Hi! Semi-technical co-founder. To answer your question, yes I have been in this situation, and more or less still am. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk (email is in profile)
First off, I'm 29. I already feel like I'm a failure because I'm not Mark Zuckerberg rich at my age. Get in line!
> * I have ideas and goals of starting a company, but am unable to build everything myself, and lack the financial resources to hire anyone to help me.*
Great, so we've identified the main problem (I've been there!). Here's something I've learned - people who are technical will respect you much more because you do have a technical understanding. So all is not lost in thinking that you can't find someone to partner up with. Think of the whole technical/non-technical challenges like this: it's like walking into a French restaurant and asking for a cheeseburger in English. If you are able to throw at least a rudimentary understanding of French ("un cheeseburger, s'il vous plaît") you signal to the waiter that you want to talk on his level. This has less to do with your ability to speak fluently and more about respect of the person's craft/culture. In my experience techies love this. You know what they hate? They hate non-technical people coming to them and saying "Oh god that's so easy, you should be done with it in 5 minutes" or "build the next facebook with me! it's easy!". So you've already got a leg up on 90% of the people out there.
The most important thing here is to continue to search for what you enjoy. Some people find this at 18, some people find it at 60. Don't be discouraged if your path isn't equal to what you perceive everyone elses is. Stop reading TechCrunch dreaming about how or why you aren't the next 30 under 30 who just raised $50m in VC funding. Just get out there and build stuff people like.
First off, I'm 29. I already feel like I'm a failure because I'm not Mark Zuckerberg rich at my age. Get in line!
> * I have ideas and goals of starting a company, but am unable to build everything myself, and lack the financial resources to hire anyone to help me.*
Great, so we've identified the main problem (I've been there!). Here's something I've learned - people who are technical will respect you much more because you do have a technical understanding. So all is not lost in thinking that you can't find someone to partner up with. Think of the whole technical/non-technical challenges like this: it's like walking into a French restaurant and asking for a cheeseburger in English. If you are able to throw at least a rudimentary understanding of French ("un cheeseburger, s'il vous plaît") you signal to the waiter that you want to talk on his level. This has less to do with your ability to speak fluently and more about respect of the person's craft/culture. In my experience techies love this. You know what they hate? They hate non-technical people coming to them and saying "Oh god that's so easy, you should be done with it in 5 minutes" or "build the next facebook with me! it's easy!". So you've already got a leg up on 90% of the people out there.
The most important thing here is to continue to search for what you enjoy. Some people find this at 18, some people find it at 60. Don't be discouraged if your path isn't equal to what you perceive everyone elses is. Stop reading TechCrunch dreaming about how or why you aren't the next 30 under 30 who just raised $50m in VC funding. Just get out there and build stuff people like.
Good luck!