

Need a 50% builder/co-founder for web2.0 prod w/ 60b+ domestic market. Ask?s. - cgshaw
http://hackersports.posterous.com/36164010

======
jablookey
To any developer considering this. Here's a list of red flags from someone
who's worked with too many guys that fit this mold.

List of red flags:

-No funding. A bedroom in missouri is not compensation. There is absolutely nothing in there about you being able to pay your bills during this. By moving and not having a salary, you will be responsible for assuming the risk of the venture. He however has no skin in the game except a spare bedroom.

-Salesman + lawyer + finance guy. _Deadly_ combo. Can he sell you on the project? Sure. Can he also figure out how to screw you out of your equity stake when there's real cash involved? You bet. Can he twist his words to get you to go along with whatever misguided product pivot floats into his head in the shower? Yup. Can he manipulate all the legal paperwork to favor him? Oh yea. Can he sell the company without telling you? Sure. Can he make up out of scope features in a meeting with advertisers and then freak out when you tell him you can't deliver by the arbitrary deadline he set? Lets just say its happened before. He hustles for a living. He WILL hustle you.

\- Self-proclaimed nerd. Literally knows enough to be dangerous. He's a self-
professed 'net junkie'. He thinks that makes him qualified to make social
media product decisions. What does that say?

\- He is not 'a builder'. When building a business, if you can't 'build'
you're pretty useless.

\- He uses words like "dominate". Alpha male.

\- Social bookmarking meets sports. I've never heard of that one before.

\- "I want someone that works with me not for me." Word of wisdom - you're
actually better off working _for_ this guy than _with_ him.

\- Can you make this without him? Absolutely.

\- Doesn't live anywhere near a major market. Yea I'm sure KC is a big sports
city. Not big enough. Is he committed enough to the tech industry move to a
proper market? No. Is he committed enough to stay in it when the going gets
rough? We'll see.

\- He has the delusion that he thinks this is such a great opportunity he
needs an application form with test questions. Its not. Its a great
opportunity to learn all the ways NOT to do a startup.

I created a throwaway account just to respond to this. Normally, I wouldn't
want to sound this cynical but reading this is the equivalent of listening to
the sound of nails scraping on a chalkboard.

~~~
cgshaw
Jablookey, Thanks for your comment. I’m trying to respond to everything, but
let me say first, I apologize if I managed to do or say things that irritated
you so much you had to get a throw away account and write 400 words about how
much I pissed you off. Wasn’t my intent.

J - To any developer considering this. Here's a list of red flags from someone
who's worked with too many guys that fit this mold. List of red flags:

No funding. A bedroom in Missouri is not compensation. There is absolutely
nothing in there about you being able to pay your bills during this. By moving
and not having a salary, you will be responsible for assuming the risk of the
venture. He however has no skin in the game except a spare bedroom.

Me – You’re right, I didn’t make myself clear. The 13 slide deck and 100+
pages of research I’ve culled from thousands of pages don’t mean much to
Angels without someone that can build the damn thing. As soon as I am able to
find a legit builder, I’d be parking out on Kauffman’s lawn and/or where else
I had to go to get some seed money. Worst case scenario, I put some of my own
cash into the project, but it’s not like I’m asking someone to join w/ for 10%
equity. I want a full partner who shares the risk. I’d quit my job and focus
on this full time too.

J - Salesman + lawyer + finance guy. Deadly combo. Can he sell you on the
project? Sure. Can he also figure out how to screw you out of your equity
stake when there's real cash involved? You bet. Can he twist his words to get
you to go along with whatever misguided product pivot floats into his head in
the shower? Yup. Can he manipulate all the legal paperwork to favor him? Oh
yea. Can he sell the company without telling you? Sure. Can he make up out of
scope features in a meeting with advertisers and then freak out when you tell
him you can't deliver by the arbitrary deadline he set? Lets just say its
happened before. He hustles for a living. He WILL hustle you.

Me – Anyone jumping into a partnership or corporation should have their OWN
attorney look at it. No offense, but it’s a problem if you just “trust” just
about anyone. I’m not looking for an Eduardo Saverin. I’m looking for a
partner. The pivots aren’t in me head, they’re on paper. I realize you’re
trying to be funny, but wouldn’t you rather have someone who’s comfortable
marketing and selling a product? Do you want to work with a guy that looked as
nervous as Zuckerberg used to or as awkward as some others in tech? I have a
massive amount of respect for anyone that can code, but selling a product is a
different game. Hell read Venture Hacks for ten minutes, I guaranty you’ll
come across the concept of having a “builder” and a “seller.” Hell I’d pay for
someone else’s attorney to look at any sort of vesting / share transaction /
future dilution agreement.

J - Self-proclaimed nerd. Literally knows enough to be dangerous. He's a self-
professed 'net junkie'. He thinks that makes him qualified to make social
media product decisions. What does that say?

Me – I was one of the first 1,000,000 users of Facebook and I’ve been posting
on message boards and IMing for over a decade. I may not understand all of the
nuts and bolts of building one, but I understand how most of them are
unusable. I can also design in HTML, CSS, some PHP, and jQuery. I don’t know
how to do the backend.

J - He is not 'a builder'. When building a business, if you can't 'build'
you're pretty useless.

Me - I can build capital, build users, build a team, build an office. You
assume because I can’t build a backend or speak in code I’m useless. I truly
don’t feel like you gave my post or any of my comments any thought what so
ever.

J - He uses words like "dominate". Alpha male.

Me – Touche. I didn’t realize that speaking like an alpha male ever made one
so. I’m enthusiastic and gregarious, and yes—loud, but I’ve never had anyone
call me an alpha male. I think I do have some “alpha” qualities, however. I
don’t quit. I work hard. I fight like hell for my friends and family —I’m very
protective. And I guess I’m probably a bit alpha male in that I answer 400
word flame posts from throwaway accounts on message boards.

J - Social bookmarking meets sports. I've never heard of that one before.

Me – You’re right. If you’ve ever been to BallHype/d, SportsAg, ChatSports,
etc., you’ll realize the concept has been completely fucking mutilated. The
sites are terrible. 1. Loadspeeds are shit. 2. Comment systems suck. 3. Almost
Unusable UI’s. 4. No Marketing. I have 50 pages just on how to fix most of
those problems. It's also worth noting that if I just wanted to emulate what
those sites do I could recreate it in a couple of days. It needs to a be a
more technologically sophisticated product.

J - "I want someone that works with me not for me." Word of wisdom - you're
actually better off working for this guy than with him.

Me – I don’t understand this. If I think the idea has real potential, wouldn’t
it be better to work with someone who has as much vested interest as I do to
see it succeed. If I pay someone, which I could feasibly do, then I can end up
with someone who just collects a check and doesn’t want to see the business
grow. I want someone who can eventually be a CTO, help hire people underneath
her, who benefits from the business’ growth as much as I do. You ever taken
any economics? Your solution misaligns our incentives greatly.

J - Can you make this without him? Absolutely.

Me – Sure, but don’t you need someone to help attract investment, build
capital, hire, etc. All mentioned above. And it’s not like I put up the deck
and the research online. I have plenty to bring to the table.

J - Doesn't live anywhere near a major market. Yea I'm sure KC is a big sports
city. Not big enough. Is he committed enough to the tech industry move to a
proper market? No. Is he committed enough to stay in it when the going gets
rough? We'll see.

Me – You’re right. The growth strategy has little to do with pro sports
markets though. It’s most about colleges first and the craziest sports schools
are a hell of lot closer to KC than the Valley. I also feel a loyalty to my
city and want to see businesses started here. I’ve seen enough really bright
awesome people leave this are to go to either coast or Chicago. However, I’d
be the first one to pack up my entire life and move to Silicon Valley tomorrow
if someone funded the project. For the purposes of rent and everything else
though, it would be remarkably cheap to start here. As far as picking up and
moving a long distance on short notice I’ve done it. In 2006, I applied for a
job almost a 1,000 miles away on a whim and moved there a few days later.

J - He has the delusion that he thinks this is such a great opportunity he
needs an application form with test questions. Its not. Its a great
opportunity to learn all the ways NOT to do a startup.

Me – Some actually filled it out. I’d be perfectly fine without that just
wanted to chat as well, truthfully. The “test” form, which includes such
terrible questions as “Describe your worst professional fuck up” and “What
have you built” was meant to prevent me from getting people who weren’t truly
interested from sending me spam or other bullshit.

I’m more than willing to listen to an alternative approach to help me find a
kick ass builder.

J - I created a throwaway account just to respond to this. Normally, I
wouldn't want to sound this cynical but reading this is the equivalent of
listening to the sound of nails scraping on a chalkboard.

Me - <http://bit.ly/exn54R>

Thanks for your comment.

------
lkrubner
In the article, they start with:

"TL:DR. Jump off a cliff and create an awesome fucking company."

Even for a tl;dr, I do not find that enticing. I expect a tl;dr to be short,
probably just 1 sentence, but is that the best they could do? Nothing in that
1 sentence makes me want to commit to the project. And, really, the tone is a
red flag.

I've got a ton of non-technical friends who have ideas for websites. I
probably get asked to commit some time to websites once or twice a month. I
say no 99% of the time. I say no unless the time commitment is small and I owe
the person a favor, or I actually believe in the idea - which happens about
once every 2 years.

A lot of people want my help with websites. If someone wants me to commit my
time to them, they need to do a lot to win me over.

Also, I worry about this:

"^I’m looking for one person to be a 50% co-founder"

I think it is usually best if someone is in charge. 50/50 can lead to
uncertainty about who is making the decisions.

~~~
cgshaw
50/50 is just in relation to equity distribution. Nearly all of the Angels and
VCs I've read about suggest 50/50 that way there is equal stake and interest.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't lead and take charge on some
things. As far as I'm concerned, once I get someone skilled enough to help me
build it's my job to go pitch, hustle, market and work my ass off while the
cofounder builds a team, outsources small projects and puts things together.

What's the tonal problem? I'm enthusiastic. Sorry if I offended you the Fbomb,
but that's just my personality. I've certainly read (and often been called,
lol) more offensive things.

Thanks for your comment.

------
a_b_c
I’m looking for an awesome person (people) interested in social, dynamic
curation, mobile, near-field communication, qr codes, augmented reality,
search, rich-media, minimalist design, gaming, and world domination. Don’t
worry, the MVP (minimum viable product) incorporates only some of those
elements, but the vision extends in to all of those areas. Some of these ideas
I’ve had for a decade or more, this isn't a knee-jerk proposition. This is an
opportunity to take ownership and give your own vision. I'm willing to listen
to just about anything and use whatever tools best execute the vision. HTML5 /
CSS3, whatever back-end language you want. We dream it, pivot, build it,
dominate.

hmmmm, Anything else you want to add in there? Not enough current buzzworthy
technologies mentioned.

~~~
cgshaw
Lol, touche.

The mvp focuses on social aspects and minimal design. I want to build a
company. I'm looking down the road, many of those ideas are pet projects that
would be many months or years down the road.

I'd like to teleport you into the game from anywhere on earth and have Eva
Longoria teleport with you. I'd also like to allow you to take over the
control of your favorite athletes and play in the game.

Thank you for your comment. :-)

------
stanleydrew
Some questions:

What's the most interesting thing you've created on your own or with a small
team before?

What kind of alcohol do you prefer to drink?

When I type <http://news.ycombinator.com> into my browser's address bar and
press enter, what happens to make the HN front page show up on the screen? Be
as detailed as you can.

~~~
cgshaw
1\. The most interesting thing I created was one of the best college debate
teams in the country. At Mizzou we didn't have a team, I started one, raised
tens of thousands of dollars and my partner and I made it to a final four. The
squad placed 12th in the nation despite not having a coach and being
underfunded. We beat ivies and all sorts of super well funded and coached
schools. We were mostly farm boys. After graduation, I was hired as the
youngest coach in the country at Colorado College, one of my teams that year
made it to a final four. I'm one of a hand full of people to debate in a final
four and coach a team to a final four. Code-wise, nothing that interesting,
like I've mentioned elsewhere, I've never really taken a class. I've created
websites, blogs and stuff, but never with a team.

2\. Maker's Mark is my drink of choice.

3\. Front page is 1. Threshold of 100 points, 2. Gawker Hacked, 3. HN Reading
Level, 4. No evidence of time b4 big bang, 5. Building Generaion in Unreal 3,
6. Atlantic Turns a profit, 7. NY Struggles to find enough tech people.

How much more detail would prefer?

~~~
stanleydrew
#1 is impressive.

With #3 I was hoping to gauge your understanding of "how the internet works,"
but I clearly asked it the wrong way. I assume you have some notion of
computers talking to each other in a network. But I thought it would be useful
to see how much you've thought about it or read about it or fooled with
getting stuff up and running on the internet.

~~~
cgshaw
Jesus that was dense, I'm sorry.

You type an address in, the browser locates the data via an IP addy. The
information requested from a database is recalled, packeted, transmitted,
formatted and displayed in the way the front end code requests it. In my case
it went to my cable modem with piece of shit comcast and then through my
router and it's 192.168.1.1 IP addy.

I'm sure I could make that answer better with a simple google search, but I
don't cheat. If you're trying to gauge me, it'd be disingenuous. I hope I
didn't flunk miserably, maybe just a C?

~~~
stanleydrew
I appreciate your integrity. I suppose it would have been fairly easy to cheat
on that question.

It's pretty much impossible to flunk miserably at this question unless you say
something horribly wrong. It's meant to figure out whether you're familiar
with DNS, HTTP, client/server stuff, etc, and how deeply.

It's relevant since the product you want to build is entirely an HTTP-based
application, and there are a lot of layers to understand to even be able to
make credibly intelligent suggestions about what that product might do or look
like.

~~~
cgshaw
Sweet. Thanks for the interaction this evening. Truth be told, I had no
expectation what so ever for people on HN to even really comment / consider
what I'm putting out there (that's why I put it on posterous and not as an Ask
HN).

I had no karma and I'm not a programmer. I live 1,836 miles from Palo Alto.
This post served two purposes, 1. hail mary that I found someone kick ass who
was interested in getting involved for a random reason (they liked sports or
bbq maybe) 2. help me figure out how get buy in from developers. By looking at
the feedback, "over the top," "not enough information," etc., I can get a
sense of how I have to change my pitch to an engineer. It's not that I think
all engineers are the same, but that I don't know many engineers, so I wanted
to hypo-test.

I'd love nothing more than to learn Python, Ruby, erlang, etc., and crank it
out myself, but if I've learned anything in life it's that I should
concentrate what I'm best at and learn new things incrementally along the way.

Thanks for not just making fun of me and moving along.

~~~
stanleydrew
I'm not one to make fun of someone who puts himself out there like you have.
I've been there before.

I think you'll find that engineers are a critical and skeptical bunch. You're
right that you should get in front of as many of them as you can. You need to
learn as much from them as possible, even the ones who aren't working with
you. Listen to them. They will help you in subtle ways that you might not
notice at first.

At this point your most important goal must be to gain credibility. I don't
think you should learn Python or anything like that. We both agree that's
probably not a great use of your time. What you do need to do is understand
enough about how web-based products are built and how they work to talk
competently about specifics.

That's going to be hard. One way to do it is to try to build something
yourself, which we've kind of ruled out. One way to do it is to read a lot.
One way to do it is to find someone you know who's an engineer and watch what
he/she does while asking questions.

Credibility is everything. And you can't substitute it with passion.

I wish you the best of luck. Keep us updated.

------
cgshaw
Some folks requested a more elaborate explanation of the mvp.

In short the idea is to create a truly interactive sports site.

It's simple and allows users to curate a link board (like Reddit), it gets
more nuanced to the person as they vote and interact more. Add in comment and
voting systems that look and respond like Quora. Very fast, built in editorial
controls, extra stuff like formatting and bulleting. This is the minimum
viable product.

After you get enough users and enough content being curated, you can start
scraping the information. Make a truly personalized sports application.
Flipboard, but more bad ass.

People use facebook and such for flipboard, which looks at their ENTIRE
network. I have 500+ friends, most don't like sports, many don't like MY
teams. I want the best content on my teams from all sources in one place. I
also want to be able to interact and game with other sports fans from my
teams.

That's a more elaborate version of the idea. -Chris

------
kls
I have to say, this is one of the best "I need a tech guy" post I have seen
and for two simple reason, you can see the authors passion, and he clearly
explains what he is going to do, how he is going to chip in to make the
company succeed and what he has to offer to make a go at it. He shows his
value and realizes that the tech guy is an important part of the equation not
just an after thought.

~~~
stanleydrew
Really? You thought he clearly explained what he is going to do? I can
appreciate his passion, but I wouldn't say he was particularly clear about
anything.

~~~
cgshaw
EDIT: Check out the response to waterside81's comment above.

What would you like to know?

The post is quite frankly too long already, but I figured folks would want a
decent amount of information. Like I said, Ask ?'s.

Thanks for your comment.

~~~
stanleydrew
I mean no offense, but this line stands out:

"I’m looking for an awesome person (people) interested in social, dynamic
curation, mobile, near-field communication, qr codes, augmented reality,
search, rich-media, minimalist design, gaming, and world domination."

That's the kind of buzzword-ridden sentence that scares me and is not clear at
all.

But your willingness to answer questions and start a conversation is
admirable. I will start another top-level thread with some questions for you.

~~~
kls
When I read it, I did not pay too much attention to the fact that the idea was
not clear, I think people matter more and for me personally if it had peaked
my interest I would still have inquired as to what his ideas where.

I guess like a lot of people, I reason from my perspective and if I have an
idea that I am interested in, I could write a novel on it. I would assume if
people are interested that we could get into the gory details after the
initial contact. And I would be afraid of information overloading my initial
letter.

I still think it was a great post, because I think it was one of the few that
I have ever seen where the poster said here is what I am going to do and here
is what I have to offer. Most as I said act as if, I have done all the hard
work coming up with this idea now I just need someone to build it.

~~~
cgshaw
thanks kls.

That was my exact thinking when I posted. Most of the people I interact
respond to enthusiasm and bullishness. Of course that works much better in
person. It's clear that in this sort of forum with really bright and capable
people that reads as naivety. That's ok, learn something new every day.

I'm going to try to get in front of some local engineers and see what I can
do. It just takes one who's crazy enough and smart enough to get started.

~~~
kls
Yeah, I have been around enterprise sales guys for too long for buzz words to
bother me, I know it's the lingo of sales in the enterprise space, so I have a
filter for it, where some have a radar for it. I read right past that and
really liked that you said what you where going to do (as far as role). This
gets omitted on a good deal of posts like this and worse yet there are a good
deal that act like "hey I had the idea, what more do you want". I wish you the
best and hope you do well. I part of a start-up back in 97 that tried to do an
amateur sports social network / handicap matchup / scorecard site. We where in
way too early and burned out in flames. The market is probably far more ready
for it than it was in 97. While you idea is not the same, I do see some
overlap in what we did.

------
robryan
Anyone else assume this was satire before reading the comments here?

~~~
cgshaw
Burn. If the worst thing that ever happens to me is I get made fun of on a
board then I'd certainly be going no where with running a company, eh?

:-).

~~~
robryan
Well it's not your fault, just the fault of the many less genuine people they
have gone before you with similar messages. :)

Good luck with your venture.

------
dshankar
Normally, I hate reading about these. Web dev has become easy enough that
anyone should be able to prototype their idea.

Nevertheless, two words in article make this worth reading.

"I hustle"

That's something I really respect (assuming you truthfully hustle). You write
well, you probably sell well. Good luck with your venture.

~~~
cgshaw
Thanks for your comment. I kind of mentioned it before, but I'm not some
silver spooned trustafarian with nothing better to do. I'm a blue collar guy
that's worked since I was 13. Retail, food service, whatever to get by. My
first "real" job was teaching and coaching debate at a top 30 liberal arts
school at 22 without a masters or phd, which were job "requirements." I called
the dean of students, who was hiring for this specific job, and basically said
"you're crazy if you don't consider me." In retrospect probably seemed insane,
lol.

I applied on a Tuesday, called his office half a dozen times on Wednesday,
flew out Sunday, was offered the job Monday and packed all of shit and drove
nearly a 1,000 miles to a place I'd never been just a few days before.

He gave me a shot and I coached a team to final four and it was the school's
second best finish in its debate teams 110+ history of debating. Some of my
students were essentially my age.

My students were really bright, but I'd like to think I had something to do
with it too, :-).

