
Technical Co-Founders Are A Myth - amorphid
http://captainrecruiter.blogspot.com/2010/08/technical-co-founders-are-myth.html
======
arn
_"I began the hunt to find a technical co-founder - a software engineer who
works for no cash - to help me build MY dream website."_

Shouldn't that be "OUR dream website"?

 _"You're more likely to bump into a piece of talking bacon riding a unicorn
on their way to a leprechaun's pool party than finding a software engineer who
will work for FREE."_

Shouldn't that be "for 50% ownership"?

Sounds like he was looking for free labor, not a co-founder.

~~~
siglesias
Honestly, I used to have the same sentiments as the author (I'll birth the
idea, you code it), but the truth of the matter is that no technical person,
friend or acquaintance, will feel in their heart of hearts that even 50% is an
equitable split of work for the early stage of a tech startup, which is pretty
much entirely coding. On top of that many young coders today are actively
working on their own pet projects on the side and will feel even less
compelled to work on a project that they had little hand in developing as an
idea.

My solution? Why, learning to code myself, of course!

~~~
enjo
And they'd be right. The precious idea is practically worthless, the work to
make it happen is invaluable.

------
dillydally
In the first paragraph alone there are two huge, billowing red flags.

1\. The author thinks that a technical co-founder is "a software engineer who
works for no cash."

2\. The author went through four "technical co-founders" inside a year.

My guess is the author was looking for freelance-type work, paying out equity
"as if" it were cash (i.e., as a function of deliverables vs. a vesting
schedule), and in general was micromanaging the engineers he found.

A co-founder is a business partner, not "your" employee.

------
mixmax
" _software engineers don't work for free_ "

Well there _is_ this strange thing called open source software where I believe
people work for free.

Jokes aside, I can understand why this guy has trouble finding a technical
cofounder. It's all in his attitude. A partnership needs to be on an equal
footing with a large degree of mutual respect. Of course it's hard to tell
from just one blogpost, but it might be the problem.

~~~
maushu
_"Well there is this strange thing called open source software where I believe
people work for free."_

Most of the time those people don't work for free, they just decide to release
the code they've made with the goal of getting paid. Basically, open source
software is not the goal, just a (generous) side effect.

------
danhak
Sounds like all of the author's technical co-founders were getting sick of
being exploited by a partner with nothing to offer but an idea

~~~
jdvolz
I agree and I was pissed off at his tone: here's my rebuttal

[http://joshuavolz.com/2010/08/16/business-cofounders-are-
a-d...](http://joshuavolz.com/2010/08/16/business-cofounders-are-a-dime-a-
dozen/)

~~~
9oliYQjP
Business people that just aren't that good will exploit you by trying to get
you to work for free. Business people that are good will pay you for your work
and will multiply that investment as their reward. It's amazing how often the
latter is demonized (e.g., Bill Gates getting DOS for roughly $100K) and the
former is held up as the ideal person to go into business with (e.g.,
complementary skills).

------
jonknee
He sounds like every other jackass on craigslist who wants to find someone he
can tell what to do but not have to pay. It's no surprise that he didn't have
luck, it's an incredibly unfair proposition. A partnership requires both
parties to have skin in the game, you telling someone what to build doesn't
qualify as skin.

------
dmor
If the idea is so great, I think he should be willing to put some money into
hiring a developer to work with him -- and probably shouldn't necessarily call
that person a cofounder unless he wants to give them equal say in the
direction of the product.

I'm a business person first and wannabe hacker second, and I think the thing
that is missing here is respect for someone who can do things that you can't.
The main reason I've been learning to code isn't so I can eliminate the need
for someone who can... I know I'll never be as good as someone who has spent
their entire career learning to build software. I just want to speak the
language, understand what is hard and when to call bullshit or just how to ask
better questions.

If you're looking for someone to code up your dream website, go to oDesk or to
a friend who needs some extra cash to bootstrap HIS startup.

~~~
techiferous
"I just want to speak the language, understand what is hard and when to call
bullshit or just how to ask better questions."

I'm working for a client who did this and it's awesome. When things get
technical I don't have to force it into layman's terms--he understands. He
also understands the nature of coding and how some things that are easy to
conceptualize can be difficult to code (and vice versa). His decision to learn
about programming has made it possible to have a great, trusting relationship
with good communication and great results (this is the most productive I've
ever been).

------
delano
To steal and abuse a quote from Arrested Development,

 _The mere fact that you call your product a website tells me you're not ready
[for a technical co-founder]_

------
kranner
For a minute I was hoping the author was going to suggest that "business
geeks" learn programming. But this is what he does say:

"You may get a software engineer to start something for you, but they won't
stick with the project when it gets difficult. I learned something: technical
co-founders are a myth."

~~~
mixmax
I've actually been down that very same road - looking for a technical
cofounder but finding it hard. There simply aren't that many people that are
both smart, get things done and want to do a startup. At least not where I'm
located.

As a business geek I took another route after thinking about how to remedy the
situation: Learn to program. Best decision I've ever made.

~~~
nostrademons
More likely, there aren't many people that are smart, get things done, and
want to do _your_ startup. There're a whole lot that are willing to jump in
for their _own_ ideas. Almost everybody would rather be working on their own
ideas than someone else's ideas; that's basically what fuels the startup
industry.

There're two basic solutions to this: work on your technical skills, or work
on your leadership skills. (And remember that leadership isn't telling people
what to do, it's making them _want to do_ what you want them to do anyway.)
Working on your technical skills is the easier course; it's what I've chosen
to do, it seems to be what you've chosen to do, and ultimately it frees you
from being dependent upon other people to build your prototype. But working on
leadership skills probably scales better, since at some point, you're going to
have to work with other people anyway.

~~~
mixmax
While I think your post is very insightful the problem for me wasn't really
finding someone that wanted to work on _my_ idea, it was simply finding
someone skillful that was willing to risk doing a startup. I've never had
problems convincing people to work on my (or their..) ideas, but I've always
come across people that either didn't know what they were doing or quit when
the going got tough. It probably has a lot to do with location and culture.

By the way, the added bonus of learning to program is that you'll be in a much
better position to judge the merits of a technical cofounder.

------
knodi
The problem is that most "business" co-founders think they are better then
they really, most of the time they try to ride on the back of the 'tech' co-
founder. Lets face it the so called business people are good at BS and in the
end its not what you say its what you do that matters.

------
baguasquirrel
I'm a fairly technical person (i.e. I can code), and I've gotten other
technical people to totally buy into my idea, contribute to it, and "own" it
in that sense. But I find that his thesis is still correct, most people need
validation of the idea before they will jump into it.

In that, he doesn't need to qualify "people" with the adjective "software
engineer". The same principle applies to design folks as well. The bottom line
is, if you want to make it happen, you better pony up or do the work yourself.
If such skills and effort came for free, don't you think someone else would
have done it already?

------
japherwocky
call me a unicorn then. I wrote/built a startup this spring and needed a biz
dev / marketing co-founder.

Maybe the author isn't going after very technically interesting projects!

------
jmspring
As a technical architect / software engineering type person, I've helped out
more than a couple of startups for equity, cash, or a mix of both. Have I done
the "co founder" route? No, for two reasons -- first, the risk in focusing on
a single idea and hoping for success -- I haven't run across such an idea that
I am willing to dive whole hog into; and second, there are two phases to
getting a startup going - the initial proof of concept and the engineering
behind the actual service. I enjoy both, but the work needed for one is
different than the second.

At this point, I am always looking for new ideas and interesting startups to
help out. However, I am erring on the side of mercenary rather than owner.
That is not to say, I don't wholly to commit to endeavors, but the ideas that
interest me and the ones that provide opportunity to help out don't
necessarily intersect.

------
limedaring
Sounds to me like the author originally went in looking for technical chops,
not friendship/compatibility. A cofounder isn't someone you throw a project at
and expect results, it's a relationship. Compatibility means so much more when
you're founding a company together (not just having the other person work on
your idea), than technical ability.

------
amorphid
I think software geeks can over estimate the ability of others to learn to
program well. In my opinion it's better for people to stick at what they're
good at.

------
skmurphy
If he is running a successful recruiting business it would seem that there
would be some kind of revenue share model as a part of the business
partnership. The story doesn't add up but it sounds like he had an evolving
feature set that was driven by a vision not by a focus on generating revenue
he could split with a technical co-founder.

------
Stronico
I had someone approach me with one of these "ideas" a while back, I remarked
that a finders fee is usually 10% and he got furious and hung up the phone.
Then he called back and agreed to the term "finders fee" but then claimed that
it was worth 50%. Needless to say I declined.

------
gosuri
No Shit Mr. Recruiter Idea Man, no one with a brain in their skull works for
FREE. Didn't your mom tell you that?

------
chollida1
> Because software engineers don't work for free

Really?

I'd say the large volume of open source software suggests otherwise.

~~~
techiferous
Because software engineers don't work _on your ideas_ for free, they work _on
their ideas_ for free.

That explains open source.

------
mkramlich
I was not too long ago told by a business guy that it was generous of him to
offer me even a small fraction of 1% of some web-based service I would be
building. Because he had cash, connections, etc. The problem with that logic
(which was not completely without merit) is that while I could build the
entire site/service 100% by myself without him, he could NOT do the equivalent
by himself. So he needed me more than I needed him. (He didn't need me,
literally, but he'd need _somebody_ else to build it for him. So he would have
to give that somebody something in exchange.) And you don't actually need a
lot of cash or connections to get the particular service in question off the
ground. Cash always helps, sure. And connections help, sure. But in theory I
could build the entire thing myself, start with 100% equity and control and 0
politics, and then only later when it became useful to leverage industry
connections to do bizdev and land sales and affiliate deals, would he become
useful to me, and thus at that point it could make sense for me to grant him
some equity in compensation.

In fact, I feel increasingly we live in a world now where a
hacker/entrepreneur hybrid can just go build some web technology or SaaS by
themselves in relative stealth mode, retain 100% equity, and then later maybe
give up 10% to a designer to make it look purty and another 10% to a bizdev
guy, and maybe maybe another 10-20% to a cash investor (and outside cash may
not always be necessary or desirable anyway), and the hacker/entrepreneur
still retains the largest share and majority control. There are 2 secret
ingrediants here, which is probably why it doesn't happen more: 1. the hacker
must be really good and talented not just average Joe code monkey; and 2. he
must also have business/entrepreneur skills/knowledge. If he lacks either or
both of these things he's not going to have the capability and leverage to
pull this scenario off. But for those that do, watch out.

