

Ask HN: How should business guys go about finding great hackers for a startup? - filofa

I am a business guy. I have worked at large companies and managed big businesses. I have started tech and non-tech companies as a founder and an early employee. I have raised money. I have written specs. I have sold stuff to big companies and consumers.I have cut deals with big companies and big brands. Some of these deals have panned out. Some have not. Some of these ventures have been successful. Some have been cluster f*cks.<p>I am ready to do another tech business. I want to find a tech partner who is hungry, smart, interested in contributing to all aspects of the business and humble. Ideally I would like to find someone in the Seattle area. How should I do this?
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mahmud
You just took the first step. The second step is to figure out what you want
to do. If you don't have ideas of your own, ask them to come forward with
their own. Use hackers to find other hackers; too many times I found a guy or
a gal with a good business brain between their ears, but things fell apart
because they're surrounded with too many of their college buddies and frat-
brothers who all want a cut in the deal.

Take care of your people. It is easy for a hacker to put in 18 hour days if he
knows you're out there taking care of his bills. The simple act of paying a
guy on time can make a world of difference. Even if he is working for equity,
don't hesitate to find a grand or two from somewhere, anywhere, and cut him a
check on the 26th of the month. Many hackers would be more than happy to work
on the startup AND take on side-gigs, it's up to you to go out there and find
the gigs, if you can't raise the money yourself.

Try to think very small. Most of us are not out there to grab your money and
go. It's much easier for me to bring along two laptops and "settle" in a
corner, somewhere in your basement. I will run a few cables around, replace
your DSL router with something beefier, and I can stay there until very late
at night and come back as soon as I open my eyes. YOU, on the other hand, need
to be aware of my expenses; I spend gas driving to you. I go away to eat out
twice while I'm at your home or office. If I'm meeting you and your investor
buddies in pubs and cafes, I'm probably spending more money than I usually do.
Feel free to reimburse me at the first opportunity.

Think of yourself as the manager of a band. The musicians make the music,
sure, but they're completely dysfunctional without you. They can keep your
commission and do the business side of things themselves, but multitasking is
VERY expensive and taxing mentally. You can safely keep a band of musicians in
your basement for weeks, even months, and they will do great work, as long as
you're catering to their peripheral needs and staying out of their way. What
you can't do is treat them as employees who you must micromanage and watch
them do "tangible", measurable work.

[Edit: Sometimes people asked me to work with them on a startup, but they
already had a draconian work process. Some guy had a quota of the number of
e-mails I must send him a day. Where I should store source code, graphic
assets and other stuff, and in the end told me I must install a VNC client so
he can connect to my desktop. Had to dump him. If he told me I could use his
home server to store things, I would have setup the version control and an ftp
server myself.

Try to be nurturing and kind and you will juice the most productivity and
loyalty out of anyone. Be honest and open. You don't need to give me the
minutia of our financial status, if you think you can meet a budget gap by
getting another client, go ahead and get that client and let me focus on the
work. Don't introduce unnecessary uncertainty in our stability. OTOH, if you
think we're tanking, it would be nice of you to give me a heads up.]

~~~
octane
You make software engineers sound like children. We're adults. You embarrass
me.

~~~
mahmud
We're all adults, but many of us start in the industry as professionally
child-like. I started hacking out of high school.

By the time we mature, we probably wont fall for an enthusiastic "business
guy"; we know both computing and business better than anyone. I wasn't out to
embarrass you, all I wanted was to help your younger self, or others its age.

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vaksel
Finding a techie cofounder off the street at the idea stage is next to
impossible. Because if someone really has the entrepreneurial spirit they are
already doing their own startup.

You gotta hire. Then at the end of the project, if the guy works out, you can
offer him cofounder role. As a "business guy" get ready to pretty much cover
all the bills while the other guy codes, no matter if he is a hire or a
cofounder. Better to hire and see how the guy works out before you start
giving away equity.

~~~
yrashk
"cofounder" and "first employee" are very different roles. Cofounder takes
risks, participates in the whole company development, etc.

What you're talking about is a first employee that is also paid with equity.

And, by the way, there is a way to offer an equity right from the beginning —
stock options that vest over time.

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sokoloff
Great hackers for the most part are not what you'd describe as humble. They're
not arrogant pricks (necessarily), but they're appropriately proud of their
skills. If you do find one that you'd describe as humble, it's vastly more
likely that they're shy or just not that interested in bothering to open up to
you.

If you set that aside and just want great hackers, as an outsider, the best
you're going to be able to do is to talk to the people you know, who know
great coders who might be tied to their positions at Amazon or Microsoft, but
those guys invariably know others who aren't yet handcuffed to the stock
packages, are underwater on their options and don't yet have families and huge
mortgages, etc.

At the end of the day, it's about networking. You won't be able to personally
judge precisely the technical abilities of a potential new hire; get tech
experts to help you do that.

(Side note: I've also done most of what you described, with the exception of
starting a non-tech company. It's not all that uncommon or special, so at the
same time you're downplaying your search for a humble tech partner, you might
want to work on your own a bit so as to not come across as arrogant MBA prick
to your potential tech partner. Coming across that way won't turn off the
truly hungry, but it will turn off the truly great.)

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tlrobinson
Whatever you do, don't say (or give the impression that) you have an amazing
idea and "all" you need is a developer.

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netsp
Are you asking where to find them or how to recognise them?

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chris11
Great question. I'm sure you will get some good answers. There will also be a
lot of good stuff that is not on the front page.

Searchyc:<http://searchyc.com/find+hackers>

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matthewer
I am getting tired of seeing this question every week. There needs to be some
sort of Hacker News FAQ.

~~~
javert
How about somebody build it and register the domain name hnfaq.com. We can
just post the link to it every time someone asks a common question. The
hnfaq.com site would list the commonly asked questions, and give links to
threads addressing the topic.

(I assume PG is not interested in this, otherwise it would exist already.)

~~~
alex_c
<http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive>

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grandalf
Are you funded? If you are, ask your angel/VC to get some recommendations for
top people who can deliver in a startup environment.

What are you paying? Some people will work for options, others won't. Some
people will work a 9 to 6 job but will refuse to do the high pressure always
on call thing.

How much control do you (or anyone else in your company) wish to have about
the technology choices -- what programming language, servers, SCM, etc. Some
developers are quite opinionated on this stuff and so you have to be ready to
sacrifice some control and to trust the developer's judgement.

I'd be wary of someone who obviously spends a ton of time primping his/her
reputation in the community. Such people tend to be huge egos who are more
excited about fame than they are about engineering. Better to get someone who
truly loves technology. Lots of developers have a side project that they would
love to work on full time -- check out github and if you find such a project
that looks like your company could leverage it, send a message to the people
working on it to discuss the project and your business....

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DenisM
Check out the Seattle scene for a large group of people in this area:
<http://www.seattletechstartups.com/>

Also, I suggest job ads in places like seattle20.com and Joel's job board.

Do you already have an idea what you are going to do? It would help to get the
general technical area on the table - hackers have their pet areas of
interest.

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oakmac
You could start by providing your email address so people can contact you.

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noss
Make available what problems one would work with as "your" hacker. If your
problems require hackers, then hackers will apply (and the other way around).

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joe_the_user
It seems to me that someone with your resume would know how to proceed better
than anyone else I could imagine.

I just realized that being a hacker hasn't necessarily made me an expert on
hacker psychology since I haven't had to, uh, hire any.

So ... well there's a point somewhere

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sown
I'm curious as to what you have. How should I get a hold of you?

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mstef
start earning their respect, become one of them.

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rnugent
First of all forget the "humble" requirment. Anyone that is senior and has
crew knows what his value is and is not going to be impressed with a suit.

Second, if you have a M$FT based idea then you're in the right place. If not
you need to look at California. That's where the rest of the talent is.

Lastly, avoid the offshore crowd. They will pick your pocket as sure as if you
where there in person. There is no such thing as a $10/hour software engineer

~~~
jaaron
Agree on dropping the 'humble' part. Obviously you don't want to work with an
egotistical jerk, but you definitely want someone who knows his/her worth and
isn't a pushover.

Your tech partner should be a partner, that requires mutual respect.

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octane
> I am a business guy. I have worked at large companies and managed big
> businesses. I have started tech and non-tech companies as a founder and an
> early employee. I have raised money. I have written specs. I have sold stuff
> to big companies and consumers.I have cut deals with big companies and big
> brands. Some of these deals have panned out. Some have not. Some of these
> ventures have been successful. Some have been cluster fucks.

A good co-founding engineer will have done all this and more. You need to give
him 35% or more and have a stellar track record to boot.

If that's not the equity ballpark you're playing in, and you can't bring more
to the table than "well I've started a couple of businesses and I can do
sales", you're looking for the wrong type of person. What you want is a
freelance developer that takes $10k and makes a prototype for you. That way
you can keep 100% of your equity.

You might think you got lucky if you find some young kid in his early 20s to
do most of the work for very little equity and almost no cash, but think about
what happens to your business when he decides you're an asshole 6 months later
and quits. Just use your imagination to think about how ugly that can get.
Especially since he's the one running your entire tech infrastructure.

