What is the best way to network and find people to build a business with?
I am a guy with lots of engineering skills. You want a web service running in a container and you want OAuth integration with Facebook and Google? Great. My problem is knowing what people are willing to pay money for. I have ideas but I know there are people out there that have a better clue. I want to find those people and network with them. I don't have a ton of time to give to a project, but I certainly have some. What do people do when they want to find ways to turn their skills into possible business opportunities?
I actually found out about several local meetup groups for developers and small businesses thanks to IH. Another local person saw me on here and reached out via Twitter.
Small world eh?
You'd be surprised how many people are open to talking with you if you reach out. I just got off the phone with someone I met on IH and we had a great conversation! People are usually transparent about their skills so you can get an idea of who is technical/non-technical/unicorn (business + technical). Read posts on forums you frequent and track what people are talking about that draws you in. When you find someone who posts something that resonates with you, ask if they'd like to chat. Peruse Linkedin and connect with a personal message outlining that you're interested in learning more about what they do. Attend co-working events or go work in those spaces and strike up conversations with people. Organize an IH Meetup in your hometown and post about it. There are so many options available. Although it's not always easy to find a person that you can share a sustainable, healthy work relationship with, your best bet is to cast a wide net and be open-minded. Good luck!
I've met a few good people looking for technical co-founders with good, semi-validated ideas through https://cofounderslab.com/
It depends on the type of problem you want to solve. If you want to create a lead generation tool, hang out with sales people. If you want to create a marketing tool, then marketers. If you are trying to understand an opportunity/gap within a business process in an industry (e.g. payments, retail, supply chain .. ) then you need to hang with someone with both the knowledge and some ideas in those industries. If you want to create a better DevOps tool (or anything for other engineers) you are probably the expert yourself. Generally speaking the best ideas for professional tools (Engg, design, sales) comes from the professionals themselves . The best ideas for business problems come from industry insiders. The best ideas for consumer businesses can pretty much come from anywhere!
Your self awareness is a really good indicator you will probably wind up making some sensible moves. I'm a little like you in a way that I'm the engineering talent first and the product and business talent second and third, so it's a massively bigger advantage to leverage other people's talent and connections in the areas we are still working on.
How I play this game is building software capital over time in pre-season to be ready for the play-offs when they come. Libraries, frameworks, tooling, processes and all the stuff that doesn't directly provide value but is part of every project you will ever do, if you have nothing to work on, then slowly building that out so that when the time comes and somebody credible and connected socializes an idea to you and you think it has enough merit then you can just execute on it without having to ooh, aah and agonize over javascript frameworks.
The rest is getting in the right rooms with the right people and for that there are meetups and conferences.