

Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen - coderdude
http://joshuavolz.com/2010/08/16/business-cofounders-are-a-dime-a-dozen/

======
mixmax
The three things listed (money, promise of money and connections) are exactly
what a business founder should be able to deliver. Along with customers.
Paying customers. Before you launch the product.

If he (or she) can't deliver that, then you've found the business equivalent
of a scriptkiddie that promises a business person he can build the next Google
from a wordpress install.

People that think they are good at business is as common as people that think
they can hack because they installed wordpress on a shared host.

Just like there aren't that many great hackers there aren't that many great
business people. If you find one you'll know right away because he comes with
either money or customers. Great business people are worth their weight in
gold. Just like great hackers. Unfortunately the two don't often meet.

~~~
lars512
Before customers even, business founders can offer the credible promise of
customers. The credibility comes from some sort of market validation. They
should be able to convince you that a good execution will actually get
traction, and help discover discover early that product X is not what people
need/will pay for, but close variant Y is what should be focused on instead.

In my very limited experience, non-technical partners have vaguely done this,
but haven't clearly communicated what they're doing or how it contributes
value. I think they imagine that I share their background, and automatically
understand and value their actions. With no shared background, poor
communication, and only a short relationship with them so far, the trust isn't
there to really value their work.

My mistake has been looking forward too much to what a product will be, and
thus aiming for more than is reasonable in a small, fixed timespan. This
inevitably means I can't achieve what I aim for without investing
significantly more of my time than the non-technical partner, which makes me
feel like I'm getting a bad deal. I have to learn to aim more minimally, and
estimate more generously.

It seems that both types of founders need to communicate a lot, and invest
more in the personal relationships outside the venture. All that communication
will build the trust which eventually makes things flow well and happen
efficiently.

------
il
Theere's obviously a lot of parasitic business "idea guys" who don't know
about technology this article is talking about.

At the same time, there's a lot of business guys who can bring real, tangible
value in terms of strategy, customer acquisition methods, marketing, finances,
etc. I think there'a huge misconception that all it takes to build a company
is a couple hackers who can build a product.

Building the product is NOT the hard part(except the rare case where there are
real technical challenges). Building a business is the hard part.

If you really think about it, most startups don't fail because their code
isn't good enough. They fail because the founders are absorbed in engineering
and neglect the business parts like marketing, monetizing, and so on.

I'm kind of on both sides, as a hacker who's better at the business/marketing
elements, so I have perspective into attitudes on both sides.

I may be taking a risk making this comment on Hacker News, but I think in some
places, it's actually coders who are a dime a dozen. People who can actually
build and grow a business are much harder to find.

~~~
jpcx01
I completely agree here. I learned long ago that if I built something that I
thought was cool, it didn't turn to dollars.

The best hackers absolutely need to find a great business partner. Unless they
can wing it on their own. But personally, I hated the doing all the BS it
takes to bring a product to market. I just want to build cool shit.

~~~
il
That's why a business guy and a hacker is the best team. I love creating new
marketing strategies, building campaigns, writing sales copy and doing
customer development.

But writing code bores me...I hate slogging through coding and debugging
whenever I have to do it.

~~~
jlees
il, I'm the same, but I think it helps to at least be on that side of the
fence - a hacker turned to the dark side - than be the proverbial "Here are my
mockups in PowerPoint, now build me a website" clueless/exploitative 'business
guy'.

~~~
mahmud
If you hate coding you're not a "hacker", in the same way that I am not a
vegetarian just because I eat salad before my dinner. We both do it because we
"have to".

------
patio11
I get approached from time to time by people who think I'd be the perfect
person for implementing their Big Idea. (That should be red flag number one,
since if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at
identifying programmers.)

Almost universally:

1) They want full-time effort out of me (often, in the exploitative sense of
"full-time"), but they're not full-time on the project themselves.

2) There is _zero_ evidence that they have produced a deliverable for the
project. Not even a Powerpoint deck or a napkin.

3) They have no conception of what the BATNA for a talented engineer sounds
like. My way to discourage them quickly without being impolite is to quote my
consulting rate, which typically causes sputtering.

~~~
ced
_if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying
programmers._

Aren't you underestimating yourself?

Most businesses don't need Knuths. They need "smart & gets things done". By my
reckoning, you're way ahead of the average HNer (and myself) at this game.

~~~
mahmud
FWIW, I think Patrick has shown far more business sense than actual
programming.

If I were to hire him, I would make sure he stays from actual coding as much
as possible; that would be a waste of his talents and our time.

Not "underestimating" his coding skills, it's just that his business sense far
eclipses anything else he might be good at: programming, Japanese language, or
competitive Polka dancing.

------
larsberg
To the list of things business cofounders could bring, I would also add "deep
domain knowledge." For example, if it's a site on selling foos to wumpats,
you'd better have spent all of your years before bschool in either the foo
industry, working for wumpats, or hopefully some of both.

As a tip, though, I usually just ask bschooler-types a few basic questions
like 1) how many foos are bought today 2) how do wumpats make their purchasing
cycle (i.e. enterprise, individual, etc.) 3) who are the existing competitors
in this space... Most bschoolers, despite having these questions drilled into
them over and over during their 60k/year schooling, don't bother doing the
legwork to investigate them before looking for a "technical cofounder."

~~~
ultrasaurus
I think that's a good point. So many business decisions are made on gut
feeling, and then we make a spreadsheet of wumpats sales to back up our gut.

If all someone brings to the table is "I think this will work" that's
essentially nothing.

------
d_r
I'm a software engineer. After spending a few years in Silicon Valley, I have
also have met many "business people" who'd pitch me their great idea and try
to recruit me.

Now here is the tough question (for engineers): yes, we have the superior
ability to execute any idea because we can code. But are we actually going to?
This might be generalizing, but most fellow engineers I met prefer working for
a stable paycheck -or- prefer hacking a prototype project that never ships.
And pet projects started by the above mentioned people (without that business
person who pushes them) never get to see the world -- even if the prototype
website, iPhone app, etc. is finished, they spend no effort on marketing and
give up when no users come.

Again, this is generalizing. There are many examples of hackers who have built
very successful ventures (Google, Facebook, et cetera.) But my general
observation makes me sad -- many engineers just don't seem to make good
founders. What can be done in the engineering community to make hackers more
"business-minded" or "shipping-minded," so to say?

~~~
extension
As with writing code, just get your hands dirty. Once you start making things
happen (making money) you'll get interested quick.

------
ryanlchan
I'm always surprised by the hard lines people draw between technical and
business cofounders. 'Technical founders' mock the business side's naivite and
reject the notion that any less than 50% of the work in building a business is
programming. 'Business founders' think they have all the right stuff and see
16 year olds building facemash or yousquare, then assume anyone can program
with a book and an afternoon.

Truth is, if you can slot yourself into one of these classifications that
easily you're probably not going to be a very good startup cofounder. A
startup requires people to wear lots of different hats, with some being in the
technical side and others being on the business side. While normal people, aka
business and technical founders, can wear one, maybe two hats at a time, start
up founders need to be 12 headed hydras.

I'm not saying that there's no specialization on a startup team; it's
necessary. But how will your programming ninja respond when an investor asks
about how your branding fits the specific niche you're targeting? Or what will
the business dude say when questioned about what stack you're going to deploy
on?

Maybe it's time we stopped thinking about business/technical cofounders and
started evaluating people as startup cofounders.

------
jlees
My issue with both of the articles, true though they are, is they don't
represent the partnership model that most often succeeds: you know, people who
are actually friends, who work together and trust each other.

The blind "hello, please believe in me" model seems commonly believed in, but
I've yet to hear of tangible cases where it actually worked. (business person
recruiting techie at an event).

------
ezrider4428
Disclaimer: I have not read all the comments below. I was too enraged by this
post.

Lets get this out of the way. IF YOU WANT TO GET A SALARY GO WORK FOR AN
ESTABLISHED BUSINESS.

This post is so short-sighted that if Joshua doesn't already have glasses he
should buy a pair. I am a little surprised that someone that runs a business
actually posted this. Joshua are you aware of all the activities that actually
go on in a business? I can enlighten you: \- Sales \- Marketing \-
Partnerships \- Legal \- Design \- Customer Service \- Business Strategy and
yes \- Development

The reason this post is short-sighted is that you are forgetting about what
ACTUALLY makes a business (not an idea) successful. OPERATIONAL PERFECTION

Some supporting evidence is looking at a business plan or even a pitch deck,
how many slides are dedicated to the technical aspect? 1 of 10.

"What you business guys should be thinking about is this: what am I bringing
to this business?" THIS IS A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE IN EVERY BUSINESS. If you
do not directly contribute to the success of the business then you are not
valuable it doesn't matter if you have technical skills or business
development skills.

I am not a developer! I said it, i'm proud of it and i never want to be a
developer. I could never be successful as a developer and i would be doing my
business an injustice if i tried to code anything more then a simple webpage.

Startups need to be higly efficent in the way they do work, each of the team
members need to be very focused on what is important and what they are good
at. Yes, a smart developer can learn to sell and a smart business development
person can learn to code, but WHY would do that business development and
technical development are two very different skill-sets.

~~~
ezrider4428
Maybe you should refer some of the "idea junkies" to this guy
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608315>

------
alexdmoore
Great points on both sides. I think a top in the world business person is as
helpful for a company as a top engineer, but this doesn't have to be a co-
founder. It can an advisor or later hire that has a transformative effect on a
business.

Also I would point out consumer internet business people might not be able to
have the same impact as a top bd person for an enterprise software company as
ES companies have greater needs on building real sales organizations while
consumer internet relies on marketing a social phenomena.

------
cottsak
"Business Cofounders" in the HN context implies that these people should be of
real value. Perhaps the title should have been "<fake;pseudo;micky-
mouse>Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen".

------
infoarbitrage
bottom line: finding great partners of any stripe is tough. it goes beyond
mere competency to chemistry, empathy and passion. a bad choice and it sinks
the business and leaves a trail of tears. a good choice and, assuming a truly
good idea, the potential is hard to quantify. social intelligence and patience
on both sides is essential for success. a good match on paper does not
necessarily make for one in the real world. it's similar to finding a good
investment: personal recommendations, e.g., an effective reputation filter,
help winnow down the possibilities immeasurably. but the only thing that
matters if whether coder and business dude click. everything else is noise.

------
knodi
The sad thing is that all these co-founders try to pass them selfs off as tech
guy but in reality they just bad middle management at best.

------
cantbecool
Sounds like the relationship between Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

