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Comment by jimaek | Hacker News Reader

I think most technical solo founders know they need a co-founder with expertise in marketing and sales, the problem is actually finding them.

I definitely could use one but it's been impossible to find someone both serious about it and experienced at the same time. Especially if you're based in Europe.

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Yup. All I ever found was freeloaders who don't put in nearly the same effort. Serious business people who will relentlessly try to get feedback, sell the product and make deals are pretty rare. But when you have one, it's worth gold.

It's the same problem with finding developers to work for your early stage startup. Actual good sales people and marketers are in high demand everywhere. Finding one that will be committed enough as you is hard when they are fielding offers from established companies that are much easier to sell.

I think the lesson is that competence is scarce.

I have witnessed this exact thing at several startups. It is demoralizing. Especially when they have >1% equity and you're lucky as a dev if you have >.1%

Sales + Marketing routinely have commission as well when it’s normally unheard of for devs to be included in profit sharing.

Why not learn how to market yourself? You may not become the greatest marketer in the world but you almost certainly can be competent in less than a year.

Then if you grow whatever project big enough, you can then just hire someone. And you'd actually know how to manage them with insight into their job.

A startup with 2 people, one of them a marketer, can get twice as much done -- marketing can easily be a full time job.

A single person could easily get out completed? Even if s/he is able to learn "everything" eventually

Otherwise, I agree with you

Specialization & experience are good. So are more people. If finding a marketing or "business" partner for starting your project is your blocker, just learn it yourself.

Sure you could get outcompeted but honestly, if one person gets outcompeted, in almost all circumstances so will 2 people.

I agree with this to an extent.

So, I just need a tech founder that's willing to partner with me and do the marketing side of it.

In return, I'll do the same for them.

Flip a coin to see who goes first.

A founding team usually doesn't cover all of the core responsibilities necessary to run a company. Between legal, sales, marketing, product, hr, accounting, and engineering, it's rare that the founding team collectively has all of these skills mastered.

I've tried to start multiple projects with non-developers, and NONE of them were willing to put in any work whatsoever.

Obviously, I might have been choosing the wrong people, but they seemed fairly accomplished.

I think people don't realize how much building software is boring drudgery (figuring out where to put a button). Maybe they expect it to be immediate wheeling and dealing.

Non-technical cofounders need to start out as project managers, and most people don't seem willing to do it.

Had a similar experience happen to me many years ago.

But if I was doing it all over again I'd make sure to have a signed one page agreement on some points like this:

- Both agree to work a minimum of xx hours per week on the project

- Both agree on a reasonable hourly rate for each others time and then track your hours while working

- If theres no venture capital then the hourly rate you both 'earn' is in credits towards future profits or equity

- If one person isn't meeting their expected contribution requirements over a reasonable period they forfeit their stake in the business

> All I ever found was freeloaders who don't put in nearly the same effort

What happened after you noticed that they didn't?

(You noticed before they had gotten any equity, and stopped working with them?)

It’s funny to hear this from the technical side. It resonates so strongly, because I’m in the same but polar opposite boat.

Marketing day job for over a decade, but after spending far too long trying to find the technical partner I’ve built a functional MVP and got it in the hands of demo users thru TestFlight.

It’s 100% not efficient use of my time. I would always rather find a technical partner - but the alternative of standing still while you search is too frustrating.

Surely plenty of private/community slacks out there to connect the two..?

> I’ve built a functional MVP and got it in the hands of demo users thru TestFlight

Well done!

> Surely plenty of private/community slacks out there to connect the two..?

The challenge is finding an effective barrier of entry so that you are connecting people on both sides who are serious.

Out of curiosity how did you build your MVP? Did you learn to code or did use no code tools or something similar?

I had a (relative to my profession) decent understanding of web languages(HTML/Php etc) from years in the marketing world, had a decent technical understanding, watched parts of the Stanford CS courses, and a lot of guess and check.. Google and throwing ideas around with technically minded friends/devs helped validate the ways I was approaching it. In the end I went to the source - Xcode and swift.

In a fortunate way, moving to Canada right as the pandemic started meant I naturally had a lot more free time that I may have spent catching up with friends, travelling etc. Initially I was searching for local devs to work with but without a network and no one wanting to meet up with randoms I gave up and started to try do more and more myself.

I should add it took me far longer than I would have liked - or a real dev would have taken. But my hope is with a true MVP in the hands of potential real clients it might be more appealing to the right person to take it on.

Congrats on the MVP!

Did you have a hard time convincing users to sign up for TestFlight? If so, how'd you overcome it?

Thanks, I really appreciate all the positive replies.

Mostly they have been arms length connections - intros from people I know. Tbh, so far minimal pushback due to the (relatively) warm nature, and in their profession (healthcare) they are clear value in the value being provided. The TestFlight system is actually reasonably easy.

While the private beta idea is good for today, plan to move past it once I validate a few more parts. There’s no fomo/network effects at play.

I second this. I tried to find a marketing cofounder for the past year. All I got is fresh graduates with little experience or skills. And covid does not help.

if you are an experienced marketer and interested in hosting business and serverless, please contact me

It may help if you add some contact details in your profile ;)

You mention sales. The OP is IMO perhaps overly focused on marketing, which is part of the mix certainly, but sales, setting up partnerships, establishing relationships with media (either directly or, more likely, by hiring an agency), etc. Marketing plays into all this but, depending on the needs, even an experienced marketing person may not have the right mix of skills by themselves.

This is amazing. My wife was just telling my I need someone to do my marketing and sales. And I am like, yes I know this, but it is way easier said than done. Thus why I am still grinding on it as a solo tech founder.

I had the same experience and gave up on trying to find a co-founder in marketing. The only ones that I found were freelancers that provided a questionable quality kind of marketing.

Yep, agreed. I've been looking for over 2 years and haven't been able to find someone who's a good fit.

Out of curiosity what are the things that you look for in a marketer?

I thought so, too. But nowadays I believe you actually need a product manager. Because if you have stuff that people really want/need, they will actively google for it and find you. The big issue is that your opinion of what the market wants is most certainly wrong. So you need a product manager who will interview prospective customers, analyze the market, and advise you on which product to build. Once you have a value-generating product, marketing will be easy enough that you can outsource it.

This kind of magical thinking about product-led growth is unfortunately as naive as it is common.

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