
How to Earn a Technical Co-Founder - choult
http://humbledmba.com/please-please-please-stop-asking-how-to-find
======
chowes
> _Go spend some money on offshore coders and get a prototype built._

But please, PLEASE know that that is a prototype and that your technical
cofounder will likely want to throw it out the door on day 1.

Nothing is a worse conversation than "okay, so I have the v0 built offshore,
but it just needs X, Y, and Z". Great start, but let me pick the stack,
framework, etc. so I can do my job quickly. I'm here to make decisions WITH
you, not be your code monkey.

~~~
ones_and_zeros
If you are a cofounder and your #1 priority is to rewrite the application then
you are their code monkey.

If the offshore team works just stick with it so you can focus on technology
strategy.

~~~
eric_h
> If the offshore team works just stick with it

That is a big "if". A good technical cofounder will identify the latent
technical debt that exists in an outsourced prototype and if that number is
too high, a rewrite can be justified.

~~~
jeffasinger
I worked at a company where the founder had started with some local
contractors to build an initial version of the product.

He hired a CTO, who took a look at the current code, list of bugs, and new
features desired, and made the call to do a complete rewrite.

In retrospect, this was absolutely the right call. It can definitely be
wasteful, but sometimes starting with a completely new design is the right
thing to do.

------
beat
As a flip side to this, I wish programmers who want to be founders would
_stop_ trying to come up with ideas on their own, and instead start looking
for non-technical co-founders who have practical experience with a specific
type of customer and a specific problem to solve for those customers. There
are so, so many people out there who deeply understand a valuable real-world
problem, but lack the skill to bring it to life.

The worst part of going to any sort of pitch events is hearing just how bad so
many of the startup ideas are.

~~~
nomnombunty
I totally agree with you. I would love to meet some non-technical people who
have practical experience. However, most of my friends are technical and I
don't even know where to start looking.

~~~
melvinmt
Go to any Hackers/Founders meetup, and you'll be _swamped_ with non-technical
people trying to meet you.

~~~
Negative1
This can end up being quite awkward. You end up being the 'belle of the ball'
and end up having to weed through a _lot_ of, well, not so great ideas.
Remember when everyone had their own idea about the 'uber of x'? That.

I can't speak from experience (or I'd have my own startup) but I think the
best non-technical cofounder is found while working a technical job with
someone of like mind. Or at Uni it seems.

~~~
beat
A disciplined sort of triage can work for this. First, do they have real
business experience? Ideally, have they started successful businesses before?
A lot of the learning curve of startups is the learning curve of just being an
entrepreneur.

Also, does their idea make intuitive sense to you, especially in terms of _how
can this be monetized_? Vague, handwavy social apps that don't charge directly
are a common problem. Apps for customers _who don 't have money_ is another
popular antipattern. Apps that seem trivial are generally bad. Apps that
respond Boolean true to "Can I already do this with Yelp?" are toxic.

But you find someone who has a couple of businesses already under their belt,
who has some specific customers in mind who have a specific problem that
person already understands... then you're getting somewhere. And it may be an
entirely unsexy problem. One of my favorite startups locally is a company that
has built a system for detecting excessive water use/leakage in toilets -
something that can be repaired at cost savings if you have a large building
(say, apartment complexes). Totally unsexy. Great market.

------
dudul
Nothing I hate more than the "I'm an idea guy" meme. I spend a few weeks
trying to meet with potential co-founders who were looking for a tech co-
founders. They _all_ gave me this "I'm the idea guy" shit. And the idea was
just "Let's do X for Y".

They didn't put any thoughts into how to monetize, what is the short term
goal, which customers they would target first, how to gain traction, how to
validate the idea, what was the advantage over the competition, etc etc

And when I started pointing out all these things to think about they got
either panicked or angry, "why are you not excited?" "Why are you trying to
destroy the idea?"

For me, it's actually really hard to do the opposite and find a true non-
technical co-founder. Someone who would actually produce something, bring
something to the table other than their "idea" of "Uber for puppies" or "An
awesome merge of Facebook and AirBnB".

~~~
intellegacy
Yea as an Idea guy who knows how to code but isn't the best at it, let me
apologize for taking things too sensitively. Those are def. questions every
idea guy should have already thought of. And you bringing them up should not
be taken as an attack. I think those are really constructive questions that
would help a business succeed.

PS if you want to discuss startup ideas let me know

~~~
dudul
The thing is these people are _not_ idea guys. Throwing a tagline is not an
idea, an idea should include the whole plan, or at least a first version to be
refined, augmented and improved.

Unfortunately, it seems like calling yourself "an idea guy" is a sign that you
actually have no clue. I can't imagine a real idea guy calling himself like
that :)

If you know how to code you're already so far ahead :) I remember talking to a
guy who told me "and then we'll add the API", I asked "why an API? What is it
gonna do?", his answer: "Everybody has an API, we need it if we're serious",
he had no clue what an API even was.

In a way, it makes me sad. Most of these people I "interviewed" (for lack of
better words) were working full time on their project (or so they claimed) but
still had no clue what they were really trying to accomplish.

~~~
intellegacy
The reason I argue against the "idea guys have no worth" is the exact reason
you mentioned: real idea guys have a vision, which includes an implementation
strategy, understanding of what the tech is gonna do to solve the problem, how
to market and sell the product, who to target, a realistic plan to build and
scale, a good name for the product, an idea of what the logo and slogans
should be ,etc.

An idea is way more than just one line (uber for X). My idea of an idea is
insights into the market, designs for the MVP, and marketing strategy all in
one.

------
rcarrigan87
I used to think "Learn to Code" was the best advice out there to find a
technical co-founder. That's what I did and it worked great.

But honestly, if I went back I wouldn't have learned to code. I would have
learned enough to put up a basic lead capture page using unbounce or leadpages
or some other landing page out-the-box product and started marketing.

Most good businesses can get some traction without any code. And people are
always willing to talk if you have a product that already has some traction -
even if it's very minimal.

The key is to figure out some super scaled down version of your product and
use it to get some initial traction.

~~~
michaelfeathers
You don't "Learn to Code" so you can do it yourself. You do it to understand
your business. Code will affect what your business can do, and when, more than
you realize.

~~~
rcarrigan87
For sure, I still think there are definite benefits from learning to code.
Especially, if your company is heavily tech focused. But, in the context of
finding a tech co-founder, I think there are more optimal things you can do
with limited time and resources.

------
sanderjd
I don't see how there could be anything wrong with asking around. Sure, it's
all on you to solve the problem, and nobody can figure it out for you, but
asking other people for advice is one of about two or three ways to work
toward a solution to a problem you don't yet know how to solve, and it would
be foolish not to do it.

Speaking as a technical person, what I'm interested in is your or your team's
ability to excel at the things I am not good at doing, or don't enjoy doing.
Mainly what I would care to see is the ability to do market and business model
validation, marketing (in its many forms), sales, and fundraising. That stuff
can be demonstrated with the sort of legwork discussed in this article, or
(preferably) with past success in those areas.

I don't care if you know how to code, and I might even worry that you'll have
learned enough to be in a Dunning-Kruger zone where I'll have to worry about
you meddling.

Just my two cents!

------
wheaties
I don't understand why developers put themselves on such a pedestal here. I
have very few real world problems which require deep non-technical knowledge.
That deep non-technical knowledge is worth something far more than, perhaps,
the ability to scale out an app to 300k users. I'd say it's right on par with
the ability to quickly iterate a solution for product match. Knowing the
domain reduces market fit risks faster than figuring out the domain while
searching for fit.

What I think the real underlying issue is all the "I need a technical founder
who is willing to build my idea but only share in 1% of the upside" people.
They're equivalent to the spam mail recruiters which plague our industry.

~~~
x0x0
You forgot eg the person I just met, the "willing to pay $75k/year [proposed
pay cut] to build my idea but only share in a tiny percent of the upside".

------
codingdave
The author recommends 99designs to get your site designed... but in looking at
it, it looks like a site that lets you run a design contest for your site,
with only one designer actually getting paid for their work at the end. While
I can see some benefit to the occasional contest, for special sites where just
having their work exposed helps the designers... I do not think this sounds
ethical as a standard practice for initial startup site designs.

~~~
smt88
> _I do not think this sounds ethical as a standard practice for initial
> startup site designs_

Why is it unethical? No one is forcing designers to go onto 99designs. They
only do it if they think it's worth it.

------
nomnombunty
I feel like I have the opposite problem. Most of the people I know are
technical. What is the best way in SF to meet non-technical business minded
people?

~~~
realdlee
Friends of friends, meetups, apps like Weave or FounderDating...

~~~
dudul
Thanks for the suggestions, but damn, I just headed to FounderDating to try it
out. The linkedin permissions they demand for sign up are ridiculous. Access
to 1st and 2nd degree connections, read/write on your timeline, etc. And of
course, it's the only way to join.

------
ThomPete
The best way IMHO is have a good/interesting problem for them to solve.
Something they could potentially care about from a developer/tech perspective.

I "earned" my technical co-founder exactly by finding a smaller problem to
solve from the really big one I had in mind.

Paid him to do it and made him realize that this was an interesting problem to
solve while still a good business to be in.

The smaller problem he helped me solve has turned out to a pretty good
business so I can't wait for what the bigger problem will do for it.

Now we are building some really great stuff.

------
nsxwolf
Are there a lot of non-technical founders that do this? It would seem to me
there'd be no shortage of engineers who would raise their hand and say "me,
me! I'll do it!" Is that not the case? Or are these non-technical founders
filtering those people out?

If I were still young, single, and childless, I'd happily give that a shot if
someone approached me with a halfway interesting idea.

~~~
jonwachob91
I'm slightly curious as to your geographic location, as I suspect this is
hugely influential in attitude.

Here is Orlando the mantra seems to be "I need to pay my bills, do that and
I'll help you".

~~~
nsxwolf
Chicago. It would be easier to live on peanuts here than in SV for sure.

------
gmarx
I'm in the opposite situation, technical have solved problem looking for
business/sales oriented cofounder. Guess what, that's extremely difficult too.

~~~
daveguy
Do you have a product associated with the technical solution? If so, then you
are much farther toward attracting a business/sales co-founder. If not, then
you need one. Just like business co-founders need something presentable to
show the technical co-founder the technical co-founder needs the same to show
the business side. If you say "oh I have solved problem X, but I can't show
you the solution", then it is not much closer to attracting a partner than "I
have a great idea for X, but I have no idea how to implement it."

tl;dr - the advice is the same regardless of whether you are on the business
or technical side : you need a presentable proof of concept.

~~~
gmarx
Yep have product which was successfully used by a (arguably) customer at a
high profile institution years ago . I think most people think they are very
good, most people aren't, and most of the tiny minority of people who actually
are good at starting business have their own things to work on.

~~~
daveguy
> most of the tiny minority of people who actually are good at starting
> business have their own things to work on.

This is definitely insightful. Finding a person that is both good and
available looking for a new project is a double rarity. All the more reason it
is a sales pitch regardless of what side you fall on (tech or business). Good
luck to you!

------
DeonPenny
How about getting a BD founder that doesn't just want to shove a new idea down
your throat.

------
dsego
Posted almost 5 years go, please add 2011 to the title.

Original HN discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714304](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2714304)

------
mpswardle
This is such a one sided article. I'm sure that technical co-founders make the
exact same mistakes when looking for a co-founder, and the solution would not
be "learn to be a business guy, and appreciate the business guy more"

Co-founders are a team and should have complimentary skills. There are far
more roles in building a startup that just "idea guy" and "tech guy", so if
you are a non tech founder certain that you need a tech founder i would
strongly suggest learning other skills that as a team you think you might not
possess.

Also asking someone if they know anyhow is not a bad solution to a problem.
Maybe it doesn't always work and you have to explore other avenues, but it
rarely hurts to ask people as a first move.

~~~
calcsam
I disagree. If you're a technical co-founder, go sell customers on your vision
and get them to buy.

Then you have a lot more leverage when going to "business guys" and saying:
"Hey, look, I've sold 30k of ARR in the last few months, but I don't see
myself as amazing on the business side and I'm curious how you think you'd be
able to accelerate this growth."

------
hyuuu
I have to say as technical person, it goes the other way around as well. We,
the technical people, _earn_ a good business side co founder, as it can make
or break the business.

------
mkoble11
completely agree on learning to code. i have this conversation all the time
with non technical entrepreneurs. it's about controlling your destiny. you
have more of that when you can at least build an MVP. these days, its easier
than ever - you just have to be naturally curious.

~~~
sanderjd
If your goal is to be able to build something without needing a technical
cofounder, then definitely, being able to do both sides of the business is
invaluable. But if your goal is to focus on the business side and find someone
you can trust to lead technology, then I think you're better off spending that
learning-to-code time sharpening your business tools.

~~~
VLM
Make sure your partner knows it up front.

This will sound like a goofy analogy but my wife and I have been together for
twenty years and its more important that we agree on the theory of boundaries
than on the actual boundaries themselves. Although when we cooperate by having
at least a minimal understanding of each other, things do go much better than
working separately. Thinking back on observations of divorced people, the
signals started very early with arguments about the very concept of boys night
out or the only correct way (LOL) to organize household finances. May have
been a divorce immediately after someone slept with someone else, or whatever,
but the problem didn't initiate when the third party magically appeared in bed
one night.

Anyway the analogy is obviously two founders will go further the more they can
productively cooperate, but disaster is absolutely certain if they can't even
agree on what level to cooperate at. And inflexibility there is going to limit
the possible matching talent pool.

------
nedwin
"You get the cofounder that you deserve". Time to get to work.

