

Why you can('t) recruit a technical co-founder - hippo33
http://blog.launchbit.com/why-you-cant-recruit-a-technical-cofounder

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mindcrime
Can we just "sticky" this to the top of HN, as a perpetual answer to the
(seemingly) daily "How to find a technical co-founder" thread?

Seriously though, that was good stuff. Now how about a survey that goes the
other way? One that's directed towards technical types who are looking for a
non-technical co-founder (that is, a "the sales / marketing / bizdev guy"
type.)

~~~
hippo33
thanks mindcrime -- hmm, I'd never thought about that. Are people have trouble
finding non-technical co-founders? (good sales / BD?)

~~~
mindcrime
Not sure about "having trouble," but I'll say that - in my own experience - it
isn't necessarily easy. I've been trawling for a sales/marketing/bizdev guy
for a few months now and haven't had a whole lot of success finding anybody.
But, to be fair, I haven't tried _that_ hard yet. But still, some insights
into what it takes to tempt a sales/marketing/bizdev guy into a startup would
be useful... at least, I know I'd find it useful, and I'm guessing there are
at least a handful of others who would as well.

Of course I'm a little outside what seems to be the norm here... I'm not
building a consumer centric webapp or mobile app; I'm working on enterprise
software and stuff that is sold through direct sales & face-to-face selling.
Maybe nobody else cares about that stuff. :-)

~~~
mikeleeorg
Finding a good sales/marketing/bizdev guy is certainly not easy. I'm a
developer-turned-biz guy, so I can offer a bit of insight from my perspective,
though it may differ with others.

First, it's important to recognize the market to which you are targeting.
Yours is enterprise software, which you correctly realize is different than
consumer software. This speaks to the different skills you'll want in a biz
guy.

Second, biz skills vary significantly. Being great at sales & direct selling
is different than launching a social media campaign, for instance. And if you
want a cofounder who is also familiar with the financial and legal aspects of
running a startup, those are different skills as well. Startups will probably
want people with "T" skills - a wide range of business skills (the horizontal
bar in the T) and a deep well of some specific skill (the vertical bar in the
T). In enterprise software, you may want someone who's really good at direct
sales, for instance.

Third, relevant experience is important. This person needs to know your market
well and have a good track record (ideally in startups too). They should be
able to rattle off key competitors and have an eye on emerging trends. They
also should be able to articulate the key metrics (or KPIs, Key Performance
Indicators) of your industry. Every industry has a different set of KPIs. A
good biz person will know yours.

Fourth, the biz person's network is also important. For direct sales, it's
especially so. If this person already has a connection to your target
customers, that will go a long way in securing their business. You may also
want a biz person with connections to investors.

Fifth, personality & attitude is another attribute to watch. It goes without
saying that this person should be able to gel with you well (i.e. can you
imagine being stuck with this person in an airport for 10 hours?). Your biz
person should also have an entrepreneurial attitude and know when to be frugal
(with hard costs) and when to spend (with great talent). In my biased view,
the biz person should also have enough of a technical background to understand
your software, at least from an architectural level, to be able to speak to a
customer's CTO.

My $0.02. I'm writing this off-the-cuff, so I may have left a few things out.

~~~
dystopia
Great comment.

I get pitched a lot to be a technical cofounder, and I put a lot of thought
into assessing the biz skills of a potential sales/marketing/bizdev cofounder.

As you said, some ideas may be better suited to having someone with a sales
background as a co-founder while others for someone with killer marketing
skills.

And I've also found in the past that I have a different working dynamic with
sales vs. marketing people as they often complement/overlap my skillset in
different ways.

Another random thing to add regarding founder dating from the techie side is
an awareness if someone is giving off the vibe that they're really looking for
their first engineer even though they say they're looking for a true
cofounder.

Finally, I try to distance the individual from the idea and ask myself, "Would
I want to still co-found something with this person if things don't work out
and we have to do a hard pivot from the original idea?" I would rather team up
with someone great on a marginal idea that may evolve into more than someone
just because I think the idea is killer. Most people I know in Silicon Valley
have a million ideas on the backburner anyway, so it's a red flag to me if the
idea interests me more than the person.

~~~
hippo33
Agreed, dystopia. I would've expected the personality-fit to be of top
importance, so it's surprising to me that it really wasn't _that_ important to
the people filling out the survey.

~~~
mikeleeorg
I suspect you didn't see personality-fit being of top importance only because
the survey didn't offer that as a topline item. At least, not that I can
remember or can see in the results.

I've seen a lot of cofounder relationships dissolve because of personality-fit
alone. Both parties were at the top of their game and highly accomplished
individuals. But together, they were awful. Everything from lack of trust to
lack of shared vision hurt their rapport. They all eventually fizzled away.

I definitely should have listed it as #1 in my answer. Whether people realize
it or not, personality-fit is very, very important. dystopia brings up a great
reason for this. It's very possible you & your cofounder will need to pivot
significantly. If the biz person can't do so well (ie. skills are not aligned,
interest is not there, can't handle this "failure", etc), then this isn't the
right cofounder for you.

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lolizbak
Reminds me of the post by Mark Suster => invest in lines, not in dots :
[http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-
line...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/11/15/invest-in-lines-not-
dots/)

I think it goes the same way for (co)founders: partner in lines, not in dots.
Your relationship with potential cofounders shouldn't start the day you're
looking for one.

~~~
hippo33
Very true!

------
hippo33
This blog post has the results of the survey we posted a couple wks ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2256293>

Thanks so much for all your help.

