I am curious to ask this because looking at most of the startups, the founders are usually with very strong technical background, so I am wondering as a non-technical person (designer) like me, is it just a dream that I can create and manage a successful startup?
Let's answer the real question, which is about you. Yes, you can build a successful startup as a designer. Someone else will be coding of course. But the CEO is really the person with 1) the vision and 2) the drive to make things happen. Do you have both? Then you can start your startup.
To be frank, in order to maintain a business, you can't just do all the things alone. So it's really common to have more than one person as the founders of a company. The idea is, it's better to have at least one partner who is growing the same direction as yours. So a technical person would be the best candidate, i would say.
Don't let yourself fall victim to the false dichotomy of designer XOR developer; especially these days, there's no reason why you can't grind for a while and learn enough to make probably whatever you'd hope to make.<p>Plenty of great resources, and I can lend a hand if you need some help along the way. Just let me know.
Envato.com is highly successful and was founded by a designer.<p>Here's a clip of the founder discussing his founding story:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvzF6Umvjk" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvzF6Umvjk</a>
Ello, the popular social network, was founded by designers: <a href="https://ello.co/wtf/post/founders" rel="nofollow">https://ello.co/wtf/post/founders</a>