
Why is it so hard finding a technical co-founder? - jkaykin
Yes I understand the whole "why would someone who is technical making $120,000 a year want to join your startup as a CTO for small pay and equity" argument but aren't startups all about taking risks?<p>I just want to find a great technical co-founder in the bay area but it's harder than I thought.
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ryanlchan
Let's clarify the implicit assumption you put in there: Why is it so hard
finding a _good_ technical co-founder? It's the same reason it's hard finding
a good non-technical co-founder.

With a technical co-founder you're looking for proof of skill - they've done
an app on no budget, limited time, and little sleep. Twice. They scaled it
singlehandedly to 20m users. They not only know Node, they're on the core
team.

What a technical co-founder is looking for is the _exact same proof of skill_.
Can you sell ice cubes to Eskimos at 50% mark up? Can you get investment just
by walking down Market? Do you have customers begging you to give them the
privilege of sending you their money?

I wrote a blog post about this a few days ago [1]. The tl;dr: If you want a
co-founder, earn one.

[1]: [http://ryanlchan.com/post/32483578213/non-technical-
founders...](http://ryanlchan.com/post/32483578213/non-technical-founders-
learn-to-code-but-dont-code)

~~~
samstave
> _they've done an app on no budget, limited time, and little sleep. Twice.
> They scaled it singlehandedly to 20m users._

This is not true. You do not need to have such credentials for a technical co-
founder.

I think your entire response is full of regurgitated garbage designed to serve
the valleys current paradigm: devs are worth money - ideas are free.

This has been argued ad nausea here - but the fact is that ideas are NOT worth
nothing. VCs are in a position to PAY developers til the cows come home -
finding an idea in a market that is sizable, people are passionate about their
support and willing to pay for, and can scale etc etc etc is HARD.

This is where YC has found the sweet spot - they have a model to vet the dev
skill + idea-ability of the team.

Your claim that you need to have a hacker + hustler that can singlehandledly
scale to 20M users and raise funding whilst walking down market street is
retarded.

I agree with your TL;DR - but not on the same level you claim it.

The real problem is that finding a technical co-founder is hard because
typically the skills to be the technical side are SOLELY what support the
technical person, whereas the skills that are required to be the idea/business
guy are NOT the SOLE means of supporting the idea guy - so it is intrinsically
easier to be in the idea position, FINANCIALLY - but it is NOT easy/free to
come up with the next $X billion dollar idea.

so - I would rebut that it is important to focus on how quickly your idea can
be a revenue positive business. If you have an idea - make sure you can
convince a tech co-founder that your amazing idea can sustain the OP-EX as
early as possible then you will have a better chance of attracting a tech co-
founder.

\---

Anecdote: ahve a guy that I am working with who is really smart and is an idea
guy with degrees in foreign language and international business. He worked
with Mayor Newsom, the De Rothschilds and others...

His ideas typically revolve around disrupting institutions, non-profits and
social behavior.

These are all great ideas that he is proposing but NONE of them have any clear
way to 1) make money quickly 2) have any easy/cheap adoption path 3) not
require significant upfront capital to even get to a pilot...

It is critical that you have an idea that is rock-solid in its ability to
actually be "something people want to use" (and pay money for).

If you cant A) pay your tech co-founder then you damn well better be able to
B) come up with an idea that is so enticing that people will pay for it out of
the gate.

~~~
ryanlchan
I never said that these credentials are required (in fact I don't think they
are), but that the OP _implicitly_ believes them to be true. If you complain
about the "lack of good technical cofounders" when there are _14,000 CS
graduates_ every year and a flood of 'Ask HN: Smart developer needs job' posts
springing up, you must either not be looking very hard or have ridiculously
high expectations. The post is meant to highlight the _ridiculousness_ of what
many people expect of a "good" technical cofounder.

> _I think your entire response is full of regurgitated garbage designed to
> serve the valleys current paradigm: devs are worth money - ideas are free._

Well that'd be quite ironic, as I'm on the non-technical side myself. In fact
my argument is that neither of these are true. If you want to go start a start
up, _just go goddamn start it_. Don't wait for your magic non-technical
cofound to come around and solve all your problems.

~~~
jkaykin
Yeah you are right, I am probably not looking hard enough. I am not looking
for someone who has done the aforementioned rather someone who can build good
products. Nevertheless, I will go goddamn start it without a technical
cofounder. Thank you.

~~~
ryanlchan
Excellent! Two quick clarifications on what I mean by "just go goddamn start
it".

1\. For a majority of contemporary companies, the primary risk is not
technical, but market driven. In other words, your biggest problem isn't
figuring out how to build the solution; it's figuring out what the solution
should be in the first place. _A ton_ of progress can be made on this front
without a single line of code. 2\. A startup is beset with an unceasing
torrent of problems. You need a programmer for your MVP, true; but what
happens when you need to start marketing? Do you go out and try to recruit an
all star marketer? But wait we need sales as well - how many people do you
want to go out and find? I don't mean to say that you need to be able to do
everything, but _figuring it out_ is a _crucial_ skill to have as a founder,
and this is one of the times you'll be practicing it.

Good luck!

------
px1999
I'll bite and try to give some hopefully useful thoughts...

You're not just asking someone to give up 120k and join your company, you're
asking someone who's probably quite creative (assuming you're trying to hire
the right guys) to get completely on-board with your vision/idea. That means:

* Give up $120k / yr (this is really unimportant in the grand scheme of things IMO)

* Give up their financial security (this is more important)

* Taking the big, long list of ideas that they'd want to implement and put yours at the top

* (Likely) give up far more time than they had to before

* Stepping away from what is hopefully a group of other smart people that they enjoy solving software problems with

You have to be careful that your pitches don't seem like "Well, I have this
really great idea, you sit around and pour 5000 hours of your life over the
next 18 months into implementing it exactly as I have envisaged, and I'll
handle all of the business stuff! We'll totally split the profits down the
middle!"

I almost fall into the group of people who you'd be looking for (maybe, though
while I consult I haven't done a startup yet), and there are a few things that
I'd be looking for:

* Confidence that (even if you weren't involved in any way) the product will make money (or a difference, depending on the developer).

* Interesting problems to solve. Browsium for instance probably have a hell of a time trying to hire developers, and if they weren't all coming from Microsoft, I'd imagine it would have been impossible to get a CTO.

* Confidence that you're actually going to be adding significant value, or at least bankrolling the venture. A lot of devs see a lot of non-technical roles as "easier", usually because they've never seen someone that's really great at the non-technical role. It's probably easier to hook someone by starting them contracting for you to build a prototype or something, I dunno.

I don't know how you're trying to bring people in, but you're also not hiring
at this stage, you're pitching - trying to sell yourself (both ability as well
as desire to add value) as well as your idea to these people. Maybe it's also
SF, have you tried looking elsewhere for people?

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project23
Its not about "why would someone who is technical making $120,000 a year want
to join your startup as a CTO for small pay and equity", it's about why would
they want to work with YOU. You may think you're qualified, but most non-
technical founders (which I assume is what you are) are not.

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tptacek
It's not hard to find a technical cofounder. It's hard to find a pedigreed
cofounder.

Instead of trying to recruit someone who can walk in the door at an SFBA
company at 150k, instead start getting drinks with a few people like that and
leverage them to help gauge promising up-and-comers --- people just coming out
of school, or, better, people hoping to make a transition from ops
(administration, network engineering, &c) to development.

------
propercoil
if it's all about taking risks then why don't you take one and borrow 120k to
pay for a developer? oh, you don't want to do that now do you? well that is
exactly what the developer risks ~100k

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helen842000
I think you're looking for a co-founder before you need one. That's not the
step you need to solve right now.

Have you done anything towards your idea yet? When you start showcasing your
abilities (selling, designing, writing, networking, planning) that's when it's
far easier to get technical people on board, because then you sound
hardworking, creative, easy to work with & thoughtful (i.e you've done what
you can before you expect others to pitch in)

You need to get to a point where you have done EVERYTHING you can possibly do
to prepare for the building stage. That shows a co-founder they can hit the
ground running with their skills & won't have to think every tiny detail
through, you've shown commitment to your own project.

Go speak to potential customers, do surveys, ask if they'll part with their
money for your idea, Create a Twitter account & start to draw a following,
name your startup, buy the domain, set up a Wordpress blog, draw wireframes of
EVERY stage of your idea. Collect examples of designs, interactions and UI
that you love.

Having pre-orders turns heads like you wouldn't believe.

If that all sounds like too much work then having a co-founder is the least of
your worries.

------
jtchang
If you understand why someone making $120k /yr would quit and join a startup
then you get the idea.

If you want a technical cofounder then you have to view it as the first hurdle
in your business. If you can't even pass this hurdle what makes you feel like
you can succeed at anything else?

As a random aside...do you guys think finding a technical cofounder is harder
than any of the business problems you will likely encounter on the road to
success?

~~~
jkaykin
But the technical co-founder should understand that it's a startup, are people
really not that open to taking a cut now for the possibility of better returns
later?

I think that finding a technical cofounder can be as hard as any business
problem. The reason I say "can" is because many people are lucky and find
their technical cofounder in college and that makes it pretty easy.

~~~
epc
So, you have an idea, and all you need is a technical guy to make it happen.

The problem is, whatever your idea is, you're failing to sell it to the very
people you need to help make it succeed.

"the technical co-founder should understand that it's a startup" is a bogus
excuse. The co-founder you're looking for is smart enough to take your idea
and implement it, but you don't respect his or her ability to assess risk?

If you're selling an idea and no one's buying, you're either not making clear
how you expect the idea to succeed, or you're being very clear and your
potential co-founders don't think it's worth the risk.

~~~
fredsanford
Where were you 20+ years ago? :)

~~~
epc
Failing to monetize gopher+.

------
alid
Hey man, I'm in the same boat in the sense that I'm ready to make my first
hire. It is hard - yes - but hopefully that's because you've set your
standards high. I think it's about attitude. I'm determined to put an A-Team
together for an idea that is backed by a solid pitch and has industry
traction. If you're able to articulate your idea clearly and with passion -
make people excited - then you will, eventually, find people very willing to
jump on board or recommend friends.

I'm taking my time with it, as the right team is crucial to success. As a
random aside, I'm even going tech partner 'speed dating' next week! (I'm
actually ridiculously nervous...having been with my husband for 8 years, I
don't have a clue how to go on a speed 'date' lol)

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kstenerud
If the potential co-founders you're speaking to aren't showing interest, more
than likely the problem actually lies on your side. As the initial founder,
your job first and foremost is as a salesman. You need to sell your idea such
that other people are HUNGRY to join.

Money is not the primary motivator here; passion is. Until your potential co-
founder feels that passion inside himself to make your idea a reality, he
won't join you (or if he does, he'll be more likely to leave once the going
gets tough).

~~~
amorphid
It's not about selling, it's about having something worth buying. Does a
techie look at your situation and say "I want me some o' that?". If not, no
amount of high-pressure selling is going to make your company/idea
significantly more compelling to someone who isn't interested.

~~~
kstenerud
Who said anything about high-pressure selling? Don't confuse sales with
manipulation.

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antonwinter
Getting a technical co-founder can be easy. There are plenty of talented
techies that have already got a product ready to go or nearly ready that need
someone to go out there and pitch and sell it. look for them. Ask on HN if
anyone has a product that you can sell. I'm sure the response would be good,
as long as you can deliver.

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codegeek
Technical or non-technical, it is just hard to find a co-founder. Heck, it is
just hard to find any kind of _partner_.

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devb0x
Here's the thing, it is hard. Its hard to filter out the guys who can mention
buzz words but push comes to show they are lost and directionless. Technically
able in a past position in a different field in a related industry just may
not cut it. Plus, the guy has got to want to hustle too, right?

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dwwoelfel
_small ... equity_

I think the expectation of potential co-founders is that they will get a large
chunk of equity. Maybe you'll have more luck if you up the equity offer.

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allwein
The reason it's hard is because you're lumping together two really difficult
problems:

1)How do I find a good technical worker?

2)How do I find an entrpreneurial partner who's a good fit?

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whichdan
How many developers - ones that would fit your criteria and be willing to join
your startup - could afford to live off of savings for 1-3 years?

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charlesjshort
Why is it so hard to land a hot girlfriend?

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anigbrowl
Not having your contact email in your profile doesn't help.

~~~
jkaykin
Sorry about that, I added it now.

------
witoldc
The answer is because most non-technical co-founders don't bring much to the
table. Many don't have startup experience, management experience,
fundraising/angel/VC connections.

If you want to tech co-founders to work with you, you need to demonstrate
_something_.

