Ask HN: On getting a technical co-founder

[bevacqua]

Hey guys, I have no idea if this post is going to help me, but I might as well give it a shot. I'm a single technical co-founder. I have a "startup" in the sense that I've spent ~5 months putting full time work into a product ("hassle-free project management", you could say it's somewhere in the middle between JIRA and Trello), but I'm doing freelancing as well for food.

I don't want to take up a friend as a co-founder. None of them have the skills that I'm looking for (the ones who do aren't quite able to leave their jobs for a payless startup). I want to move forward and I truly believe this product will succeed, but I don't think going forward on my own is the right call. I don't have any businessy experience, which is a problem given that I want to be bootstrapped and avoid taking any funding for as long as I possibly can.

I have a solid idea of what the product should look like and how to shape it going forward, but it always helps having more sets of eyes looking at the code and working on it. I can always show it to friends and ask them for their opinion, but they're not as heavily invested (they can't be) because they aren't putting the time into the project like I am. So I would need someone technical to pair with me in these issues and the businessy stuff.

How do I go about finding someone like this[1]? Do you guys and gals have any tangible pieces of advice I can act on? Would you suggest that I go back into my freelancing cave? I feel rather strongly about this product, but I don't think it's wise to continue doing it alone. I won't be able to scale out all of the stuff that I want to do if I'm on my own.

I live in Buenos Aires with no intention of moving, but I'm perfectly open to a remote environment, which is how I've been working for the past 3 years.

Ideas? Thoughts? Constructive criticism? nicolasbevacqua@gmail.com

[1]: https://www.cofounderslab.com/nicolas-bevacqua-63236

[arden]

You're looking for someone who 1) knows how write [good] code; 2) knows how to run a business; 3) believes in you; 4) believes in your product; and 5) will donate his time for equity.

I suggest you find friends to volunteer and help with segments of the code and shaping the product. If you can't get them interested in contributing, you can't get people interested in purchasing the software.

Once you have a viable product, you'll need to obtain revenues. Revenue will give confirmation to the idea and your abilities to make a product and make money. Revenues will attract business people.

[DevX101]

This is a crowded space with some good alternatives on the market already (JIRA, Trello, Basecamp, & more)

There's even a solid open source version (https://taiga.io/) that is giving away their product for free. They have a traditional agile JIRA type UI as well as a more Kanban style like Trello which sounds like what you're doing.

So the technical aspect here probably isn't the interesting component. The innovation for you will be how you market your product, not the awesome feature list.

If I were you I would target unique markets that are being underserved by current offerings. Why not position your product to the Latin American market? Find a co-founder in Buenos Aires who is great at selling to Latin America and bring them on. Alternatively, find a big industry that has very specific project management requirements where the available tools are too generic to be a good fit. Getting a remote co-founder sounds like a recipe for failure. It's one thing to have your engineering employees remote, but you need to live in the same city as your co-founder.

You should also probably stop coding today and try to find the answers to the above questions.

[sjs382]

Talk with people about your project/product.

Go to meetups. Go to conferences. Hell, get on IRC or Twitter. Just talk to people about it as much as you can, in as much detail as you can. Eventually you'll find someone. Or maybe you won't, and you'll at least get interested customers or general feedback.

I might be the cofounder that you're looking for (or I may not) but "hassle free project management" isn't enough to get me interested enough to talk to you more about it. Use passion to find passion.

[alain94040]

Hopefully this will give you some ideas: http://foundrs.com/find-a-cofounder

Here's a simple hack: start a meetup in Buenos Aires on the topic of your product (project management). Don't try to sell your product, just try to be helpful and build a community among people who may experience the problem you are trying to solve. Customers and possibly a co-founder may eventually emerge (give it 6 months).