How I Built A Successful Tech Startup Where 90% Of My Team Can't Code

Forbes

2 days ago

Anatolii Kasianov🇺🇦, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at HOLYWATER / My Drama & My Passion & My Muse apps.
When I tell people that most of the team at our tech startup, HOLYWATER, is not technical, I often see surprise. And then I show them our results. Our platforms for e-books and video have seen great success in the industry—without a huge team of engineers. Instead, we hire business-oriented and creative minds.
Here's how it works and why a non-technical team can be the driving force behind a tech startup's success.
Your Whole Team Shoud Be Focused On Business Metrics
For us, development is just a tool, and by using AI solutions, we can build products much faster and efficiently. Our team consists largely of product managers, operations managers and creative specialists, whose decisions directly affect the business. They are engaged in our go-to-market strategy, marketing execution and product iteration based on real user feedback.
If you're currently running a startup, reconsider your hiring approach. Instead of defaulting to a certain number of developers, invest in a product manager who deeply understands both the market and product. You won't regret hiring someone who knows what needs to be built, how to launch and how to grow.
While developers lay the foundation, it's the business-minded team that builds the future unicorn.
An Entrepreneurial Mindset Is A Must For Devs
Developers should also think like founders. When I hire engineers, I don't just assess their technical skills—I look for entrepreneurial ambition and awareness of the business context.
During interviews, I ask candidates about their goals, which founders they follow, what business podcasts they listen to and how they stay current with market trends. I want engineers who can think like entrepreneurs, not just code executors.
This approach shows strong results. When developers understand the bigger picture, I've found that they form effective duos with product leads, solving not just technical challenges, but also focusing on business outcomes and aligning their own growth with the startup's success. For instance, one of our developers recently built an AI-powered solution for generating creatives that increased the marketing team's productivity by 30%.
Your Сreative Team Must Have A Nose For Trends
Our creative and marketing teams form the largest portion of our workforce—and for good reason. While developers work more linearly and systematically, supporting the product and building scalable solutions, creative work requires human intuition, cultural understanding and trend awareness that can't and shouldn't be automated.
When hiring creative professionals, look for people who live and breathe your niche. In my case, I want to hire marketers who watch booktok (the book and reader niche of TikTok), understand vertical video series trends and can spot emerging cultural movements before they hit mainstream. Their job isn't just to create content—it's to hack trends and understand what genuinely resonates with our audience.
The biggest challenge with creative teams is getting them to embrace data-driven decision-making. While many professionals rely on intuition ("this creative will perform well"), I encourage them to base decisions on actual performance metrics and ROI analysis. With your team, be sure to analyze creative performance so that they can directly understand how their work affects business metrics and profits. This way, they will become interested in building a data-driven approach.
Design An AI-Forward Culture
I believe that whenever a task can be automated with AI tools, we should do it immediately. It is not an option; it is a rule.
We have automated a lot of processes, from communication to production and marketing. In a fast-paced market, it's essential not to miss trends, and you need to share information with the team instantly. That's why it's important to use tools that can help you quickly share in-house data and catch trends.
Special attention is paid to the automation of creative materials. Our team now generates 2-3 times more creative content with AI agents and LLM models, often without involving creative teams at the initial stages. With the help of AI tools, we have also reduced the localization of advertising from five days to 1.5 hours and built systems that create ads without human intervention.
The secret of this approach is hiring people who embrace AI rather than fear it. During your interview process, assess candidates' attitudes toward AI tools and their experience solving problems with artificial intelligence.
This cultural alignment is non-negotiable. If someone joins your team with anti-AI sentiment, no amount of training can change their mindset. But when everyone is AI-friendly, your team leaders can identify opportunities for automation and growth.
Final Thoughts
When growing a tech product, don't rush to hire a dozen developers. Start building a team that understands business environments and market dynamics and has a nose for trends. That's how you can make better strategic decisions faster and ensure the rapid generation and implementation of creative ideas.
This is especially important in video content creation, where the production cycle can last for months, as well as for the technology industry, where that cycle can seem like an eternity.
The future belongs to companies that can enhance human creativity with AI capabilities. After all, the best way to build a tech company is to remember that technology is just the beginning, not the end goal.
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