I suspect the reason non-technical people have difficulty convincing developers isn't so much about respect but more to do with the idea itself and the person presenting it.
Its come to a point that hiring development staff for web based applications isn't that expensive if you focus on hiring people that aren't in North America and don't need to use the whiz bang language or framework (I would put even Ruby on Rails and Django in this) but instead use PHP.
What I do think is important for non-technical founders is to have an understanding of what software development actually involves, so that they can judge and critique the work. It's worth knowing why a company might quote you, $10K for some work versus another $50K. Is one company using PHP or ASP.NET? Does one company's quote include all tasks such as requirement's gathering, mock-ups, development and production deployment. Where does system testing and end user testing fit into all of it? What's the hosting costs after the fact. Are they using Rackspace, AWS or their own provider and charging $300 a month for it.
I think a smart person can take a good 30-50 hours and read up on all this and get a good grounding as there is no lack of materials to get this knowledge from. I don't need to know the intricate details of how to build a car to appreciate the manufacturing process for a car. We all know there are many makes and models of cars but the design and manufacturing, distribution and sales of cars follow similar patterns (not taking into account the new entrants such as Tesla).
As an added check, a non-technical founder should find a trusted technical person that can help guide the development of the product even if the technical person themselves won't build it.
I think doing this would go a long way to get something built and off the ground. It's easy for a lot of us who have grown up with technology and understand computers, the internet, programming languages, algorithms, software development etc. but for the non-technical person who grew up as a user of the tech not but not a tinkerer its hard to catch up and go beyond and build a product (even an MVP).
Interesting! Indeed if you work with freelance developers, or you work as freelancer, getting "quotes" is quite some work, and understanding if it is a good price or not, also.
As I am working on a side-project trying to help others with making quotes, would you have some time to chat more?
Its come to a point that hiring development staff for web based applications isn't that expensive if you focus on hiring people that aren't in North America and don't need to use the whiz bang language or framework (I would put even Ruby on Rails and Django in this) but instead use PHP.
What I do think is important for non-technical founders is to have an understanding of what software development actually involves, so that they can judge and critique the work. It's worth knowing why a company might quote you, $10K for some work versus another $50K. Is one company using PHP or ASP.NET? Does one company's quote include all tasks such as requirement's gathering, mock-ups, development and production deployment. Where does system testing and end user testing fit into all of it? What's the hosting costs after the fact. Are they using Rackspace, AWS or their own provider and charging $300 a month for it.
I think a smart person can take a good 30-50 hours and read up on all this and get a good grounding as there is no lack of materials to get this knowledge from. I don't need to know the intricate details of how to build a car to appreciate the manufacturing process for a car. We all know there are many makes and models of cars but the design and manufacturing, distribution and sales of cars follow similar patterns (not taking into account the new entrants such as Tesla).
As an added check, a non-technical founder should find a trusted technical person that can help guide the development of the product even if the technical person themselves won't build it.
I think doing this would go a long way to get something built and off the ground. It's easy for a lot of us who have grown up with technology and understand computers, the internet, programming languages, algorithms, software development etc. but for the non-technical person who grew up as a user of the tech not but not a tinkerer its hard to catch up and go beyond and build a product (even an MVP).