How Non-Technical Founders Can Actually Run a Dev Team

(And Why “Let’s Just Use Jira” Isn’t a Real Plan)

Everyone’s heard of Agile. Most founders we meet say, “Yeah, we’re doing Agile.”
But when you dig deeper, it usually means: we dumped some tasks into Jira and hoped for the best.

Let’s be real: Agile won’t magically fix your product process. It’s not the tool. It’s how you run the team.

💥 Where it goes wrong (almost every time)

Here’s what we keep seeing in startups run by non-technical founders:

Tasks dropped into Jira like a digital to-do list
Telegram chats full of random decisions and bug reports
Nobody logging hours or updating task statuses
Releases delayed because “nobody told QA”
And yeah — still no documentation

Result? Deadlines slip, devs burn out, and founders get blindsided.

🛠 How we made it work

We designed a workflow that works for small teams, chaotic pivots, and MVP deadlines.

Here’s what changed:

10 clear task stages (not 3 vague ones)
Defined roles at each stage — no “I thought QA would test it”
Full visibility for founders, PMs, and clients
Centralized tools, not scattered hacks

We mapped it out in detail here:
📄 See the full development workflow with visuals

🚦What our process looks like (simplified)

We track every task through a predictable path:

Open – Task drafted, with a clear goal
Clarify Details – Missing info? Solved here
In Progress – Dev picks it up
Code Review – No merges without review
QA – Tested across devices and cases
Ready to Release – PM checks & approves
Release – Goes live
Verified – QA confirms it works in prod
Reopened – Bugs? Back it goes
Completed – Done, really done

Simple on paper. But it works because every step has an owner, a tool, and a checklist.

🔑 Principles we stick to

All comms in public Slack channels — no private chats
Task tracking in YouTrack — or Jira/ClickUp if it works for you
Time logging daily — even if it’s just 30 minutes
We write docs — always. API specs, architecture diagrams, test cases

We also documented everything here if you want the full breakdown:
📘 Software Development Plan — A Step-by-Step Guide for Founders

🤝 If you’re a non-tech founder — do this first

Hire someone who understands dev and product — not just Gantt charts
Don’t blindly adopt tools — understand your workflow first
Make it safe for your team to tell you bad news — seriously. That alone will save your project.

🧠 Planning your product? Don’t skip the boring part

Everyone loves to “just start building.”
But we’ve seen what happens when people skip planning. (Spoiler: lots of rework, angry teams, and scope chaos.)

So we made a tool that helps founders like you generate a proper tech plan in 3 minutes — with user roles, features, deadlines, and a realistic budget.

👉 Try the free AI Tech Plan Generator