Welcome to the Tech for Non-Techies podcast

Tech products like apps, sites and algorithms are constantly evolving. Every time an app is released, its makers track how people use it. They use that information to improve it for the next release. 

Traditional products like the chair you are sitting on, are just made and sold to you. The manufacturer doesn't monitor how you sit on the chair to make it more comfortable. 

Tech products are made using a cyclical production process, whereas traditional products are made using a linear one. 

This is the biggest difference and hardest for non-techies to understand, because it is a philosophy of imperfection and co-creation with your users. Instead of making an elaborate plan for the best product possible, you release something simple and improve it with time and use. 

Listen to this episode to understand the steps in the tech cycle. 

Listen here on Apple Podcasts. 

Listen here on Spotify. 

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Do you have a brilliant...

Robyn is the CEO & Founder of HER, the world’s largest brand for LGBTQ women & queer people. Their app is home to 5 million people across the world, with dating and community connections, and their events run in 15 cities, hosting 50,000 people per year.

She is also an alumna of Y Combinator, the prestigious Silicon Valley accelerator, and has raised $2.5 million from investors.

Despite Robyn's Silicon Valley successes, she is not a technical founder. Her background is in branding.

Listen to hear how Robyn:

• built a global technology company without a tech background
• made her first technical hires & hear her advice for non
• technical founders and non-techies working in tech 

Listen here on Apple Podcasts. 

Listen here on Spotify.

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Do you have a brilliant app idea and no tech knowledge to build it? Get your FREE guide here.

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There are 2 ways to apply this work to your unique challenges:

For companies:

• If your...

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works - Steve Jobs

Great design is vital if you want your app or site to succeed. Having great code is meaningless if your users cannot understand how your product works, or simply don't enjoy using it. Intuitive and easy to use design lies at the heart of tech giants like Facebook and startups like Peanut. A career in UX design is also a great way for non-technical professionals to participate in the tech boom.

Watch this video to learn from Sang Valte, Design Standards Board member at General Assembly and ex-Head of Design at leading multinational UX agency Tigerspike.

•  What User Experience design is
• What sits in the UX umbrella
• How to work with UX designers to make great tech products

This session is presented by Sophia Matveeva, Enty founder, Forbes contributor and Chicago Booth MBA (seen in Financial Times, Wall Street Journal etc). Say hi to Sophia on Twitter https://twitter.com/SophiaMatveeva

After about a year of working with developers, a designer and a community manager to build Enty products, I started feeling pretty good about myself. After all, I started out with no idea about how apps or algorithms, and here I was with both. I even had a happy team. Go me!

So I decided that we should all do a review of our progress and team practices. Give me feedback, I said! Don't hold your fire, I encouraged.

Well. Ahem. They didn't.

The result - I wanted to crawl under my bed and quietly drown in my tears, surrounded by pizza crumbs and Twix wrappers.

The problem that everyone, EVERYONE, told me was that they didn't really understand what we were trying to achieve. We were all working hard, producing new features and pushing out new releases, but my team saw no direction. The chaos was further exacerbated by the total lack of documentation, which meant we created new things pretty much at random. Everyone was frustrated.

I realised I had a full blown rebellion on my hands, and...

David Segura is a perfect example of how non-techies can thrive in technology. His first venture, Giant Media, was a native video advertising exchange which David sold for millions to an ad tech company backed by TPG & JMI in 2014. Since then David has invested in almost 50 startups, many of which have technology at their core. 

I met David in the early Naughties, when we studied together at the University of Chicago College. At the time, it is fair to say we both had little knowledge of or interest in technology. Yet, after studying Political Science, David made a successful career in tech entrepreneurship and investing. He has never learnt to code. 

In this interview, David talks about:

• How he worked with his CTO at Giant Media to scale and sell an ad tech platform
• That you don’t actually need a CTO to get started if you are a non-technical founder
• Knowing how to work with the tech team being more important than coding
• Leading a syndicate to invest in a Y...

A non-technical founder’s job is not to learn to code, but to successfully manage the technology production process and make sure it aligns with business goals. To do this successfully, non-technical founders need to understand technology workflows, learn how to ask the right questions and collaborate with designers and developers.

This webinar teaches you  the basics of user experience design, servers and product analysis.

Listen to understand the key information you need to start building your tech business.  

If you want more, check out the online course. 

None of us expected this week. We were going to go on vacation, speak at conferences and pitch new clients. And now, we are sitting at home, seeing a constant stream of frightening news flow.

And yet, I am choosing to see this as an opportunity, both for my career and my businesses. Sure, I have lost some revenues, but I have already made pivots to other sources which are on the way up.

I honestly believe this time could be THE time you look back at and see it as the time that propelled you forward. This isn't some hippy law of attraction bullsh*t, this is about evaluating how you can position yourself and your business to serve people in a new environment. 

As a knowledge worker, you are the product. Your skills, your reputation and your network is why you get hired. This time is an opportunity to enhance all of those. 

As a knowledge worker, you are the product. This is the time to invest in that product, by enhancing your existing skills or...