Finding a technical co-founder: You're doing it wrong. | Hacker News Reader

Finding a technical co-founder: You're doing it wrong.

tangosource.com

39 pointserics20 comments

There have been a lot of these "help me find a technical co-founder" posts. All the ones I've seen have missed the fundamental point: without technology, your idea is worthless. Your technical co-founder is supposed to be doing all the work, sacrificing a quantifiable high-paying job. You're networking and "being authentic". And your contribution to an uncertain venture is "[if] needed, bring cash".

As someone who has been searching on/off for a business cofounder I don't think you're giving enough credit to what a bizdev cofounder can do. I need someone to blog about the product/industry, to start cold calling customers and set up meetings, to write copy, to work on the demo video, to set up ad campaigns, to form the corporation, to help with the UX, etc.

Writing the code has taken up about 40% of my time. The other 60% could have been done by someone with no coding abilities at all. There is more than enough work to go around in a startup.

Oh, and if this sounds like you my email is in the profile.

plus on top of that the business side co-founder has establish the start-up in the tech press,etc.

Definitely agree, the problem is that most bizdev founders seem clueless about what their job really needs to entail.

Just as Enterprise Architects often make crappy startup founders because they can't think down to the low level details of hacking, VP level biz dev guys make terrible founders because they can't hustle like a low level sales guy will.

I'm unavailable right now, but when you get an offer for the biz gig, bring them in on a contract basis, and give them a few clear and painful, yet essential, deliverables (meeting with 3 clients, line up a distributor, etc).

That's what my current cofounder did to me. Balked at first, but then I realized that it's not going to get magically easier after the trial. It was the right amount of realistic pressure -- just make sure that it's realistic.

Agreed. I would add that a potential bizdev cofounder needs to be able to prove they're good at all that stuff, not just say they can do a great job at it. Lots of people who have never done bizdev before tell themselves "I can write blog posts and reach out to journalists and potential customers. It's just communications and people skills." Sure, you probably can do those things, but can you do them well, and I mean really super-duper well? Because that's what a good technical cofounder will fairly expect from a bizdev cofounder.

So, here's a simple recipe for the bizdez person. If you do this, someone like me will be impressed and way more likely to join your startup.

1. Mock up your product in as much detail as possible. You don't need to be a graphic design genius--I know we can figure that part out later. At this stage, it's just about showing how your product will work. Interface sketches, flowcharts, etc. would all be helpful. This shows me you've thought through the details, and on another level, it proves you're willing and able to invest quality time in product development. (I.e. you're not the guy who gets "a great new idea" in the shower, emails it to the programmer, and spends the rest of the day reading blogs.)

2. Show all these design documents to bloggers and potential customers. Get their feedback. Find out how interested they are. Then show me some artifacts from these conversations (emails, etc) to prove you've done it. I'll probably contact the same people afterwords and verify what was said, just to be safe. (Can't be too careful when you're betting several years of your career.)

3. Build a successful blog. Hard? Very much so. But it's great experience, it will serve as a natural advertising platform when the product is ready, and most of all, it shows me you have the aptitude to get and keep people's attention.

4. Most importantly, build trust in the context of a real working relationship. Take on a much smaller project with your potential cofounder. Go out for dinner/drinks frequently. Get to know the person. I would only found a business with a person whom I trust completely. Building that takes time.

I think mental laziness on the part of the prospective "business" partner has a lot to do with it (speaking from that side of the equation). I've held off actively searching for a tech co-founder until I've run with the idea as far as humanly possible: customer validation, half-assed web mockups, etc. Sure, your results may not be as robust as if you had built a v1.0 product and put it out there for iterative development, but since that isn't an option, stop whining and get creative!

The main value of a business co-founder is taking care of everything else and bring traction: customers, investors, press... Check slide 9 of http://blog.foundrs.com/2012/02/29/co-founder-issues-slides-...

The letters of intent idea is the best suggestion I saw in this post. That's about as good as you can get in terms of validating the idea before the product is even made!

I don't get why all these MBAs are so set on starting a website business when they refuse to learn about websites. This is like MBAs wanting to start a restaurant and trying to find a chef. The whole idea is a little pointless. You might find one, but really your role is to ENABLE a good chef/coder and help them succeed. It's stupid to come up with a restaurant name and theme and then go find a chef - you can do that, but you're likely going to fail since you don't know anything. Instead, find a great chef/coder, find what they want to do, help them develop and package their idea and then do all the shit work that they don't want to deal with (get money, buy stuff, hire people, do powerpoint). THAT'S your role.

This is a great analogy, and the situation is a lot more clear when phrased this way. Do you mind if I borrow this? I have this "technical cofounder" conversation far more often than I should

I agree with you to a degree. I was a biz side guy when I first launched a start-up 2 years ago. What helped me find a tech co-founder was running the project as far as I could without one. Revenue, seed round, incubator, etc.

Something that I don't think biz side guys understand is that the idea isn't unique or special, and it will likely fail, as mine did. However, both sides need each other...and as I've read a hundred times on HN - there isn't a lot of love floating around for the business side / MBAs.

I don't find tech guys to be very open minded when approached with ideas. On the flip side, I think biz guys need to come to the table with A LOT more than an idea.

I recently got an email from a guy thinking about posting on HN looking for a Tech Co-Founder. In his speech, he said there "is a huge and underserved market waiting for their product." I asked him - why does your site only have 7 twitter followers, and no facebook page? That is a very commonplace conversation.

My solution for business side guys is full proof. Don't post on hacker news. Don't ask random nerds. Quit your job. Learn to code. Screw the snobby tech co-founders...be your own tech co-founder. Startups aren't something that you do on the side...it's your life.

This is spot-on: http://teddziuba.com/2011/07/the-craigslist-reverse-programm...

Can will kill the headline "you're doing it wrong"? I think that it comes off as pompous as if your way is better.

Maybe these headlines are just used to get clicks? I don't know; regardless, they are a bit of turn off.

Agreed. The author of the article has no idea of what I'm doing so leaping to the conclusion I'm wrong (and so is everybody else who reads his article) comes across as arrogant and clueless.

Yeah - don't do it at all, thats my advice. I learned to write some Rails about a year ago, best decision of my life. Yeah, I get its me, but I can't imagine doing it any other way. When you start your business it will need endless tweaks and changes, and there is nothing, I repeat nothing, like the ability to be able to hack them out yourself whenever you want.

You are correct. I started, and still am learning Ruby. My normal "business stuff" can now be slightly automated, I can build simple things (blogs, "toys", etc.), and its fun to make things. Technical people also love to help you learn.

Moreover, when it came time for my technical friends to bring on a "business guy," who do you think they went to -- some random guy from a meetup, or the guy they traded code lessons for all-purpose biz advice and is busting his tail to learn the tech.

Ironically, I'm so busy now that I don't get to sit down and work on the fun projects and puzzles like I used to, but that was the original goal, right?

The author is doing it wrong. Although the illustration is presumably inspired by the Pythagorean theorem, one robot thinks about the formula "a<sub>2</sub>..." rather than "a²..." and the other about an equilateral rather than right-angled triangle. Perhaps a technical co-author could help?

That's an interesting point. The image needs a shift in perspective. Even as superscripts the robots wouldn't be thinking the same thing, but they're in a space of seeking love. Perhaps a bit of flexibility will lead to a positive outcome.

There are always new articles like this about how this silly MBA type wanted to throw money at something and make a product or how that finance guy thought he could give you 5% equity for building his whole product.

As one of the people on the business end who actually get it, who roughly understands the technical challenges, who recognizes how much hard work goes in to a startup, I wonder what the percentages are of people like me vs those described in the article.

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