

Looking for a co-founder in South Africa - daveungerer

With the way the Rand (our currency) is going, I think it would be a good idea to start a business with global potential.  Please get in touch if you're interested.  I can supply a bit of capital in exchange for larger shareholding.<p>Also, if you're already working on or planning a startup, please reply to this thread so that the other South African readers can know that there is hope!<p>I'm a developer with 5 years of experience, mainly Microsoft, but have started doing a lot of Ruby on Rails in the last year and have played with PHP, did a year of C++ etc.  Running Ubuntu and I'm ready to repent from my Microsoft development ways.  I had a serious aversion towards PHP, so I'm glad RoR came along. I think I would work well with another developer or potentially a designer.<p>I have a degree in computer science - best in class, for what it's worth.  But I was too busy pretending not to be a geek to meet any interesting people to start a company with.  Sigh.
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inovica
I don't understand why people feel the need to have a co-founder. I don't
think there's anything wrong with setting up your own company and then
employing some other people to fill in any skills gap that you feel you might
have. Personally I've always found it easier on my own... I make the decisions
(for good or bad) after consulting with people, but there are never any issues
or deadlocks where decisions can't be made because its down to me ultimately.
Why do you feel you need a co-founder? Just curious and not wishing to start
another thread on the merits either way

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ph0rque
I don't know about Dave, the author of this post, but I am in a position where
I'm developing my web app while learning RoR and programming in general. I
feel I could go 3 to 10 times faster if I had a co-founder with RoR and
programming experience better than what I have. Hiring someone right now is
out of the question, due to my financial situation.

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pistoriusp
Hey!

Yup, the Rand took a beating last week, but doesn't that make it cheaper for
foreign investors?

I'm South African and busy on my own startup. I was a PHP programmer for 6
years, now I'm just doing Python/ Django - and sometimes some PHP to pay the
bills.

I'm in Pretoria and my co-founder is in Cape Town chasing down clients. I'm
self taught.

Btw, Didn't you run the quake/2.co.za back in the day?

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daveungerer
The weakening of the Rand will result in higher Rand revenues for the same
amount of foreign currency. This is the exact reason why so many exporters
have selfishly been calling for a weakening in the Rand. The idea is that the
higher import costs won't increase the cost of living and doing business quite
as much. So your startup must simply export its service / product to the rest
of the world to take advantage of this.

I'm in Joburg. It would be good to stay in touch with like-minded individuals.
My e-mail is on my profile.

Didn't run quake.co.za, but I used to hang out in #quake on irc all the time!
Good old days

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pistoriusp
I couldn't find your email in your profile?

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daveungerer
daveungerer at google's free mail service

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blackswan
I don't think the prevailing economic situation can really affect a few guys
working hard to solve a problem startup style - people will still use the
internet when growth slows. I'm in CT and working on two projects, one on my
own and one with a cofounder. I find I work much harder on the one with the
cofounder, the desire to not let a friend and business partner down is a
powerful motivator! Our project will initially focus on SA, but we're building
it in such a way as to be able to internationalise it country by country as it
grows. My own project is inherently international; its going to take a while
though, real-time clustering with adaptive algorithms is hard! Good luck, I
hope you find a lekker cofounder, I have found it really makes a difference!

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defen
My advice would be to get out of SA. It's going to turn into Zimbabwe in the
next few years. If your startup is successful your best case scenario is that
it will be taken away from you.

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duke
ok.. i'm a designer with an idea for a business with global potential, stalled
because i'm programming illiterate.. thus, i seek a programming partner, and
am especially interested in data driven read/write web, hence RoR.. i'm not in
South Africa, but would consider moving anywhere to get this thing done.. to
learn more, google "twexter"

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daveungerer
Had a quick look and twexter seems quite interesting, especially as I started
learning French a while ago and am quite keen on learning more languages after
that. Will investigate it further when I have a spare moment. Thanks!

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edw519
Nice post. I hope it works well for you. And for other South Africans (sorry,
US here).

As a single founder who sometimes feels pressure (mainly from here) to not be
a single founder, I would hope to see more posts like this. I realize the
ycombinator is not a matchmaking service, but what better place to look?

You don't mention a compelling reason for starting a business other than "the
way the Rand is going". Do you have an idea (or even a concept)? Or are you
purposefully not sharing it?

Which brings up an interesting question. If you're a single founder looking
for co-founders iN a public place, how much should you share?

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sonink
The answer to the last question is definitely 50%.

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edw519
Oops, sorry. What I meant was how much information should you share in your
public search for a co-founder.

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alaskamiller
with the collapse of eskom, would this be a good idea?

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blackswan
With the exorbitant cost of rackspace/bandwidth in SA one shouldn't consider
hosting here if one wants to serve any serious traffic, especially to an
international audience. Thus Eskom's inability to realise that planning for a
2% p.a. increase in electricity consumption when GDP growth runs at +- 5% is a
bad idea shouldn't really be a consideration before getting to work on a
startup in SA, although having a laptop with enough battery to get through the
load shedding might be a good idea :)

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daveungerer
Agreed. Hosting a site locally when your target is global would bankrupt you,
your grandchildren and everyone your grandchildren will ever meet, so I'm not
too stressed about Eskom. And even if you get loadshedded for 4 hours by
accident, there's always a mall nearby with power!

Currently hosting in the US for the few small projects I'm working on now,
pretty fast once you optimise a few things.

Good to hear from someone who won't let Eskom get the better of them. Stay in
touch.

