

Where to find co-founding developers? - ericseidelman

I'm a business &#38; marketing person with a great idea for a start-up.  It literally has HUGE potential in an area that is growing.<p>However, I'm not a hacker, programmer, developer or whatever else a tech person is called.<p>So, I'm reaching out to all of you in this community and hoping you can provide me with some direction.<p>Take away my circle of friends... where else would you advise I look for a skilled, reliable, co-founder?  Or at the very least, someone who could assist in creating a basic prototype?<p>Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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ScottWhigham
Okay - let's say that I, a technical person, meet you at a bar. We start
talking and you mention just what you said - that you are looking to meet a
possible co-founding developer but that you don't really know anyone and
you're stuck on even where to look for such a person. You know what I'm
thinking to myself? "If this guy can't figure this part out, then I'm
certainly not about to tell him that I could be that technical co-founder."

Sorry - that's the truth though. IMO, if you are business & marketing person,
then either you should already have a set of contacts that you could ask for
help on or, plan b, you would have a handle on groups locally in your area
that would lead you to such a person (or to someone who could lead you to
someone). If plan A isn't working out for whatever reason, then figure out
plan B. I can promise you that posting here is less productive than pressing
the flesh with local folks in your own town.

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ericseidelman
I agree. I'm already going out to local meet-ups etc. and networking that way.
This post was to expand that process.

I'm essentially looking into any option at this point and you make perfect
sense with your response. Thank you

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ScottWhigham
Okay - gotcha. Colleges, craigslist ads, local networking groups for
entrepreneurs - those would be my best guess at where you would have the most
luck (not necessarily in that order). Sounds like you have those covered so
then it makes sense to come here.

FWIW I don't think you should necessarily consider becoming a developer. It
really depends on how much control you want and how quickly you think that,
once you found the co-founder, you could start making money. Let's say you
think that a competent co-founder could get you enough of a prototype coded
up/mocked up in three months and you could go raise money (or sell it) then.
If it takes you a year to learn to code, will you be able to mock up/code a
prototype as good as the professional could in three months? I doubt it but
maybe. But you are nine months behind the curve at that point. Even if it
takes you six months to find a co-founder, you are still ahead of the game
assuming it works out since his work for three months would be superior to
your one year's worth of work.

Just my $0.02 though

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ericseidelman
agree to your $.02 100%.

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marknutter
Learn how to develop. There's no excuse in this age not to empower yourself to
participate in one of the greatest entrepreneurial opportunities in the
history of business. A developer with good business sense can prototype a
product and go to market with little to no cost in a very short amount of
time, something that was basically impossible for most people before the
internet became popular.

If you look at most of the success stories for internet startups, especially
YC funded startups, the cofounders are usually both hackers. You'll have a
much harder time finding a co-founder if they're doing all the work and you're
handling all the marketing/business/ideas stuff.

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ericseidelman
I agree with you marknutter... to a point.

Although I don't know how long it takes to learn programming... I'd be willing
to bet it's not a quick learn. So, would it be wiser for me to find someone to
assist in developing a prototype and while that is happening I study and learn
some basics.

Or, is it better to delay an idea for months or more while I learn and then
struggle through doing it on my own.

Personally I think it makes more sense to find help and learn at the same
time. But I completely agree - I do need to learn this stuff, somehow.

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Travis
Agreed with what marknutter says. You should start learning it yourself. Start
attending other meetups. Your willingness to learn will pay dividends down the
road for your startup:

1) it's signaling. Tells a developer that you're serious about what youre
doing, and youre going to do it. 2) it's a start. your ideas will change and
coalesce more as you code it. As well developed as you think you have it, once
you write code you realize you didn't account for many things. 3) You might
end up being good at it, and make progress faster than you think.

Seriously, the modern web languages are pretty straightforward. My non-
technical cofounder who has become an intermediate level PHP coder finds that
DNS and email is much much more confusing than writing code.

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ericseidelman
Travis, you & mark make great points.

Any insight into where to begin. With so many different programming languages
(php, java, ruby, c++ yada yada yada)... where does a newbie even start?

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marknutter
I'm a Ruby on Rails guy, and the community is really excellent, so that'd be
one place to start. Ruby has a very friendly syntax, so I think it's easier
for a beginner to get into. Find out if there's a local Ruby users group, or
PHP or Python for that matter, and start going to the meetings. Also, buy a
beginners book like Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails. That's the book
I started with and if you go through the whole thing you'll have pretty much
all the tools you need to build a good web app.

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mikelbring
I'll talk to you, email if you want, email is in my profile. (I am a
programmer)

