How do startups find good and cheap programmers in the Valley?

You and several thousand of other people here (and everywhere else for that matter) are exactly the same. The talent you seek are often not cheap. If you're expecting to get people to build your company for you without much value proposition, you might as well forget it. If you're hoping to sell them on equity (founder or employee), they must believe in your company and vision.

I assume from your post that you and your brother are cofounders and neither can code? If this is the case, your setup already hardly make any sense. Smart coders will know better. Chances are you hardly know much about the business side of things much less convince coders to build your dream, one that I'm sure hasn't been "truly" validated.

Of course I am assuming and I could be wrong and you did validate your idea correctly and have much more going, but I seriously doubt it (and I'm trying to say that nicely here).

You should in all sense, validate the idea with REAL potential users, not your friends. If that pans out and you have limited funds, outsource a prototype first. THEN and only then, should you consider moving to the valley after you've got some minor traction and a working demo. The valley is not cheap and unless you live somewhere like Manhattan, you're not helping your financial situation much more. You're making it worse.

Networking is important but working smart is also important. You can make online connections before coming here. You have your odds stacked against you if you don't have local coders for raising (whether you hire before or after). Majority of all investors won't invest unless you have in-house coders so the long term strategy of hiring overseas hopefully isn't something you were planning and is only in consideration for your prototype/demo.

Salaries here are crazy but that's how it goes. At this point in your startup, I would seriously consider finding a cofounder and define very specific roles between you and your brother. And hopefully you're bringing enough knowledge on the business side as you're expecting your coder to bring to the table on the technical side. After all, you don't want to bring on someone who can't code at all and expect them to learn, no one wants to team up with an inexperience business cofounder only to have them learn and certainly not TWO of them. Something to consider.

Ideas are great but alone they're not worth much. You need to make it worthwhile for whoever you're working with as well. If you can get a prototype and demo up, pitching to coders AFTERWARDS make things a bit easier. Something to consider.

Best of luck

Well maybe the message went out wrong.

1. We are both programmers, but we will need more people... 2. The thing is that if we get a beginning investment of 10K we dont want to blow it off inmediately on one single guy...What I was asking is how to invest it the better way possible? (that is what I meant with cheap)

If you're both coders, stay true to what you're suppose to be doing. Bootstrap your prototype yourselves and make it a true MINIMUM viable product. You don't need a 3rd developer as much as you want one, or a 4th or 5th right now. One you get some tractions, there will be more doors open to you.

However, as someone else noted, if you're looking for cheap help, you're probably in the wrong place. While there are many talented people who may consider working for cheap or pure equity, it's something that naturally happens if they believe in you, your brother, your company, your vision, etc... It's not something you should go out of your way to try to convince people. Hard sales rarely work.

ok, that's better, having some investment and you both being programmers will be easier to sell your idea to potential cofounders. I would say best is to find another co-founder that is willing to take only shares more than 10%, up to 25% would be reasonable if he's good. A sign that he is good would be that he will have good ideas on how to go on from where you are, that is how to best spend your 10k, until the next round of investment. So go out interview potential cofounders with one of the question being this one.

Anyone who's basing their business model on cheap programmers is doomed to fail. The reason is that he/she does not understand the inherent nature of programmers. The quality therefore productiveness of programmers follows the power law distribution, meaning that a single good programmer can not be matched by 100 average coders. So if not possible to pay him a stellar salary, try with equity options. However your idea must be worth something, and the cofounders need to be worth something, which I seriously doubt.

If you move here, your options are

1. start lean:

Only hire founders who will work for nothing. You can also hire new people and train, but that's /very slow/ and not really recommended if you are a "startup" rather than a lifestyle business.

or

2. get funded. take the money (and the publicity. 1% of a funded company is going to be perceived as more valuable by most people than 50% of the same company before it's funded) and hire good people.

For both 1 and 2, the valley is great. It's a great place to meet people who have the technical skills (and the financial acumen) to become a co-founder. It's also a great place to find people who might fund you, and it's a wonderful place to find people you'd want to hire if you had a lot of money.

The thing of it is, people get paid more around here, but standards are higher, too. A mediocre SysAdmin in silicon valley, if you move him to, say, the Sacramento area, will be like a minor god.

This isn't to say that you can't find good people outside of silicon valley, but the average here is higher. I'd say high enough higher to justify our inflated wages. If you are paying market rate for market skill, even though you are paying more here, I'd say you are at least getting as much skill per dollar as you would elsewhere, and maybe more.

Hang out at the hacker dojo, go to various meetups, meet people. It's pretty great. Personally, I think it's worth the extra cost just for the social life. I feels pretty great to be surrounded by all these smart people who are interested in the same sorts of things you are interested in.

But really, if you want to hire people on the cheap, this is not the place to do it. You would be better off almost anywhere else in the world. Hiring foreigners (or Midwesterners) and having them work remote is one way to do it. Moving to Texas is another popular option.

Well maybe the message went out wrong.

This is not what I was asking for! Infact, we are both programmers. So I wasn't trying to offense anybody!

The thing is that if we get an early investment of 10K (we also want to ask for the less possible that we could need) we dont want to blow it off inmediately on one single guy...

What I was asking is how to invest it the better way possible to finish a prototype? (that is what I meant with cheap)

What I was looking for are things like: 1. Hire a prgrammer for a month for around 5K to help you with the core. You can find them in ... 2. At the same time hire 2 trainees for 2K each and... etc

Can someone give me an advice on that?

5k? 2K? You aren't going to find developers to work for that money for such a short timespan.

If you are two software developers, time to buckle down and build an MVP. Being 2 developers you are in a great position to do this. Once you have that, and still no money, you'll only have equity, so find a co-founder who believes in your product and give him equity. Build out the product, get traction and then go looking for capital, any financing round at this point should give you enough cash to make solid hires. Then it's time to really get to work.

Programmers aren't just cogs in a system, and this is a mistake that many managers make. (And this is insulting to potential hires, by the way.) If you only know that you need "a lot" of them, you need to clarify the nature of the work. For example...is it a web site, will there be databases involved, is this software to power some kind of machine, will it use a network, will it require a GUI, will it run on Mac or Windows or Linux, are there restrictions on what it must interact with, is it safe to open-source the project and use GPL'd libraries, etc.? These details will also help you to write job postings.

In general, you get what you pay for, only less. Code has to be maintained, and even if something is thrown together in "a couple months", you may regret that for anything except a prototype.

A single excellent programmer may very well handle your entire project, and ten horrible programmers may never get it done. If you're not experienced dealing with programmers, then set up some kind of deal where you pay only when it's finished and you see regular progress from the people you hire. Be prepared to set aside plenty of time to test what is given to you, and do both expected and unexpected things with it. You need to be in a position to reject their work if they say it's "done" and you can still see quirks and instability (because some programmers can be lazy or clueless).

The cost of living in the valley is very high, so anyone living there will need more money for that reason alone. It wouldn't surprise me if you paid nearly 50% extra. This might be worth it, especially if it means finding someone right away instead of 6 months from now, but keep it in mind.

1. As I see it, the main advantage of being in a high-tech area is networking opportunities. There are also more good programmers and cofounders available, but the former is expensive.

2. Many startups don't need that many programmers early on. I prototyped my latest project by myself in under two weeks.

Find some high-school graduate, not-yet-going-to-college supergenius coder-deities. The thing is, I don't think they're actually cheap.

Another possibility is to drive a nondescript van down Castro Street on a weekday around lunch, pick out a scrappily dressed young male, and kidnap him. Make sure you're driving facing west (or is it north? I mean south) so that you don't get trapped by the railroad. You'll need guns, I hear you can get them in Reno.

For starters, don't use the word "cheap".

If you can't afford to pay now, offer them shares/equity/whatever-it's-called.

Hmm....try checking out universities in the area ?