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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

I see these types of posts and it astonishes me that people will look for cofounders "on the street."

I can't imagine that increases the odds of being successful -- but maybe I'm wrong. Employee number 5 can be an unknown quantity, but employee number 2? That would terrify me.

And since you're not a technical person that can code, it's going to be doubly hard for you to validate the person's technical knowledge.

In any case -- you're here now -- what better place to start looking for talent than this community?

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I have given my all to someone, even though I was employee #1, and the only one at that, for a few hundred dollars a week. Because the person who hired me: 1) knew what he wanted but not how. 2) was so honest, that he paid me without even being able to evaluate my work. I could have shown him anything I wanted as a "deliverable" and he still would have paid me, and because of that I went overboard, and made sure to do the best job I could. I billed for 5 hours a day while putting in 12.

Btw, he is someone who I firmly believe has the midas touch. He can't write a line of code, but he has the makings of a top-notch tech CEO. He is an average medical equipment salesman from an average mid-sized U.S. city. But everything about him; intelligence, attitude, knack, foresight, etc. just screams Future Fortune 100 CEO. He is someone I would forsake dreams and fortunes for, just to be part of his team again.

would you mind sharing some more info on 'someone' / nature of work etc. thanks !

I wrote the first version of a social network for him, which he is selling to niche departments of universities.

I got my first chops as a web application architect there. I had freedom to write my own web framework, implement everything from fine-grained security to pluggable application architecture for 3rd party apps, API, and had to design the whole thing to be scalable.

I think the fact that the OP doesn't have the skill to write code is an even more imperative reason for him to pick it up in some form IMHO. As several commenters have already poignantly pointed out, in a company of this size, it really is best that everyone involved becomes an "everyman," so to speak.

For the business types, this means hacking software (or hardware!). For the software (or hardware!) types, this means hacking business.

It's way, way, way too early to specialize.

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