

Ask HN: How do technical cofounders find teams to join? - cedricd

Tech cofounders are hard to find... but what about the reverse? It seems they have luxury of choice, but how are technical people finding teams to consider joining? How do they weed out the innumerable 'I have an awesome idea and I just need someone to build it' people?<p>Anyone have a good strategy? I know a few folks looking around.
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ypg
In my experience, the best way would be to get a list of startups that have /
are planning to participate in one of the top startup incubators. This would
include (and probably be limited to) Y Combinator, TechStars, and DreamIt
ventures (unless you're looking at a specific startup niche). The application
process will filter out people who aren't serious. The downside is that they
might not be willing to give up as much equity if there already is a decently
large team.

Grad programs at the top CS / Engineering schools (Stanford, CMU, MIT,
Berkeley, U of Illinois) are also filled with people who are looking to start
companies, and most have mailing lists / message boards for opportiunities.

There is a real talent in business, but it seems to be more of a personality
disposition as opposed to a tangible skillset. At least for undergraduate
programs, business tends to be less rigorous than their technical equivalents.
Most of the "build my crappy idea" people are purely non-technical, because
they have less insight into what is feasible, and because by their nature they
are completely reliant on others to build it. My disposition is to go for
somebody who is technical, is socially "with it", and has the drive to hustle
and learn whatever else they need to know.

By the way, I graduated CS from CMU undergrad a couple of years ago, and I'm
working on a startup of my own. The startup is called Pensieve, and it is a
publishing platform for interactive courses. I've been flying solo for a
couple of months, and now I'm looking for some late-cofounders and build a
real team. If you're interested, send me a message at yush [at] pensieve
[NOSPAM] [dot] net.

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charleshaanel
Find someone who has an audience already.

Audience that trusts founder = lifetime customers.

