Everyone knows that the latest buzzword in the economy is "startups". With so much news around multi-million dollar funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and more, it is easy to wonder why. In recent interactions at networking sessions and open houses, many have asked if they can get a job in tech if they are actually techies?The answer is yes. While there is a constant need and lack of developers, there are also other non-tech positions that are vital to startups' growth. Besides coding, a fledging idea will need help setting up a legal entity, hire / fire staff, run campaigns to acquire customers, get noticed by the public and so on before it is a viable and investable company.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of key roles (in no particular order) in tech that are essentially non-tech:

i. Law

Having a great idea and a great tech team is nothing if what you are doing is against the law. Just look at the cautionary tale that is Napster - sharing music was the greatest thing since sliced bread in the early 2000s. This of course ended with the massive lawsuits against it by the music industry. While an early stage startup need not necessarily have a lawyer on the payroll, but it should have a legal counsel vet its business, documents and other type of fine print before it begins.Before you hire an in-house counselor, one good place to start, you can try out LawCanvas for easy legal documents, mostly for free. Typically, when your firm crosses a threshold of legal fees (about $100,000SGD annually), you are better off in having someone full-time to constantly keep you out of legal trouble.

ii. Finance

A new business can benefit greatly from having someone with a finance background. It could range from an accountant to keep your books clean, a fund-raising agent who has the right connections to cash, a M&A / IPO specialist, or just a guy who has a keen eye for numbers. At the start, with little to no users or sales, it may be unnecessary. However, as every business grows big, it may be best to trust someone professional to count the zeroes.

When starting small, you can use MoneyWorks to manage your finances by yourself; it is easy to use and works on both Mac and Windows. Though, when your business is handling 8 figures in revenue in thousands of transactions an hour and/or raising 7 figure sums, it is time to hire a CFO-type.

iii. Human Resource

Hiring somebody may be easy enough - getting a resume, followed by interviewing and then deciding who is the best fit. However, the nightmare starts from there. Just comprehending labor laws will confound general law practitioners: there are employee contracts, employment visas, employee benefits, stock options, insurance, social security and more to be done. After all that, then is the firing portion - which is the reverse of the whole long process.

In the early days, startups can count on services like StartUpJobs to find relevant talents. It is free to use with paid options to improve your chances of scoring an ace. While there is no surefire rule, if a cost-benefit analysis that shows if you are spending enough on headhunters to bringing in a HR full-timer, you should hire one.

iv. Office Management

Ever come into an office and find the dustbin filled with thrash, the air-con broken, Internet down, lights bulbs burnt and wonder who can you call on to get things going? An office manager is someone with the experience and temperament will be needed to get the situation back on track so the employees and business can get back to work. Little things like that that keep the place running are often forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

When the office consists of 2 tables shared by 4 developers, a little workplace courtesy should suffice. Major projects like air-conditioner servicing or electrical work can be sourced from Kluje.com. In my experience, you can also usually combine the HR functions with this role.

v. Marketing

Besides the traditional 4Ps of marketing, the new age brings in more digital marketing tools that ever to help get the business out to the market. Search Engine Optimizing, Online Advertising, Social Media and more are tools are not specifically reserved for professional, amateurs tend to fare much poorer in the results. Having someone armed with tricks of the trade can essentially make your business more efficient in growing. The web is chock of tips on how you can carry out your own digital marketing: here's one link. Beyond that, when you realize you can't beat industry averages (i.e. 1-2% click-through rate) or can't seem to bring down the cost of acquiring customers, you can do with a staff that grows your clicks into customers.

vi. Public Relations

As one of the oldest professions around, it is the subtle art of getting recognition for anyone, anything or any startup. Professionals are armed with language skills and contacts to make one's business seem more than it is or deflecting negative attention when a crisis hits. Having a positive mention in an online article, a feature in the newspaper, or interview on TV greatly increases your business' credibility. The most effective tool in the PR toolkit is the humble press release. After crafting a straightforward and relevant press release, submit it via press release sites like MyNewsDesk to reach journalists outside of your social/work circle. When you are searching for significant investment or trying to sign up large-scale clients, hiring a PR professional to deliver publicity could be the convincer needed.

vii. Sales

Every business model requires a salesman to peddle its wares. A true salesman can sell snow to an Eskimo and keep them coming back for more. No matter what your business is, somewhere down the line, you will need someone with the right attitude, to use the right materials to sell to the right industry contacts. A fresh company can offer a high commission and average basic to get started.

Sales is heavily reliant on contacts so using LinkedIn and attending relevant networking sessions could give you your first start. It is recommended that as a founder, you close the first 5-10 deals before getting a sales rep. The goal here is to fully understand your company's strengths and capabilities before you teach someone else to do it for you.

At the end of the day, it is not that an entrepreneur cannot do these roles himself or herself - the question is it worth the time and effort? A tech business is like a car - while the pièce de résistance is the engine (ala the code), you will still need the rest of the vehicle (fuel, wheels, seats, etc) to drive it forward; more than that, you would want to drive a car with style (high octane gas, rims, leather seats, etc).

While they say there is a novel in every one of us, I believe it is truer that there is an app in all of us. It just takes the tech entrepreneur to develop the idea into reality. On the road to success in technology, i'm fairly certain that the journey will be accompanied by a bunch of folks who know nothing about Python, Ruby on Rails, Java, iOS or Android.