How Do Non-technical Entrepreneurs Find Engineers? | Hacker News Reader

How Do Non-technical Entrepreneurs Find Engineers?

johnnystartup.com

19 pointsphprida21 comments

To all the 'non-technical' people in the world: You must bring at least one, preferably several, of the following to the table, or you are just some random asshole with 'a great idea for a company' begging people to build a company for you and let you come along for the ride:

    - Money
    - Connections
    - Industry-specific knowledge
    - Top notch sales skills

Anyone who has had any success at all in business will have at least 3 of those. Why would anyone want to partner with someone who has no track record of success? Would a successful business person hire a 'technical' co founder who just started learning programming yesterday?

Plus, if you have any experience in technology you (the non-technical 'business' person) would find it rather easy to exercise your network and find more competent, excited people than you would be able to use. If you wanted to go into technology from another industry, you would know that you had almost no chance of success without connecting with someone who understands technology and can guide the company past all the common pitfalls and land-mines, and thus would have that person's network available.

TL-DR: If you have to ask, you won't find the answer.

Sadly the tone of your answer seems to imply that 'non-technical' people are basically worthless until they've gone out & made it big in the world. Consider that if the money, connections, sales skills & knowledge were already there, they'd just go hire someone.

Everyone starts somewhere, and classifying anyone who isn't already very successful as "some random asshole with a great idea for a company begging people go build a company for you and let you come along for the ride" is the type of attitude that gives hackers a bad "elitist who doesn't play well with others" reputation.

As I read it the OP's question was pretty simple,"How Do Non-technical Entrepreneurs Find Engineers?" A straight forward and honest question. Replying with,"If you have to ask, you won't find the answer" is not imparting some sort of Yoda-like sage wisdom, rather it just makes you sound kinda like a dick.

Not at all.

It's completely symmetric. If you want someone with years of experience, who knows how to build technology products and maintain them, and can get it done, it's not too much to ask that you have years of experience building companies, and know how to get it done. It so happens that an engineer who 'knows how to get it done' will have plenty of examples of things they have done in the past, and the same goes for a business person. It also so happens that a business person who has 'got it done' will have the things I listed in their toolkit. Not having those things is a really strong signal that they are full of shit.

So if I understand you correctly, rather than answering the "how do I find an engineer" question posed by the OP, you are instead suggesting that unless you are a very successful in the business world you should just forget it. Is that what you meant? If so, it kinda contradicts the whole HN vibe, don'tcha think?

If everyone insisted they only work with the successful cream of the crop, then it would be the same handful of people working together all the time & the little guy would never get a chance. Look at it this way, what if every seed capital & VC fund required you to already be successful before they'd talk to you?

Btw, I know plenty of business people with only one of the things listed in your toolkit who are nonetheless very competent people who I'd be glad to work with and who are most certainly not full of shit. It sounds like you've been burned in the past, but don't let that color your opinion of all non-technical business folk.

So what do your friends bring to the table? Why would any top-notch engineer want to partner with someone who has no network, and can't sell? What will they be doing all day to earn half or more of the profits of the company?

Or do your friends have money, but no knowledge of the industry they intend to start a company in, no network, and no sales skills?

Or do they suck at sales, have no network and no money, but really know the industry? Who's going to pay for servers, the engineer who is also giving up thousands and thousands of dollars in opportunity costs? Who's going to get them in the door to do their terrible sales pitch to potential customers?

Non-technical business people have to be ready to hit the ground running just as hard as the technical people. Having amazing business people really is half of a successful technology company. As a result, having shitty business people basically ruins your chances.

Finally, to address your point, how do you think you get a meeting with VCs? You just show up at their door and they cut you a check? Either you have an in with them through your network, or you have to sell them on your idea. But you say your friends only have one of (money, network, knowledge, sales skills). So, if they have the network they can get in the door, but not get any VC money, or if they have sales skills they can get the deal but can't get in the door. However you slice it up, it's fail.

No, I don't think this conflicts at all with the HN vibe. HN is HackerNews. Paul Graham was writing books on Common-Lisp well before he got into the entrepreneurship game. If anything, HN is about giving awesome technical people the skills they need in business, not hand holding wanna-be entrepreneurs who can't contribute (not that all business people fall into that category at all, but I'd wager all the ones who are trolling the internet to find people to do work on their 'great idea' do fall into it).

I don't know if it reads back to you the way I read it, but your descriptions sound like anyone less than a business superstar is a failure. They are either amazing or shitty with no in-between, which is not the case in the real world. It seems like your ideal leans more towards working with people who by your descriptions sound like they could just as easily hire you as partner with you.

Obviously you know your stuff and have been in the tech game a long time & have likely seen/dealt with some ridiculous shit. Conversely I've had a few crazy run-ins on the other side, including having a coder extraordinaire bailing halfway through a paid gig taking much of the code with him (lesson learned). The trick is to not let that prejudice one's views, which is often not so easy.

So I think perhaps I should clarify on my friend example using one friend in particular. This fellow made 6 figures for many years, opened restaurants, tanning salons, real estate ventures... things that are not technology based. He built himself up from nothing and eventually transitioned to an attempt in an industry which was new to him. He did well there too even though none of those years of experience, contacts or sales & networking applied to the new industry. He just had drive to make it work.

Regarding your VC comment, this same friend's story applies to that as well. He entered this new industry and within months had developed a network of investors by sheer determination and perseverance.

So I guess the question to you is would you discount someone who is passionate and works their ass off just because he doesn't have the network or background specifically in the tech field? Some people are ready to "hit the ground running" as you say, even if it isn't in their area of strength. I've found these types are usually great to work with and are go-getters in any field, and if the project is their baby, they work even harder.

So back to the beginning of this whole conversation. We all start somewhere, we all make connections from reaching out, so why do you find replying to non-technical business folk to be an exercise in "hand holding wanna-be entrepreneurs who can't contribute"? Sure it may go nowhere, but maybe it could lead to a great venture, you never know.

Obviously everyone starts somewhere. At some point Steve Jobs was just a dude hocking do it yourself circuit boards out of a garage, after all.

If you know the person, and you know they have what it takes and you believe in them, then I would say go for it. However, if you take the group of all people with 'a great idea', the percentage who actually have any chance at all is so low that it is not worth the time to listen to them.

Simply put, if the expected value of listening to someone's idea (whom you have no other information about) is X, the cost in time and attention just to listen to them is some large multiple of X. I obviously believe that the multiple of X is so great that it is not only optimal to not bother to hear what they are saying, but it is actually profitable to actively discourage them.

Now, if you have more information about the person, such as your friend, then the prior probability that they will not be wasting your time goes way, way up. It is always worthwhile to take the time to hear out someone you have reason to believe is amazing. The other things I listed in the 'toolkit' were things that make that prior probability high enough that it is worth actively considering dropping what up to now has been your best bet (that is, what you've been working on for months probably) and jumping to whatever they've got cooking. It still probably won't be worth it, but at least there is a good enough chance they aren't just blowing smoke.

It's really not complicated. If someone is just starting out, they should partner up with other people who are just starting out. It's only fair, they can jump into it together and take the same risks with each other. If they wan't other people to give up something great, either what they have going now or in lost wages, they have to provide a good enough track record that the expected payout of working with them is not only higher than the alternative, but also high enough that it makes it worth the additional risk.

At the risk of being down-voted, there is too much arrogance in the comments of this thread. I run into this constantly and I find it mind-blowing.

There is very little respect for the skills and talents of people in different disciplines. It's not just hackers beating on "Business People". It's accountants beating on marketers and hackers. Marketers beating on accountants and hackers. It's one big circle of disrespect.

I really don't understand it at all. Becoming an expert in any one of those disciplines takes a lot of time, effort and discipline. Why such little respect for your colleagues? Selling is hard, it takes a long time to be good at selling.

I'm a founder of a tech startup, have money, am in an incubator, launched a product with another major release on its way, and I've chosen to not hire several hackers because of this mentality. If they can't respect the skills of their co-workers then I don't think they'll be able to help build a winning company. It's a losing attitude - on a football team, imagine if the wide receivers decided to not join the huddle because they think the o-linemen and the QB don't do enough. In that case, though, their value seems obvious - to the outside observer, anyway.

The problem I find in my city isn't in finding the hackers, there are many places to find them. It's convincing them to try something beyond their comfortable day jobs. The good ones tend to have jobs that pay them well in which they don't want to leave and our universities teach the students to seek jobs at the big companies. So our pool is very small. The middle of Canada is also not really a tech hotbed, unfortunately.

I think we can all agree that success comes from excellent execution. This means excellence in _all_ areas. Engineering, sales, marketing, accounting, design, customer service, etc.

::Warning, Combative Tone Ahead::

To all the 'technical' people in the world: Being a superstar in sales, accounting, or marketing is just as hard as being a superstar in engineering. Stop belittling your colleagues, you're not going to win.

/combat stance

To the non-technical people: Check GitHub for technical people in your city and network with a bunch of the high level execs in the dev companies around your city. The world is a small place, they all know each other.

Honestly, I don't think "Learn how to do it yourself" is a viable option for non-technical entrepreneurs looking to start a company. It takes years to become even competent at programming, and longer to be able to design a scalable web application proficiently. Besides, you probably want to spend your time doing the non-technical tasks that you're already good at - there will be plenty of that work to be done while you're getting your company off the ground.

I think that having a general sense of how the web is put together will make any business person more effective in what they are doing, even if they cannot write any code. Taking a few months to get educated before committing to build something would probably pay off in spades in the long run.

Learning to do it yourself, or even code pays dividends beyond the ability to go solo. You can now communicate more effectively with a technical cofounder, get a deeper understanding of the problem space and competitors products, and finally, earn a bit of respect from the technical people who will be on your team.

absolutely agree with this. in a small organisation the ability to communicate efficiently is paramount and that includes the founder having an understanding of technical constraints. not to mention that, if development works with their mindset and they can't get funding (like most people outside of the valley/US where the angel and VC sectors are a lot less developed) contracting is pretty good money.

True, but there's 'learning fundamentals to know what the tech guys are talking about' and there's 'learning all the details and fundamentals and tools and techniques to be able to actually build a real-world live version'; and about 10 years between them (maybe 5 years if it's full time deliberate study and practice).

It's actually easy to find engineers. You just have to have something worth their time. (An "innovative idea" isn't enough. We have ideas.)

What are you bringing to the table? Why should someone else join you?

I would say just search meetup.com for technical meetups in your city. Go to those meetings. Meet tech people. Convince one of them to join forces with you.

Going to these meetings will expose you not only to the talent but also to the jargon and the issues of the day. As a business person you are not expected to code but you kinda need to know how to spell[1] words like python, ajax, cloud, nodejs persistent data store and the like.

I would certainly expect a non-technical co-founder to know at sme level and show interest in the technology being used. Just as I would expect, as the technical co-founder, to be involved in certain big picture non-technical decision making.

[1]by "spell" I mean at least know what they are.

"... we can assume that they spent around $100 million to bring on board about 25 top flight engineers. That's approximately $4 million per engineer. "

Well here's an example of 'irrational exuberance' if I've ever seen one. I don't know if there's any truth to these numbers, but this seems crazy. I'm sure they're all very capable guys, but surely there must be many people with similar skills who can be had for cheaper. Or how do these people prove that they're the Michael Jordan's of programming? Is being part of a technical team of a startup enough? Did they publish their research?

This post needs some content. It is indeed hard to find technical co-founders. But finding employees is not as hard as finding co-founders. Spending time on SO, hn and some mailing lists on the technology you are planning to use will help though. If an engineer takes offer for money from google, then he probably does not fit into a startup. There will be people willing to work for start up, if the idea is challenging, for equity.

Can we put the adjective 'rock star' for engineers and programmers to bed please? And 'ninja' while we're at it.

Has there been anything on Hacker News about how a technical person can find a non-technical personal assistant? Someone to deal with legal stuff, do usability tests, and other unskilled work. (Not sure I'd want to give someone like this very much equity...)

On Monster.

Have a thought out product and a way to sell/distribute that product. Pre-sell your product, possibly with wireframes, hundreds of interviews with potential customers/users - prove that there is a market, you understand the market, have the knowledge to design the product, and that you can bring the product to market.

If you can't do that, you add no value. If you can, you should have no trouble finding engineers.

More: This is actually a bone of contention for a lot of engineers. The attitude of many "business founders" is that they have great business sense, some "rolodex," "innovative ideas," maybe even an MBA. Their approach is that they bring these skills, while a technical cofounder brings the "other half" - technical skills. The flaw in this logic is that engineers are really smart - they also have almost everything you have - and can quickly learn what they don't know. That is - unless your execution capabilities are deep and proven.

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