I'm considering taking on a technical co-founder for my company, PicDigest. I've gotten it this far, but for it to become than it is I need someone to take the majority of the technical burden off myself (since I only started learning RoR in May).
Thanks for this post. This was timely and helpful for me.
PicDigest looks very cool, which means that YOU are already a technical founder.
It's your baby, your burden. Bring in other people as you need them, but looks like you are good as you are.
Feature request: let people create digests from timestamped private storage (dropbox, s3 etc.) so people that aren't instagramming/facebooking hipsters can still use it (maybe something like Zapier would help you).
technical dude here: this is true. I don't need an idea, I don't even need somebody who can talk to audiences. usually I work with non-technical people and I rip their idea to bits, iterate it and generate entirely new fields of opportunity. I am often amazed at how these people completely pass up these ideas because they think they are the idea people and they are just looking for a tech-gorilla. we have an inbuilt aversion to people who are just looking for an implementor. somebody who thinks they have the ideas and they just need somebody to flesh it out.
I need somebody who is eternally optimistic and understands how to lead us and care for us as we go through the challenges of meetings and presentations. somebody who can help keep the team focused. somebody who understands hard work and what some of the team is going through.
I was just talking with somebody earlier about the tendency for programmers to be a bit pessimistic. its a good trait because we can see problems and threats/failures very easily. that's very useful.
also we can see through bullshit very quickly and in a way financing and business is about Building a Really Good Bullshit.
the positive side to pessimism is mentioned in this classic book:
Thanks for this post. This was timely and helpful for me.