Create a platform for connecting startup founders with potential co-founders

I’d appreciate perspectives from founders here (and any YC partners if they happen to see this). I’m starting a company in the **supply chain software space**. My background is in the industry — \~20 years selling enterprise technology into supply chain leaders. I’ve previously helped scale enterprise tech businesses from tens of millions to **hundreds of millions in revenue** in COO/CEO roles. The product I’m building focuses on **autonomous decision systems for supply chains** — essentially software that can sense disruptions, decide optimal responses, and execute actions across enterprise systems. One important nuance: I’m building this **on top of an existing AI platform partner** that already provides a lot of the core technical infrastructure (data ingestion, agents, orchestration, etc.). The differentiation we’re adding is **deep supply chain domain intelligence, decision workflows, and enterprise GTM**. Because of that, I’ve been approaching the team build as: • founder (domain + product + GTM) • strong hired CTO / engineering team rather than searching for a **technical co-founder with equal equity**. I know YC and many investors often emphasize having a technical co-founder, which makes sense for companies where the core risk is building the technology itself. In this case, the bigger risk feels like **productizing the domain problem and selling into enterprise supply chain organizations**, not inventing new AI infrastructure. To add context on my experience, I have experience of leading products, solutions and competency built from scratch, taking them to market, building large profitable sustainable books of business, growing them YoY - organic and inorganic. so owned strategy and executed to the t. I have led sr executive team including CTO, CFO, CHRO, CMO , CRO etc. I need to develop experience in fund raising, handling the anxieties that comes with strartup. So my question: **In situations where the differentiation is domain + product + GTM, and the underlying technology layer is already available, is a technical co-founder still essential?** Or is hiring a strong CTO early a reasonable path? Curious how YC partners or founders here think about this tradeoff. Would appreciate candid perspectives.