Ask IH: How can I find developers to help develop my app?

Think about it from their perspective. Talented developers have plenty of other options, and your goal is to make them an offer that's better than those other options. Like everything else in life, their decision will come down to costs vs benefits. It may be easier to think of it in terms of friction vs motivation.

Motivation: What's in it for them? What are you bringing to the table that's so valuable? Interesting work? Something worthwhile to put on their resume? Money? A serious shot at financial success? Have you done a bunch of customer and market research and found a winner that they would be lucky to be a part of? Etc. People aren't going to do things that they don't have good reason to do, and it's up to you to provide them with those reasons.

Friction: How hard is it for them to go along with what you're proposing? How much work do they have to do to assess whether or not this is a good opportunity? How much research do they need to conduct? How much paperwork do they need to fill out? How much uncertainty will they need to deal with? How many non-developer tasks are you expecting them to handle? Etc. People will say no to even good opportunities if it's going to take a monumental amount of work on their part.

Developers are all over the place. They're easy to find, but hard to persuade. If you can provide them excellent benefits and minimal costs, and you can communicate this well, then people will join you. Otherwise, why would they?

By "principle stakeholders," I'm assuming you're implying that there's no money changing hands. In this case, the best way to find developers is to share as much information about your project, why it needs to exist, how you know it needs to exist, and what you're bringing to the table.

Almost every developer receive some kind of offer from "idea" people.
I have received such offers many times, back then I did a mistake and accepted one of them and worked on the project for a while. We had revenue but somehow I earned so little but CEO spent almost all revenue for traveling and "marketing".

My lesson from this was that I would agree to work on the idea if the person who is offering has done a good amount job before asking me to join such as marketing research based on real data, knows what he is doing and offers equity or salary. And most important everything must be on paper, no promise.

Have more than an idea. Put in some serious customer development work to figure out what the market for the product is and what pain points it actually solves for real people. Talk to a lot of people first. Don't just ask them to build it and see it they will come. If you do that you will have an easier time and a better experience as a founding team.

A little tangential, but might still help you - I suggest paying a developer cash money. The main reason is it forces you to REALLY believe in your idea. Anybody can find a dev and give away half the equity, but little to no cash, and build something no one wants and only lose time. I see it happen all the time... But as soon as you have to pull out your own wallet, you'll start thinking about the things that matter - is this something people actually want? Have I done 20 customer interviews to validate the idea? How big is the market? Is it solving a real problem? Are people willing to pay me for this? How much? Dev tells me this feature is going to take 20 hours - is that worth 20 * Y/hr you are paying her? You'll approach everything differently when your money is on the line. The stress that potentially losing your own money adds can be super helpful.

The easiest way to get developers working on your project? Pay them. You can often find developers who won’t ask for crazy amounts of money, either because they’re just starting out or they like your project or you. I know a few in that category who are actively looking for projects, for example. But it’s good to pay the people you recruit to work for you, if you can. That doesn’t just apply to developers.

I hate been offered just an idea as a developer. The reason is simple, most of them wanted me to work for free, for their ideas. Hello, who doesn't have ideas? Ideas are cheap, and what makes you think that developer can't think of ideas? I suggest just go freelancer to find a developer, develop a MVP, then find your technical cofounder at later stage.

Cash.

I have a day job that pays me roughly $35/hr. If I quote my time to develop side projects for other people, I triple that.

Make a serious offer and you will get serious professionals interested.

Chances are, your idea isn't any better than the thousands of others out there pitching ideas. Good developers get asked at least a couple times per day to work for someone for no money. It's a shitty offer that no one wants.

If you want the best people then you have to pay them, else you end up with people who aren't good enough to be getting paid to do what they do.

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