience in digital innovation, because, you know, the whole world is going through digital and AI transformation. So if you get that skill set, then, okay, you're opening up to board positions. And this is something that you can actually do part time really lucrative whilst you're building your tech venture. This also opens you up to other high value opportunities, like, you know, giving some consulting to an organization going through digital transformation, for example, just this skill set alone can change your earnings ceiling. And what I really like about this is that when you are a tech innovator and you are seen as a tech innovator, yes, we're talking about your skill set being monetizable. We're talking about the fact that you're now being invited to all sorts of interesting, glamorous press opportunities. But also it's how you see yourself and how you talk about yourself, because previously, your identity would have been defined by what you've already done. So you have created this thing, and these are your results. But we don't want to just let our past define us, right? We also want our future to define us. And when you're building something for the future, then that's when your future is defining you, because when you are creating something new, then you are somebody who builds new things. You are relevant to innovation conversations. You are no longer just, you know, boxed into this one industry. This is why you see people in your tech founders. Yes, they're speaking in their industry. So in my case, I was speaking in the retail industry. But you also then just get opened up to the whole innovation and tech innovation landscape in the first place, which is actually much bigger, much more interesting, and has a lot more opportunity. So the third point is that we already said that the media starts asking for your opinions, and we already said that you gain this really monetizable skill set. So the third point is that when people start asking for your opinion. You can charge for it. This is literally how tech for non techie started. So I was writing about what I was learning as a non technical founder running my first company. I was writing about that in Forbes. Those articles did well, because nobody else was writing about being a non technical founder, and then as a result, basically, I got lots of incoming messages. And then I thought, Okay, let me create some content. Let me, let me do some advisory work on non technical founders. That's how techno techie started. But you might be thinking, Okay, well, good for you, but I, you know, I don't want to start a whole education company. Totally fine, because, you know, an education company is a lot of work. What I would say to you is that I'm thinking of one of my students who literally, he was in the automotive industry, and he literally just started posting what he was learning on LinkedIn. And one of the things he would do is he would go to events. Sometimes he was a speaker. A lot of the time he wasn't, so he would go to an industry event, and he would make some notes, and he would essentially rewrite those notes and post post them on LinkedIn as a as a LinkedIn post. And he did this fairly frequently, but not, definitely not, not every day, like a few times a month. And what happened was that then people started seeing him as this innovation expert in the automotive industry. So they started reaching out to him, including one of those insights companies. And they basically said, we really want to talk to you. We see that you're this expert. Can we have an hour of your time for $500 so he naturally said yes, and this was really easy for him to he didn't need to prepare like he literally just needed to be on Zoom and he needed to be sober, that's it, and he needed to answer their questions. So once you are seen as a tech innovator in your industry, what happened is that people ask for your strategic input. People ask for your product advice. You get a lot of founders asking you for feedback. You get investors, you know, early stage investors, like angel investors, saying, Hey, I'm looking at this opportunity. What do you think? You also get people from the corporate world saying, Hey, we're kind of working on. This. What do you think about this? Basically, you get your you get people who are working on interesting things, asking you for your opinion. So it feels nice like when I get those messages from somebody really impressive. Honestly, it does feel nice, but it also can pay well,

Sophia Matveeva  15:17

because, you know, a half an hour call, a one hour call, is definitely billable and at like, senior level rates, and also you have zero overhead. And this is not, you know, just random coaching, like, you know, find your Goddess within you are giving experienced operator advice. And so the more you are seen as a tech founder, the more you are seen as a tech innovator in your industry, the more this stuff happens to you. And I see this with my students, and I see this with myself all the time. Now, benefit number four of becoming a tech founder is that you become slightly harder to bullshit, especially by tech people. So I'll give you this example. I was at the JP Morgan tech investment conference a couple of months ago, as you guys know, because I already did a podcast about that. So at this investor conference, one of the bits of it was a panel discussion with some vibe coding CEOs. So there were a couple of vibe coding CEOs who made claims about what their startups could do that I knew to be technologically very dubious. So, you know, they were basically saying, you know, anybody can use our platform, and then you can just write code and it's going to be so amazing. Blah, blah, blah. Most of the people in the room were finance guys, because this was an investment conference. So most people were like, from family offices or pension funds and so on, and they were lapping it up. They were like, yes, this sounds really interesting. Tell us more. But you know, I just decided to ruin the party for everybody, and I stood up and I asked a question. I said, Okay, well, how do your claims about vibe coding work in practice, given that AI hallucinates, and given that, you know, if somebody can't tell what good code is, and AI hallucinates, what do you do to solve that problem? And that meant that these vibe coding CEOs who are saying all sorts of grandiose claims about their total addressable market, they basically had to backtrack and say, You know what, our stuff is actually mostly used for developers, because they're the ones that can really check the code. And you know, first of all, I like the fact that you can't pull the wall over my eyes. I like that. And that does make me feel more powerful. That does make me feel more powerful in the digital age. And we can really, see why this is important now, especially in a time of AI hype, and it's really important for you as a leader to be able to do that, because there are all sorts of companies who are going to say all sorts of things. And if you actually understand, if you've maybe built something fairly simple, even if you're just on the journey to building it, you are going to know so much more. You're going to understand so much more. You're going to be able to ask such better questions, even just within six months of working on a tech product than you are without it. So going back to JP Morgan, obviously my question made me very noticeable as the tech expert in a room full of finance people, which is really useful because then people came up to me, asked me for my opinion, wanted to get to know me and so on. That's useful for the future. But also, I also just do want to clarify that I didn't want to make these vibe coding people just look bad for the sake of it. I don't like making somebody look bad, so I can look good, but if somebody is making false claims, then I have no mercy. Anyway. Getting back to you, once you have built a simple tech product, when you're even just on your way to building it, you already understand sequencing. You know where the risk of creating something really sits you can smell hand waving. You can, you can. Basically, you're not falling for innovation theater. This means that you're hiring better developers. You waste less money, you ask better questions, and you spot bad advice earlier, and you have that professional, sophisticated level of skepticism that only a real professional has. And this skill is going to be with you forever. And this is one of those monetizable skills that people really, really want and actually, genuinely pay for. Point number, I believe five. I think we're now up to five.

Sophia Matveeva  19:37

So here's another benefit, which is kind of more fun, you basically become interesting in a way that is compounding socially and professionally, and I'll give you an example. So I now have a good, friendly relationship with a billionaire founder of a private equity firm, and we meet up fairly regularly, and I ask him for advice. I share my opinion. In on what's happening in my side of the market. He tells me what he is working on. And in general, I find these conversations really, really interesting and really inspiring. Because seeing somebody, you know, seeing somebody who's a self made billionaire and like seeing how they think it's just really useful, because then you can go away and you can think, oh, okay, so this is what they do. This is how they structure their day. This is maybe what I should be doing as well. And honestly, when I'm thinking like, you know, I've known him for a while, but when did we start building this relationship? And it's when he literally saw that I was building something and building something really ambitious. Honestly, he would have given me the time of day if I was just another middle manager, or if I just had another kind of identikit business. And we work in very different fields. So it's not like he desperately needs my insights, like I think, I think, you know, he's fine without me. He's he's managed to make his billions without me. However, he finds it interesting to talk to me. I find it interesting to talk to him. We have mutual respect and enjoy spending time together. The reason why this is a benefit is once you are working on something and you are genuinely putting in the effort, you're not just kind of waving your hands, but you're actually creating something, and you have an ambition to maybe not change the world, but change an industry, then you are working on something incredibly ambitious, and that's when game recognizes game and I've genuinely found this with my students. And this happens even at fairly early stages, even in the first year of you becoming a tech founder, if you actually create something, you release something. You manage to get people on board. You manage to get your first few customers, other people who have built other things. They know what that journey is like. They respect that journey. And so anybody who's gone through it, they basically are kind of, you know that they're much more open to talking to you if you've gone through that difficult journey too. And here's the last hidden benefit of becoming a tech founder, you basically start feeling like you are playing the game, not just commenting on it. So you know, there are lots of commentators on AI, on tech, on all sorts of digital innovation, and they're posting all over on LinkedIn, and then you look at what they're doing, and well, basically, not much or nothing. It's not really particularly relevant to their actual work. Whereas, if you start creating something new, if you follow your convictions, if you see a gap in the market, and you don't just talk to people about it, but you actually do something about it, then you are putting yourself in a completely different category. You're putting yourself in the category of innovators, not the category of the majority. And the majority of the people are basically sitting there on the sidelines commenting, so you're not optimizing what already exists, which is what most people are doing. You're not standing on the sidelines, and you are testing yourself against uncertainty until you're really actually seeing, like, what am I made of? Can I really do this? You are living life at this, like, very high octane level. And why is this a good thing? Why is this a useful thing? It's because then you are becoming the biggest, most fierce, and frankly, most interesting version of yourself. Because, you know, we all have those thoughts of, well, I could do this, and what if I did that, but it's the people who actually go and do it, those are the people that are the most impressive. And it's not just impressing other people, it's impressing yourself. So like, honestly, I'm really impressed with the stuff that I've done, and I forget it all the time, because, you know, as a I think any kind of working professional, you open your inbox and there's a whole bunch of problems, and you're like, oh my god, okay, this is what I have to deal with today. But then I take a pause, and I think I have done some really cool stuff, and I have had ideas, and I have followed through on those ideas, and I have recruited teams, and I got customers, and I made stuff that was in my head exist in real life. And I've helped other people take stuff out of their heads and make it real, turn it into matter in the real world. And that is really, really, really cool, like that just feels good. It's not even what other people think. But like, I think very highly of myself now, and honestly, I think much more so than I would have done if I hadn't done this. So as you are reflecting on this year on 2025 and you are thinking about what you want for 2026 I want you to think about these ancillary benefits of becoming a tech founder, because this could sway your decision to follow your intuition and follow that vision of filling that gap in the market. It, and honestly filling that gap on the market that you are seeing it is going to require you to stretch yourself, but precisely because it is difficult, this is why you get into this elevated position of people who can do hard things. But I'm not saying to you that you must build a startup, because a tech product is a solution to a problem. So if you don't see a problem, like, don't worry about this, like, find the problem to solve first, and then think about the benefits of becoming a tech founder. But if you're one of those people who sees the problem, who sees the gap in the market, then definitely listen to this episode. Because I'm not saying you must build a startup, but I am saying building tech products has side effects that can meaningfully upgrade your professional life. And on that note, thank you very much for listening. Make sure that you sign up to a free class in January on how to go from business owner to tech founder without the 100k developer disaster. That class is on the 13th of January, and the link to register is tech for non techies.co, forward slash January. That's tech for non techies.co, forward slash January, or just go to the link in the show notes. It's going to be an awesome, awesome class. You're going to learn the frameworks that I have taught to founders who have gone from business owner to tech founder in less than a year. So if you want to start your 2026 with a bang, then tech phone on, techies.co, forward slash January, that's where you need to go to register. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll be back with you next week. Ciao,