Innovation labs have been built, pitch competitions funded, and startup incubation programs launched. Entrepreneurs and investors sit in residence, ready to offer advice. At times, campus can feel like a you-pay, degree-carrying version of Y Combinator, boasting rarer but similarly standout successes among the likes of Cloudflare, Hinge, Rent the Runway, Warby Parker, SoFi, and DoorDash.

But attend a pitch night, talk to a student founder, or sit in on an Entrepreneur-in-Residence advice session, and one unresolved question becomes clear: within a class of former operators and investors brimming with ideas, who will actually build these companies?

This is a question I’ve been kicking around since starting at HBS this fall, and so, to try and answer it, I did what I’d assume any investigative journalist would do: surveyed my classmates and cornered founders in the dining hall for quotes.

Among survey respondents, only 9% identified as skilled enough to build the products they are designing. 39% say they can “speak technical,” often because of product backgrounds, while 52% report not being technical at all.

Excluding the 4% who neither needed nor wanted technical support, nearly half of respondents were still searching for it. 17% had found technical support, and 30% had secured a technical co-founder. 48% described the search as “harder than expected,” citing—more than any other reason—the lack of technical talent at their school.

Miles Francis, a current HBS student, former operator, and founder of Brand Muse—the AI-native strategic intelligence platform for creator marketing—describes the challenge: “There just aren’t many people in the MBA program with true technical backgrounds,” he says. “And if they do have one, they’re likely getting an MBA to pivot out of engineering or start something on their own. They know their value, so it’s tough as a founder to find someone willing to meet you as an equal, work with you, and be passionate about the idea. There are too many business or idea people looking for a technical co-founder. It’s kind of a joke on campus at this point.”

Even when technical students are present, incentives often misalign. “Students coming from technical backgrounds seem to want co-founders who are also technical,” says HBS student Arshaan Ali. His classmate, J.C. Moubarak, echoes the sentiment: “The technical people here, myself included, don’t always want to be the technical co-founder in their startup, which reduces the options available.”

Some entrepreneurial-minded technical students have capitalized on the demand for their skill sets, building out informal one-person development shops to help classmates build MVPs. Nathan Alam, a student in Harvard’s dual-degree Master of Science–Master of Business Administration (“MS-MBA”) program and a former software engineer at Scale AI and Amazon Web Services, has volunteered his expertise to help three founders build MVPs so far.

Alam spends the rest of his time working on his own startup—a requirement of the joint-degree program. Through the Technology Ventures Initiative (“TVI”) and Designing Technology Ventures (“DTV”) courses, MS-MBA students must research, prototype, and pitch a startup idea, leaving little room for outside entrepreneurial commitments. “Most MS-MBAs want to work on their own idea or commercialize research a lab has already done,” Alam explains. “But if you engage early, they might bring you into their TVI project.”

Alexandra Zaoui, a former data scientist building an AI startup for the music industry, did exactly that—reaching out to a technically trained classmate before school even began. “We connected through an admissions list, realized we shared an interest in entrepreneurship within the music industry, and have been working together since,” she says. The pair will participate in TVI together this winter.

Beyond campus, aspiring HBS founders report finding support through nearby technical programs like MIT, online job boards like the Harvard Grid, or former colleagues. Of those who succeeded, 36% entered school with technical support already secured, another 36% found it among classmates, 18% through prior co-workers, and 10% online. Most searches took between one and three months.

Unsurprisingly, higher levels of commitment correlated with success. Every founder who secured technical help viewed their startup as a full-time post-MBA pursuit, spending an average of 14 hours per week on it during school.

In an age of vibe-coding and the lore of Sam Altman’s “one-person, billion-dollar company,” a natural question emerges: is a technical partner even necessary?

Despite his engineering background, Alam argues no. “A lot of people who think they need a technical co-founder don’t. Giving up significant equity for a technical co-founder is the most extreme option,” he says. “There are other ways to be successful.”

Alam suggests founders vibe-code MVPs and outsource development to make products scalable. “It’s probably better to bootstrap a build for $500 on Fiverr than to give away so much equity early on.” Alam also suggests recruiting technical undergraduates: “There are a lot of undergrads looking for something to put on their project portfolio.”

Francis is living Alam’s advice. He and his co-founder have scaled Brand Muse to its first customers simply using Cursor. “There’s a learning curve,” he says, “but with a little help upfront, it’s manageable.”

Still, he sees the solution as temporary. “We’re actively looking for a founding engineer, both to move more quickly and to have a product that’s more cutting-edge. But the way we’re set up works well for now.”

 

Kiera Klinsky is a current student at Harvard Business School and the MBA Associate at NextView Ventures. She also writes The Kitchen Fridge, a venture-style, Substack newsletter.