I disagree about needing all technical co-founders, perhaps not surprisingly. I think it is true if you have an extremely technical sale targeting technical people, but not so if you are selling an application that solves a business or consumer problem. You do need your non-programmer founder to be very fluent in technical issues and development processes, but they don't have to be a great programmer. I do agree that in the very early stages of prototyping and iterating, you don't usually need more than one business person, although there are exceptions.

My son once asked me, “What's the difference between sales and marketing?” to which I answered, “In a startup, they are both sales, one sell shit that you don't have.”

First of all, I prefer that all my co-Founders to have technical background (even self-taught), but their contribution might not be engineering. Some of them need to be in sales (i.e., sales development).

But how do you sell when you don't even have a product?

In a startup we never sell product, we sell solution. And solution exists from day one. If you are not convinced that the solution exists, then you cannot convince your customers. But if you do, then you can start selling (the idea) even if the product doesn't exist (yet).

And sell you must. You sell to your customers, your early employees, your vendors, and potential angel investors. You just keep selling, especially on shit that you don't have.

http://www.StartupForLess.org