In fairness I think "non-technical" needs to be clarified a little. I can easily envision (and have seen) founders who are not themselves actual software engineers but who have some background in project management or otherwise managing tech teams hiring an offshore team and moving very quickly to a viable product cost efficiently.
In fact I'd bet it's at least a coin-flip that this profile would actually be more effective than a hardcore CS background engineer who hasn't ever managed teams or launched and sold a product.
Of course that's a small caveat, since that's almost never what we're talking about, like in this example. But still, seems worth noting that the outsourcing of the build isn't necessarily the red flag, the red flag is the leader of the project having no experience in building and launching useful software.
In fact I'd bet it's at least a coin-flip that this profile would actually be more effective than a hardcore CS background engineer who hasn't ever managed teams or launched and sold a product.
Of course that's a small caveat, since that's almost never what we're talking about, like in this example. But still, seems worth noting that the outsourcing of the build isn't necessarily the red flag, the red flag is the leader of the project having no experience in building and launching useful software.