At dinner last week with Fabrice Bernhard, Co-founder & CTO of Theodo UK, a tech-team-for-hire company, we were lucky for Fabrice to share five lessons he thought would be worthwhile for any non-tech founder to know.

1. Spend 50% on marketing, 50% on tech.
2. Be fast. You can start with as little tech as possible (Did you know Groupon started out with just a blog?) By starting with as little tech as possible you can make sure you are going in the right direction before sinking large sums of money in developing tech.
3. When you’re looking for tech partners, go for the very smart but not very experienced. Don’t be fooled by the CV. Test out what they say. You want to be smart about the business as you can always find more solutions in tech.
4. The tech partners in your business need to be able to make it understandable for you.
5. As a startup, you need a CTO that’s super smart and can attract (and retain) good talent. Run away from anyone who hasn’t coded for 10 years, who is used to managing teams or insists on using old technology!

For more great tips from our speakers, take a look at our other posts – or better yet – hear first-hand by joining us for dinner!