
How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck - benehmke
http://www.humbledmba.com/how-to-find-a-business-cofounder-that-doesnt
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joshklein
I still can't understand how this gets missed in every one of these posts; a
great business cofounder can be someone with an insane level of domain
expertise either selling something like the thing you're making, or selling to
the exact same people you want to sell to.

If you're making, say, web analytics software for online retailers, your best
business cofounder would be a guy who had just spent a year convincing online
retailers to buy his company's Magento extension (or whatever). This guy will
make your product better, will know what to say to customers, and will
probably even dial up all the people he already sold to so he can also sell
your new product. A second best fit might be someone from an ad agency, for
example, who had pitched and won the business of a few online retailers.

Don't buy this visionary, motivator, fundraising, connector bull. If you need
a life coach, hire a life coach. There's only two critical functions to your
startup: Make the thing, Sell the thing. You can fake the rest if you do the
big two.

~~~
itmag
Off-topic but relevant: everyone should look at this guy's book:
[http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Work-Breaking-Stupid-
Results/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Work-Breaking-Stupid-
Results/dp/159184357X)

~~~
joshklein
Although I'm happy to be mistaken for that Josh Klein (he's great!), we are
two different people. We met once and the universe didn't explode, so I'm
fairly certain about this.

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coryl
_The great part about this type of cofounder is that they exhibit early proof
everywhere they go. They keep impeccably awesome apartments. They have blogs
that are exquisitely well-designed. They're own personal branding is clean,
articulate, and meaningful._

I didn't know Steve Jobs had a well kept apartment and an exquisite blog. Is
tripping on acid and living in India any better an indicator of your product
design prowess?

I don't mean to be cynical, but this kind of writing to me is just "talking".
The camp director, the hustler, the protege; they have these characteristics,
come from this background, blah blah blah. No fact, all fiction, bullshit for
the ear and mind.

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ares2012
These lists always seem to miss what I consider to be one of the most
important elements of a co-founder: You have worked with them before. If
you're starting a company with someone else it is absolutely critical you have
worked together and operated under stressful conditions before. This is the #1
reason most startups will see 1 or more co-founder leave.

If you are a technical person starting a company and you don't know any
business co-founders whom you have worked with then don't bring them on as a
co-founder. Find another technical co-founder and make your first hire the
business person. This will give you time to build out the product and
understand more of what you need.

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bsenftner
I've been dealing with the flip side: I'm a highly technical MBA, started as a
coder and got my MBA because I knew I needed it. I'd love to find serious
minded technical co-founders, or even moderately experienced non-technical co-
founders. I had good technical co-founders originally, but not good enough in
that they drifted off when the startup took longer then they they wanted.
Today, I'd love to find a strong technical set of partners, but no one I'm
meeting has the skills. People seem to be only interested with
Ruby/Node/WebGL/Flavor-of-the-day projects.

In an effort to meet more like minded technical entrepreneurs, I've started a
free co-working space in Downtown Los Angeles. It's called Droplabs,
www.droplabs.net.

Anyone is welcome. The original founders, I'm 1 of 7, all work with the Drupal
CMS, but also work in other systems. There's other independent creative
consultants there too doing Ruby, Node.js, C/C++, various client projects and
about 4-5 startups.

I'm still looking for the right people. I'm ambitious:
<http://about.me/blakes> In a week or two I have a project for Show HN...

~~~
leak
This is good stuff. I don't need an office but good energy is a must. I'm
stopping by next week!

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earbitscom
> _Think really hard about whether you actually need that business cofounder.
> Consider investing the time you'll spend looking for someone with improving
> your own sales/marketing/product skills. Join a community like Y Combinator
> and they'll help you learn all the mysterious business stuff that isn't
> actually that hard. In the end, if you make something people want,
> everything else will fall into place._

Honestly, the attitude toward "non-technical co-founders" needs to change in
this community and the fact that anyone would say you don't really need one is
just naive. Build it and they will come is a Silicon Valley pipe dream that
happens to .1% of companies. Talking to customers, exploring competitive
products, negotiating service contracts, firing up potential employment
candidates, getting press, lining up distribution partners, selling clients,
exploring new markets for potential leads, managing non-technical resources,
fund raising, pitch writing, and more are just a handful of the things that a
"non-technical co-founder" can be doing. Doing them yourself when you can find
someone more experienced or focused on this is poor management of resources
and speaks to an inability to delegate or manage limited company time and
resources.

Having been through YC, I can tell you right now that not only will they not
teach you "all the mysterious business stuff", but if you think "business
stuff" isn't actually that hard, you work with shitty business people and
aren't aggressive enough in your initiatives.

Everybody likes to downplay the importance of business people in startups. My
first co-founder and I in Earbits were both non-technical. While we looked for
a technical co-founder we lined up an advisory board from Google and EMI
Music, raised friends and family money, recruited a designer for equity only
to mock up our site and design our logo/brand, and had record labels sending
us boxes of CDs for a radio platform that didn't even exist yet. During that
time, three technical people flaked on our project, one of them after signing
the paperwork to join. Do you see me talking about the lack of importance or
reliability of technical people? No. Your bad experience or rumors about
shitty business people are unfounded. Most successful companies have a solid
business-oriented co-founder. For every crappy "idea guy" there is a flaky
developer.

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lexyb
I'm not a technical guy and I see a lot of other non technical guys out there
trying to sell their ideas. I like the angle to look for a guy who is really
good at something. I would go even further to say find a business guy who
knows your market, industry and potential customers. This may not always be
easy but time and time again in and out of tech startups are successful
because the people running them understood the industry, market and people
they were targeting

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jcampbell1
One test for business co-founders is test if they can make cold contacts.
There are so many MBAs who are nothing but marketing/strategy types, with no
real sales ability, and so are of little use to a startup. When I hear a
business person say, "I know this market/industry", I pretty much write them
off. If a business person says, "I have worked in this industry, and I know
dozens of people that shouldn't live without this product", then my interest
is peaked.

~~~
roel_v
*piqued

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itmag
This was a good read for me, as I am currently looking for a co-founder.

It made me realize that I am already a Camp Director and Hustler myself, and
made me re-affirm that what I need is a design co-founder (aka the Steve Jobs
protegé, as he calls it).

Here are some startup ideas of mine btw: <http://ideashower.posterous.com>

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option1138
Successful high tech CEO here.

I don't know where all of this bad advice came from, but you should never,
_ever_ have an equal cofounder.

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akg_67
Interesting posts but I think most miss the basic requirements for business or
technical co-founders. Based on my prior 'bad' experiences, I look for
following qualities, in order, in future partners.

1\. Passion (intrinsic motivation) 2\. Chemistry 3\. Commitment 4\. Capability
5\. Competency

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jaequery
great topic, something that interested me for a while. but i was disappointed
that it failed to deliver the answer, where to actually find them?

~~~
PhilStrazz
Venture capital firms. The younger professionals at the top firms are smart,
know a lot about technology business models, and are very well connected
relative to their age. Plus, most of them got into VC not to become investors,
but because they have aspirations of starting a company.

~~~
orky56
These ones are going to be the types that will be able to provide value on the
business development side since they have the industry connections. (Tough to
call them hustlers since it's not very clear whether they are "scrappy.") If
you're looking for someone who can deliver on the product side, VC firms
aren't going to provide those kinds of individuals, especially the younger
ones. For product folk, it's best to poach Product Managers from slightly
larger companies who are dealing with the same domain. They may not be as
competent on the fundraising side but they will have a good idea of product &
marketing.

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paulhauggis
After seeing what happens when you partner with an "ideas guy", the only way I
will have a non-technical co-founder is if they can offer me: connections in
my industry or cash.

Otherwise, I don't need them and I can do the rest myself.

~~~
ssharp
I don't think such a dismissive attitude is positive. Looking at individual
people with an open and objective mind is appropriate when doing important
business with anyone.

I'm sure there are lots of "ideas guys" who offer nothing but fuzzy and poorly
reasoned concepts. There are also "ideas guys" who have expertise in concepts
and customers who will think of things you've never thought of. A previous
commentator mentioned that if you're looking to start an web analytics
company, you might find someone with expertise in that area. Not only will
they help you make customers, they'll give you a much better understanding of
the market and what white spaces and other opportunities may exist in the
market.

In the end, you simply need to understand the value of any founder you bring
in. If a non-technical founder can provide better value than a technical co-
founder, being afraid of hiring an "ideas guy" is not ideal. You simply need
to find the right one.

There are lots of outstanding founders/CEO's who either come from no technical
background, or a technical background that pales in comparison to a really
great engineer.

