

Show HN: The lengths I will go to in order to find a technical co-founder - LanceJones

My day job is managing a UX team at Intuit's global division. But I've had an idea bouncing around my head for the past few months that won't go away -- a B2B Web application that will dramatically improve the quality of life for anyone has to regularly attend meetings as part of their job. Everyone talks about hating meetings (especially people who work in companies with more than 500 employees), but meetings can be productive and even enjoyable, if the person who sets it up actually knows what they're doing. This idea of mine will quickly help companies uncover its employees' bad meeting habits -- isolating the individuals and functional teams who need coaching on how to set up effective meetings.<p>I work remotely from my home office in Victoria, British Columbia, and I am finding it <i>impossible</i> to find anyone in my immediate circle who would be suitable as a technical co-founder for this B2B project. So I decided to take a different approach than just 'asking around'.<p>As a person with a vision for what will hopefully become a very large business, it's frustrating not being able to build it yourself. And with each passing day I grow more and more impatient to get something into the hands of potential customers.<p>I know my strengths (designing user-friendly Web sites and applications, analytics, A/B testing, user research) and I also know my gaps/weaknesses (data modeling, coding, performance tuning... and all the things that go into taking something from an idea on paper to usable pixels on a screen).<p>So in an effort to demonstrate my passion for this idea and passion for finding someone with the skills to help me build out a vision, I set out to build something on a much, much smaller scale... with the help of my 11-year-old and 8-year-old sons.<p>I already had a good understanding of HTML and CSS, but I had to seriously brush up on syntax and proper formatting. The last time I wrote anything resembling code was in 2000, when I learned PHP to build a stock tip Web site (remember when everyone you knew was buying technology stocks?). Together, my sons and I learned how to design a data model, set up a cron job, incorporate open source code into our project and make it work, use the Facebook Open Graph protocol, and bring everything together into what we're hoping is a fun and useful way to look at your life.<p>Over the past 4 weeks, I have visited many of your Web sites, reading how to build an application quickly... as a minimum viable product. I've read your recent blog posts and posts going back many years. It has all helped immensely, including your tips on handling steep learning curves and overcoming coding roadblocks (of which there were many!!).<p>The result of our efforts is called Moodalytics (http://www.moodalytics.com), which is a Facebook application (well, in so far as you need to sign-in using Facebook credentials) that lets you create a 140-character daily journal entry and associate an emoticon with your mood -- and share it out (your emoticon; not your comments) with others in your social network. It's a visual record of your mood... designed for people who want to look back and see the interesting patterns that emerge. We expect that it will be more popular with teens and women (i.e., people who are more prone to writing down their feelings).<p>Once we have enough users, we can do some cool things like graph the daily mood of thousands of people... or just those people in certain countries or regions.<p>I'll continue to help my sons add new features to Moodalytics, but I am definitely no hacker -- and now I need to turn my attention to finding someone with outstanding application design and coding skills to build out a real business, likely with the addition of outside funding.<p>MY ASK: I want a technical co-founder for my B2B idea, called Meetalytics... someone who is looking for an opportunity to use their ideas, skills, and passion to change how people experience meetings at work!<p>I sincerely hope someone from this community -- who is as passionate about building things that companies will pay for as I am -- will emerge and we can begin a cool journey together.<p>Thanks,
Lance
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kolinko
Even if you ultimately manage to find a tech cofounder, it may take you
months, and a couple of failed attempts before the relationship starts
working. Plenty of tech people will approach you and say "it's doable", but
then run out of motivation, etc.

Also - keep in mind that a cofounder is, well.. a cofounder! It's not a "de
facto employee, who you pay with shares instead of cash". He will want to
influence the overall project direction, and he will want to change all the
things you planned so far into the product. I've met plenty of business people
who told me that they were looking for a tech cofounder, but in reality didn't
want to hear my design suggestions.

The tech-business partnerships work well, but only in some cases. It's usually
two people who knew each other, who developed the idea together, and who were
in a similar situation. Otherwise you're up for a tough start, because you
will feel a lot of pressure to work (it's your idea, you spent a lot of time
planning it), but your newly found partner will not. Even worse - if the
partnership fails, it will not be easy to fire him.

There are plenty of routes that may be a better fit for you. You could do a
proof of concept by yourself, sell it to a corporation and use the money from
the sale to hire a tech guy. You could hire a student to do the first version,
you could get some angel money and start a team... Really - desperately
looking for a tech cofounder is not always the best option.

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mindfulbee
Hey Lance, It took me awhile to find my CTO. Here are my recommendations: 1)
Outsource: <http://www.sourcebits.com/> 2) Keep doing it yourself:
<http://viniciusvacanti.com/>

I am currently in College and think I have a scalable idea. Kept searching in
till someone believed me. However, even since I found my CTO, I'm teaching
myself how to code to just build a basic crude prototype with no hard coding
or algorithms.

Most VCs I've talked to are just looking for something tangible. If you can
just build a crude protoytpe and pitch it then you're solid. Also, you might
want to look into mobile apps.

-CC

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RiderOfGiraffes
Clickable: <http://www.moodalytics.com>

OK - my $0.02 ...

What are the implications? If I login with Facebook, will you spam my friends?
What will you do with my data? Is there more than there appears?

I'd like to know more.

Also, look at the icons, I really don't know which of those best fits, partly
because I'm kinda just neutral, and partly because I don't know what most of
them mean.

But looks reasonably slick. If I were a web coder with time I'd certainly be
in touch. But I'm not. And I don't.

Good luck!

~~~
sagacity
>look at the icons, .....I don't know what most of them mean

Same here too.

I guess showing a tooltip on each icon (e.g. happy, sad, surprised etc.)
should fix this in short order.

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triviatise
The great thing about web 2.0 is that it doesnt cost that much to get
something up and running. You can get ruby devs for 70-90/hour. They wont
necessarily create the app that can scale, but scaling is a feature for later.
My first iteration cost about 8K and the total is right around 20K to get to a
pretty stable alpha. I have lots of horror stories about contract developers,
but they are mostly about how the devs are working on too many projects at
once so mine didnt get worked on at all. This didnt cost me money, just time.

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luckyfish
You have a serious skillset, why don't you use it to find a hacker to work
with you?

You can build some serious prototype of your idea using a site prototyping
tool like axure. test it with users and refine. it's not exactly a minimum
viable product , but it's close.

Also do market research , and some general business plan.

It would be a lot easier to convince a hacker(or maybe even an angel) to work
with you on your project after you finish those two things. And those 2
artifacts would take your project a step further.

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dukecitypal
Goodluck with your ventures Lance!!

I've read your recent blog posts and posts going back many years. It has all
helped immensely, including your tips on handling steep learning curves and
overcoming coding roadblocks (of which there were many!!).

Would you mind putting up links for some articles that helped you in handling
steep learning curves and overcoming coding roadblocks?

Thanks..

~~~
metachris
Feels a little bit spammy because of sentences like that one you reposted from
the original submission:

" _I've read your recent blog posts and posts going back many years. It has
all helped immensely, including your tips on handling steep learning curves
and overcoming coding roadblocks (of which there were many!!)._ "

Regarding the project: I don't think it will be profitable and it will
probably need some hard pivoting to get into B2B. I recommend: just take it as
what it is -- a fun learning project for your and your family! I can guarantee
you that doing this together is a great experience for your children.

Have fun!

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LanceJones
Thanks, RofG. In the Facebook permissions, we do not request access to your
friends -- so only the actual user can share out their mood. I like your
suggestion of labeling the emoticons!

~~~
RiderOfGiraffes
Thanks.

Just a tip: If you replied to my comment instead of to the submission, then
I'd see your reply when I look at my submission status via my profile page.

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JoshKalkbrenner
If you had funds to pay developers, would you still need a technical co-
founder? Could you use a tool like Axure to build a prototype and pitch it to
investors?

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petervandijck
Possible flaw with the idea: the people that need it most won't want to adopt
it, and forcing adoption from above is problematic. Thoughts?

