
Ask HN: I have an idea. I have the money. I moved to SF. Now what? - jiganti
I've been reading everything I can from HN and elsewhere on the tech startup industry and have done what seemed necessary so far. But I don't code and would be looking to find a good technical co-founder.<p>I have what I think is a good idea for a web app, it's a pretty simple concept and while I expect the equity split to be most of the motivation for the technical cofounder, (I would deal with the business side of things) it seems that I would have a better chance of getting a good programmer on board if I offer some cash in addition. Ideally it would be someone looking for experience but also with the ability to have a guaranteed paycheck as well.<p>And I'm in San Francisco- what now?
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mahmud
Shoot me an email, and a description of your idea, and I will take an hour of
my time to draft a road-map for you that you can take to any developer to
execute. Gratis.

[My commercial interests are online advertising, education software, semantic
web, data-warehousing and everything middle-east. My Open Source
interests/hobbies are Lisp, Android and the JVM. If you're not doing any of
these, your ideas are guaranteed safe with me, at least for the next 24
months. And you have the whole of HN standing witness to this.]

~~~
jiganti
I'll send you an email in a minute, I appreciate this a lot.

~~~
jules
You should put your email address in your profile.

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jules
Or drop me an email. Address is in my profile.

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jiganti
Ok, I put my email in my profile- I had it in the "email" box but apparently
that's not visible to other members. Thanks for making me aware of this.

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nostromo
I see these types of posts and it astonishes me that people will look for
cofounders "on the street."

I can't imagine that increases the odds of being successful -- but maybe I'm
wrong. Employee number 5 can be an unknown quantity, but employee number 2?
That would terrify me.

And since you're not a technical person that can code, it's going to be doubly
hard for you to validate the person's technical knowledge.

In any case -- you're here now -- what better place to start looking for
talent than this community?

~~~
mahmud
I have given my _all_ to someone, even though I was employee #1, and the only
one at that, for a few hundred dollars a week. Because the person who hired
me: 1) knew what he wanted but not how. 2) was so honest, that he paid me
without even being able to evaluate my work. I could have shown him anything I
wanted as a "deliverable" and he still would have paid me, and because of that
I went overboard, and made sure to do the best job I could. I billed for 5
hours a day while putting in 12.

Btw, he is someone who I firmly believe has the midas touch. He can't write a
line of code, but he has the makings of a top-notch tech CEO. He is an average
medical equipment salesman from an average mid-sized U.S. city. But everything
about him; intelligence, attitude, knack, foresight, etc. just screams Future
Fortune 100 CEO. He is someone I would forsake dreams and fortunes for, just
to be part of his team again.

~~~
signa11
would you mind sharing some more info on 'someone' / nature of work etc.
thanks !

~~~
mahmud
I wrote the first version of a social network for him, which he is selling to
niche departments of universities.

I got my first chops as a web application architect there. I had freedom to
write my own web framework, implement everything from fine-grained security to
pluggable application architecture for 3rd party apps, API, and had to design
the whole thing to be scalable.

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failquicker
My method for getting a great coder even though you can't evaluate coding
skills -

Hire a great coder to HELP YOU INTERVIEW. Find a great coder who's work you
respect, who is currently employed and not looking to leave his position. PAY
HIM his going rate to help assess your candidates.

Find candidates through local meetups, friends of friends, and this lovely
community here. Above poster is correct, Good coders are respected. If you
actually start becoming a part of the community you will start to find folks
who might work out.

~~~
petervandijck
That's a great idea. That would be a good service, too, if you can get the
trust thing (someone else hires your key employees) right.

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ziadbc
Get a domain name, put up a description of the product, start collecting
emails on that page. Interview potential users/customers of the product.
Collect information (primary research) to show that the idea has legs.

Show this info to potential technical cofounders. Find someone who is
interested in that space already.

If you don't have a personal interest in coding, don't spend much of time on
that. The one exception I would give is simply mocking up the interactions in
html/css. This is much simpler than writing full blown apps, and can
communicate the idea quickly. To go even simpler, sketch the idea out on
paper.

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andrewacove
Add some details to your HN profile. That was the first thing I looked at
after reading your post, and there isn't anything there. (Not that mine's a
particularly epic tome).

~~~
mahmud
You worked for Naughty Dog! How do you sleep at night knowing my dream job is
your ex-gig?

Prick! ;-)

~~~
ctb9
You'll have to ask him tomorrow.

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cperciva
_Now what?_

Start writing code. Don't know how to code? Go to amazon and buy a "learn X in
Y days" book. Create a prototype of your web app. Announce it somewhere. See
if anyone uses it.

Yes, it will suck. But it will (a) give you some idea of whether or not your
idea will ever go anywhere, and (b) give technical people an idea of what it
is that you're trying to build.

That second bit is very important. You won't get anyone good by saying "I'm
looking for a technical cofounder to help me create the Google of cooking".
They won't share your vision and won't have a clue what you mean. Putting up a
prototype website allows them to understand your vision and start thinking
about how they would fix things.

If your website is interesting, you'll get people coming to you saying "I love
this site, but...". Most of them will just be offering suggestions. Some will
be looking for work. Find a co-founder from this pool.

Now get out of the way and let your new co-founder rip up your code and
replace it. Don't even think about keeping your existing code: No matter how
hard you worked on it, trying to keeping it will just slow your co-founder
down. Let your technical co-founder make all the technical decisions. That's
what he's there for.

Congratulations, you're now the CEO of a startup company.

~~~
alain94040
Bad advice. Some people are just not meant to code. What do you expect them to
accomplish with a book and 3 weeks of effort? A lot of junk.

My advice: go out an meet people.

True, you can't test coders, but you can validate how good they are through
social validation. Good coders are respected.

Shoot high: find out who the great coders are. Pitch them your idea. That's
going to be the challenging part. Find the one great coder who gets excited.
The fact that you can pay them just removes a headhache down the road, but
don't open with that. Close with it instead.

~~~
nostrademons
That's exactly what he expects them to accomplish: a lot of junk.

The thing is, junk that exists is _much_ better at convincing top-notch coders
to join than vaporware that doesn't. It shows them you're serious. More to the
point, a good coder will instantly pick out a dozen ways in which your
prototype sucks, _and want to make them better_. Because that's something
virtually all top-notch software engineers I've met share: the urge to make
something, once they've seen it, as good as it possibly could be. If they
can't see it, they have nothing to work with. If they can, you might be able
to snag them.

~~~
tansey
Why not meet half way?

Everybody can't code, but everyone can make mockups. Use a tool like
mockingbird (gomockingbird.com) and literally sketch out every single
page/screen. When you make the mockups, you should be sure to know where every
link/button goes, otherwise there's a page missing in your mockups!

Just this task alone would stop 95% of people with vague ideas. It also shows
the coder that you have taken it as far as you reasonably can without learning
to program.

~~~
nostrademons
A prototype _is_ halfway. :-) All the way would be learning to code well
enough that you could launch the product yourself.

If you can communicate your product vision in static mockups, that's great.
But for most products, there's a world of difference between seeing
_something_ working - even if it's held together with string and wires and
only works for the inputs you're demoing - and seeing a bunch of pictures.

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callmeed
Are you looking for a full-time commitment from your technical co-founder
(initially)? If not you might be able to find someone who can survive working
for equity. Just don't come off as one who's simply trying to get some
contract work done for cheap. That means get some documents in order and do
some customer development. I personally would only consider something like
that if the person had done research and demonstrated some hustle.

~~~
jiganti
If I can split 50/50 with someone solely on equity, that's fine. It would be a
full-time commitment initially. I'm willing to do everything I can, and am
hoping to find someone with a similar obsessive personality. I've gotten
positive feedback from close friends about the idea but it's a pretty simple
concept and so I think it's prudent to use some discretion with whom I pitch
it to.

------
tlrobinson
First of all, by far the best way to find a co-founder would be someone you
already know, and ideally have worked with before. Second best would be a
referral through someone you already know. That's probably pretty obvious.

But if you're starting from scratch, my advice (which hasn't been tested at
all) would be to attend lots of meetups and other events, and just meet lots
of people (off the top of my head: Startup School, Startup2Startup (invite
only? also mostly people who already are in a startup), GitHub meetups,
[insert technology here] meetup)

Or maybe hang out at some of the cafes frequented by hackers, if you're the
kind of person who can strike up a conversation with random strangers (Coupa
in Palo Alto, Red Rock in Mountain View, Epicenter in SOMA)

Oh and for the love of god avoid the "I have an idea, all I need is a coder"
mentality. The kind of technical co-founder you want will hate that and run
away, fast. Related: expect an equal (or close to equal) equity split with a
technical co-founder in a technical company.

If your co-founder needs a small salary, then maybe make a small "investment"
in your own company and adjust the equity split that way? I don't know how
young startups handle that sort of thing.

~~~
mahmud
_Oh and for the love of god avoid the "I have an idea, all I need is a coder"
mentality._

Now that I am privy to his idea, I can tell you that he is not one of those
people. He just needs some business debugging and tough love to get a few
things sorted out; but for actual execution, when he has the idea fully
crystallized in his head, he will need about 2-3 months of developer
involvement.

He is one of those people who are interested in a domain that developer types
rarely pay attention to.

~~~
ReginaldJeeves
This extract from a recent blog post[1] by the OP suggests he may have a
slight touch of the said mentality:

 _There’s another interesting paradox regarding the people who make many of
these social websites, and the people who use them. The people who make them
are the programmers. These are the quirky geniuses who took an interest in
computer science, math, and other inherently geeky fields from an early age.
Their peers looked down on them for this, and as a result they tended to have
uneventful social lives. But in their 20′s, they realized there was a killing
to be made in online social networks, and so they went to work, armed with the
technological know-how to make whatever application their more social peers
desired. So what we have is the people with the ability to create, but no
understanding of the market, and the people with the understanding of the
market, but no ability to create.

While certainly a generalization, the point remains that those who developed
an understanding of technological evolution (the computer) tend to have a poor
perspective on those whose understanding is limited to biological evolution
(humans), and vice versa._

[1] [http://zachjiganti.com/2010/08/01/why-groupon-is-
successful-...](http://zachjiganti.com/2010/08/01/why-groupon-is-successful-
how-to-approach-conceiving-web-ideas/)

------
dannyr
Go to Hackathons like Startup Weekend, Google Campout, iOsDevCamp, etc.

You'll find some developers there to collaborate with.

One of the YC startups in Winter 2010 met through Startup Weekend. We were all
in one team and continued hanging out even after the event. Later on, the
business guy had an idea for a startup. One developer from the same team
decided to join him as cofounder. I ended up working with them for the
prototype and also during the YC session.

------
canterburry
If you are in SF looking for technical folks, I would recommend you attend a
Hackers and Founders event ASAP. It's a frequent meetup focusing exactly on
founders looking for hackers and hackers looking for a project/job. Here is a
link

[http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-
Founders/calendar/13712634...](http://www.meetup.com/Hackers-and-
Founders/calendar/13712634/)

------
astrofinch
I don't have any experience with it, but rentacoder.com might be worth a try.

If you're trying to hire a good programmer and you don't know anything about
programming here are a few hacks you can use:

1\. <http://codility.com/> (these guys hurt my feelings)

2\. Go to <http://therighttool.hammerprinciple.com/browse> and look at
rankings like "I usually use this language on solo projects". Hire programmers
who list experience with those languages on their resume.

That's all I've got for now. Oh yeah, you could google for interview
questions, I guess. Or look on the "hiring" sections of web 2.0 companies and
rip off their interview questions.

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fauigerzigerk
I think it depends on what the main difficulty is in making the idea work as a
business. Some ideas are technologically difficult to solve but don't need
viral network effects to be useful.

Some ideas are very simple to implement but are dead in the water without a
great communicator who goes out and spreads the word, sells it, creates a buzz
around it.

If your app is in the second category then you should learn to code and bring
more people in later on. If your idea is in the first category then I think
you are in a difficult situation, because if you find a good technical co-
founder, he (or she) will be more important to the business than you and you
don't even have the skill to judge whether he's good or not.

------
thentic
Buy balsamiq. Create a prototype. Get it in front of prospects.

~~~
mahmud
The "lean startup" way to go might be to use MockingBird for free :-P

~~~
kranner
Their free plan is limited to 1 project and 10 pages after Sep 1.

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hsuresh
You could outsource development of a "0.5" version of the application, and use
it to start hiring and selling. There are a lot of part-timers who can easily
build that initial version for some money. Potential co-founders would have a
much better idea on what they are getting into when they see your app, and
building it this way will also help you refine your thoughts on what you are
getting into.

------
mrbird
Have you already contacted everyone you know? Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. You
never know who might know somebody else. I've seen a lot of good connections
happen this way. Even if you aren't connected to that many people in the Bay
area, once you go out a couple degrees on your network, you might be.

The best part is the connection can come with a recommendation as well.

~~~
jiganti
This is a great idea- I have connections in the business world, a number of
people with money who will certainly be interested in helping me out if I get
something started, but I haven't been utilizing the fact that they can refer
people THEY know to me.

As for networking here, it's something I'll certainly start to do.

------
ct
First thing you should start with is find potential customers and have them
sign letter of intents, which while non-binding is better than nothing. If you
can't accomplish that "business" side of things forget about trying to find a
developer. Sorry to be harsh, but that's the real way to see if you have an
_actual_ "good idea".

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anamax
> (I would deal with the business side of things)

Remember that technical people are interviewing you too.

You need to demonstrate that you can do said biz things.

For example, you may not be able to build a demo, but you better be able to
explain the idea and its utility and experience to both technical and non-
technical folk.

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jarin
If you can pay a modest salary and the idea is good, you probably won't have
that hard of a time finding a good programmer. If you can't find a good
programmer within a few months, it might mean the idea isn't as good as you
think.

~~~
jiganti
This makes sense- I have a lot of confidence in my ideas but if people aren't
responding it's likely not going to work.

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nl
I'm not trying to be rude, but replying to questions and comments on this
thread might be a good idea.

Right now, there are 25 comments, and only one is a reply by jiganti.

~~~
jiganti
Sorry, I'm still learning proper HN etiquette. I have erred on the side of
silence in terms of comments, I try to avoid cluttering up the forum. I really
appreciate all the advice and I'll try to clarify things when appropriate.

------
uleesgold
I don't know have fun I guess

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hibiscus4
Speak to the good folks at Pivotal Labs. Seriously.

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endlessvoid94
Build.

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mkramlich
Ideas are worth pennies. It's time, energy and execution that are worth
something. I have notebooks and notebooks full of ideas. But while it takes a
minute to have an "AHA!" idea or perhaps hours to refine it, it can take weeks
to years to bring it into existence in a successful form.

~~~
jiganti
Since beginning to learn about the startup community I have heard this mantra
pushed over and over, and I continue to disagree. There are many ideas that
require good execution for their success, but being first in a new space is
extremely valuable. I've heard and agree with ideas being a multiplier of
execution.

~~~
nostrademons
Actually, I think that being first in a new space is a bad place to be in.
Being the first _good_ entrant in a space is worth something, but almost all
ideas are shitty when they're first dreamed up, and coming later gives you the
ability to look at other people's failures - in some cases, _lots_ of other
people's failures - and see how you can make them better.

Google was not the first search engine. Microsoft was not the first
microcomputer OS. Facebook was not the first social networking site. Netscape
was not the first web browser. Flickr was not the first photo-sharing site.
OKCupid was not the first online dating site. The Apple II was not the first
microcomputer, the iPod was not the first MP3 player, and the iPhone was not
the first smartphone.

~~~
mkramlich
Agreed. It may be a little better to be the Nth entrant, but still be fairly
early, but just be way way way better (or have the luck of your market is
perfectly timed for when a large gob of new consumers are ready and demanding
your thing) than the first N-1 contenders.

------
stretchwithme
come up with a price and ask a bunch of people if they'll pay it

