

Ask HN: How to find technical cofounder who wants to start a small business? - productguy

I have been reading Hacker News for the past couple years... anyway I am currently working as a product manager in my day job  and am interested in starting a startup / small business. And let me underline the "small business". Many cofounders are too keen on tackling big billion dollar ideas, but I think there are many low-key ideas that can generate good revenue without even getting VC funding.<p>I am presently making $144,000 salary as a Director of Product Management, but I really feel it is futile to continue serving the corporate masters. There is this void that I feel in going to work every day -- dealing with commutes, bad stress (not good stress), dumb co-workers, and the office politics. And I realized that while the paycheck sounds to be good on paper, the salary after taxes, living expenses, etc - it is really not that much. I really don't have that much real work per se ( so are the other peers -- no one would want to admit) - a lot of it is really busy work ; preparing Powerpoints, replying to emails, etc. But we all show our face and warm our chair  from 9 am to 6 pm because everybody is afraid of being labeled a 'slacker'. Having been through one layoff and one micro-manager, I realize that working in a company is really not that stress-free, secure, or financially viable in the long run.There's no such thing as job security.<p>I am looking to create a startup / small business (funding can be optional) where we can be the sole owners and make good income over and above what we could earn from working at a day job. Ideally, we will start doing this on the side until it matures. For the past two years, I currently have a side online business where I net about $38,000 per year so I have some experience in starting an online small business, but it is not enough for me to quit my day job yet.<p>I am not shooting for millions or billions, simply a small business where we could earn $400,000+ so each of us can get $200,000 and then stop working at our day job and then grow the business.<p>I attended a lot of events and talked to a lot of people and read a lot of books. Some of my favorite business / work philosophy comes from:<p>.  Founders of Atlassian (Jira and Confluence) -- try Google them<p>.  37 Signals' Getting Real
.  David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08  -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY<p>.  37 Signals' Re-work<p>.  Blue Ocean Strategy book<p>My background:<p>. BS in Computer Science ( graduated with perfect GPA)<p>. Worked as programmer (software design engineer) at Microsoft<p>. MS from Stanford<p>. worked over 10 years as engineer and later product managers at various high tech companies in the bay area (Yahoo, PayPal, etc).<p>. strong SEO, online marketing, web app, viral, affiliate marketing, etc.<p>. smart and organized<p>What I am looking is:<p>* programmer / coder that could build beautiful web applications from scratch , say in RoR<p>* programmer / coder that wants to be owners<p>* you want to be in charge and are looking to break free from your modern day slavery ( day job )<p>Ideally:
* you have enough free time on nights/days to do coding, perhaps aside from your not too-demanding day job<p>* you have the know-how and skills to build medium-scale to large web application from scratch<p>If all this sounds interesting to you, let me know please..  my email is:  productguy09 (at) gmail dot com<p>Thank you for your time!
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inmyhead
It's sounds like you've done a bit of homework, as would be expected of
someone with your background. However, when selecting a partner, make sure you
spend a great deal of time getting to know them. I can't stress that enough.

Also, I'd encourage you to solicit people that have similar interests
(possibly expertise in something you wished you knew more about & enjoy),
which can potentially turn into your product/business. If you want to spend a
significant portion of your life working on something, it might as well be
something you enjoy (cause you can grind out a living doing things you don't
care about for anyone). When recruiting engineers, let them know what spaces /
ideas you are considering. From my experience, passion for a space gets more
responses then delineated qualifications.

Best of luck.

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revorad
You probably already have, but check out Rob Walling's book -
<http://www.startupbook.net> and read this -
[http://journal.dedasys.com/2011/09/08/zero-to-profitable-
lib...](http://journal.dedasys.com/2011/09/08/zero-to-profitable-liberwriter-
lessons-learned)

You're making a hefty salary. Don't quit in a hurry. Save up a big chunk,
slowly get going on the side and quit when you have some customers.

~~~
productguy
Thanks Revorad. I have not read that book, it sounds very interesting.
BalsamIQ is another amazing one.

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skaviani
Hi, we are you located? I organize free Meetups to help entrepreneurs like you
find their co-founder. Check out <http://cofounderslab.meetup.com> and follow
us @cofounderslab as we release more tools to help match co-founders. Good
luck, great post.

~~~
productguy
I am located in the Bay Area. Thanks again for the info.

