

Ask HN: How to find a non-technical co-founder? - davethomas

I'm a web developer interested in forming a startup in the near future. I'd like to start networking with people who are skilled in business and are interested in forming a startup. How should I go about doing that?<p>Should I seek out business-oriented events? What about MBA programs? Ideally I want to connect with someone first, then develop a business collaboratively with them: I don't want a "Whartonite Seeks Code Monkey" sort of relationship.
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mchannon
I had this exact same problem.

In the end, it required networking with real people and real face-to-face
meetings. And it required travel to, and throughout, the bay area.

Nontechnical cofounders are far less common than everyone seems to think. Out
of the hundreds of people I met that week, only a few nibbles and a couple of
bites.

The sad fact is that cofounders in general are quite scarce, and just like
most developers aren't comfortable in the startup space, most bizdev people
aren't either.

Look hard, have a great value proposition, and a clear and demonstrable niche
for the right person to fill. And then, just be lucky. I dare say that a good
bizdev cofounder is an order of magnitude scarcer than a good technical
cofounder, based on recent personal experience.

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davethomas
It sounds like you had a specific pitch that you gave. Do you think that
people would be more willing to join as a co-founder if they had some input on
the original idea?

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mchannon
I did have a specific pitch.

You want input on your idea if you're looking for a cofounder as opposed to an
employee.

The biggest barrier to getting cofounders, be they technical or bizdev, is the
propensity for people to have ideas first and business partners second. Two
people with two different ideas are really hard to fold together because it
often requires a destruction of value proposition- someone's going to have to
shelve their idea in order to join together on one.

Unless you're convinced that your idea is the greatest thing ever, you may
actually be better served by going in pluripotent- eager to pitch yourself and
your skills but not to pitch your idea. If things don't work out you still
have your idea, and if they do, maybe your idea can get folded in.

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sherm8n
You'll find a lot of biz dudes looking for someone like you. Be wary of anyone
who says they just need a developer to build their app. It has to be a true
partnership. They have to understand and respect the amount of work involved
in building a product. There are some really really good product/biz people
out there though.

Why do you feel like you need to partner with purely biz people? Many
companies you see here have engineers who can run a business with no problem.

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davethomas
That goes both ways: I respect the amount of work it takes to make a company
financially stable and to strategically position it in the marketplace. It
seems to me that the engineers running businesses have been successful only
because they picked up business skills along the way, but perhaps it is more
efficient to partner with someone who already has those skills.

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kkt262
This should be easy. If you're technical there are tons of people searching
for you.

You don't necessarily have to go to "business-oriented" events. Just go to
some startup-oriented events and you'll meet tons of people that could
potentially be co-founders.

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Nikkki
I like the way you think. I'm a business guy. Let's connect. Write me a mail
at: sommersnicki at gmail dot com

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yashchandra
"Whartonite Seeks Code Monkey" Upvote for that!!

