5 Proven Tips for Finding Technical Co-founders

Been seeing a lot of posts here from non-technical co-founders on how to find technical co-founders and engineering talent to make their idea a reality. Hence, I thought it would be pertinent to share some insights from 6+ years of company building.

Having gone through the gruelling, months-long process of co-founder matching and idea validation myself, here are the five actionable steps I would take to find my ideal technical co-founder:

1. Build in your zone of excellence

Instead of copying trends (generative AI, anyone?), try to double down on an idea or opportunity in which you're a subject matter expert. For instance, have experience working in high-frequency trading? Oil and gas for 10 years?

Building in areas of expertise will not only give you an edge, but it'll assure technical co-founders with a higher degree of conviction on your success probability.

When reaching out to potential co-founders, make sure you demonstrate how and why you're a subject matter expert. You can achieve this by clearly articulating the pain point, growth opportunity, and how your experience/network makes you most apt to capitalize on it.

2. Create an interactive prototype

Taking a few hours to build out a prototype demonstrates some serious initiative and will set you apart from 99% of your competition.

Creating an interactive prototype can be beneficial for two reasons:

1. It forces you to think deeply about the benefits, features, and workflow of your product beyond just the macro idea;
2. It illustrates your hypothesis in action and the opportunity space more clearly than just words, sketches, or diagrams;

Beyond searching for co-founders, a prototype will help you quickly validate (and invalidate) your assumptions quickly with prospective customers - helping you learn and pivot quickly.

This feedback can then be parlayed to create a greater sense of clarity on your future product roadmap, which can then be shared to create excitement and vision for your engineering counterparts. If you're looking for easy tools to set this up, I'd recommend using Supademo (disclaimer, it's my startup) and Figma.

To illustrate, reference this post's header photo, where you'll see an example from Brian Armstrong (founder of Coinbase). Notice how he used steps 1–3 from this article to garner interest from technical co-founders:

1. Brian is clearly building in his zone of excellence - he has experience and insights into the payment space and explains why it's less than ideal;
2. Brian has included a prototype to better illustrate the solution he wants to deliver;
3. Brian has built up some semblance of traction - including market research, acceptance from an accelerator, and a prototype.

3. Generate traction

There's no way around this one. You're creating a startup to generate revenue and customers. So it makes sense to prioritize this early and often, even before settling on a co-founder.

As a non-technical co-founder, your aim is to generate as much momentum as possible, in the form of customer interviews, signups, beta customers, letters of intent (LOIs), or commitments for trial usage.
Simply jot down everything you can do as a non-technical founder that will move the needle forward for your idea. Execute as many of these as possible and present outcomes to potential technical co-founders during your search.

5. Reduce the perception of commitment

As mentioned earlier, technical co-founders are constantly inundated with requests and opportunities from startups, investors, and recruiters.

Make it easy for them to commit by starting with an informal relationship, assuring them that the partnership is a non-binding, non-exclusive agreement to start off.

Think of this opportunity as a way to build a community of smart, forward-thinking potential founders, instead of forcing conformity from the start.

In practice, this could be starting with a small brainstorming session (i.e. a commitment of 1-hour meetings weekly) that can be used to audition your business skills, competency, and execution. Remember - you're effectively a recruiter at this stage, so continue to repeat steps 1–4 from this article to gain traction, build trust, and de-risk the opportunity for your technical co-founder.

Where can we learn more about early-stage startups?

I'm active on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Here's Supademo, the startup I'm currently building.

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