How do you find a 'Technical Co-Founder'?
Hi, I am wondering if anyone has any advice on how I could go about finding a business partner with a technical background, often referred to in these circles as the Technical Co-Founder.
I have wanted to start a business for about 6 years now (writing and seeing how long it's been is shocking) but I haven't been able to move forward with any of my ideas, for one reason or another. I feel mainly it's because I am not a developer and most of my ideas involve tech (apps, websites, blockchain). So I am curious to know, are there techy people out there looking for non-techy people to start a business with? I don't have a specific, validated idea I would want to pitch but the desire the opportunity to exchange ideas and see if I could partner up with someone (pursuing their ideas or mine).
If anyone here has managed to achieve this, or has any thoughts on what I could do/where I could go, I'd be very interested to hear from you. Thanks!
I'm a technical person, and here's what I would suggest based on my experience.
Don't right away start looking for a co-founder. Hire someone on a freelance basis to work on your idea. Of course, you will need capital for that. If you do not have much money, try to reduce the scope to the level that is affordable to you and launchable.
This will help you understand if your frequencies are matching or not. This is more like dating before getting married.
Once you have launched the product and started getting traction, you will easily be able to approach the other person if they would like to join you as a partner. By now, he/she also knows what it is like working with you and whether they want the product.
It's a win-win for both parties.
Plus one on this approach!
I am currently working on my second startup. The first time around, I spent a bunch of money on development (after looking for a technical co-founder for months and months and not finding one). I made LOTS of mistakes with that startup, and ultimately it failed, BUT the silver lining was that two of the devs I'd hired liked working with me enough that when I had an idea for the second startup, they ultimately decided to join me as co-founders.
Looking back, I feel like I was lucky that I didn't partner up with a complete stranger. Our journey trying to get a product built and off the ground has already been long, and I know I'd feel very differently about it if I didn't REALLY LIKE the people I'm working with. We meet on evenings, early mornings, and weekends, because we're all still doing this on the side, and you gotta like those faces you see on the video call when you're having a meeting instead of winding down after a long day of work!
Hi @WorkWithDitto thanks for sharing your experience. So, how did you go about hiring the developers that worked on your first project? I imagine you must have worked quite closely with them during that time in order to get to know them?
I did. I got super lucky... I randomly learned about a local dev shop that took on one fixed price project every summer and put an intern on the project for training purposes. So I knew, going in, that my project was potentially going to move a little slower than their normal work, but it was cheaper, so that was ok with me. The guys were great - they taught me so much, as I was really trying to learn how I could support them and clear the way for the dev work. I just tried to be as helpful as I could, and I guess they saw that and appreciated it.
The only real advice I can offer is just to make it clear that you're rolling up your sleeves to make it happen, not just sitting on the sidelines / trying to find a co-founder to do all of the important work. Also, talk to lots of people -- this is my LEAST favorite part of entrepreneurship, honestly, but time and time again I've had "random" conversations that have proven to be incredibly helpful and really moved my efforts forward.
Hi there. Thanks for your input. To clarify, are you suggesting to hire someone on a freelance basis with a view to then partnering with that same freelancer? Thanks
Yes.
First of all you should ask yourself what skills you bring to the table. Everybody has ideas, so that's not really a skill.
If you say you know how to design products, what is your background in that? Designing products is not easy at all, and require a lot of tradeoffs. I met plenty of people that thought they were excellent product designers, but never actually made one.
So again, you have to be able to offer more in a partnerships than ideas. Make sure you clear out what, and be able to convince your technical counterpart in that.
This is something that I think about a lot because I wouldn't say I have a speciality that is as obvious as say, Marketing, Sales or Design. Not to say than anyone can't learn those skills. But for someone looking too partner up I guess they are looking for skills/experiences they don't personally have.
I would say that... you don't. Trust the power of serendipity instead. That's how the best stories can start.
Hi Alan,
I am a Software Architect myself and get asked time and time again to join startup and I wanted to share with you the main reason why my answer is always no, or why I am on the defensive side.
Unfortunately what I realised with non tech founder, is that they usually miss-judge how much effort is required for a given task or project and make very bad assumption on this.
As the others said, hire a freelancer could really help you define if your idea is sound and achievable..
I had time and time again conversations with people wanting to recreate eBay or twitter or Google, as "how hard can it be to create a input field with a button".. :)
Hi @Zeli880 thanks for sharing your view. What would make you want to go in with a partner on a project out of interest? Or do you generally not want to work in a start-up of your own? Thanks
Do not get me wrong, I am always up for projects.
Usually I prefer 'tech ideas' that require a software of some sort, and because of this I usually like to partner up with people that understand at least some of the technicalities of the project.
Another point is that I avoid sales pitch that start with ' I have an idea that will make us lots of money'. I am of the opinion that if you start the idea with money as the forefront, the wrong decision will be made on the way and the project should actually start from passion.
This is my personal experience as I really do not like to have to explain myself to someone over and over why something cannot be done.. or why it is hard... Lol
I'm a dev, I'm looking for someone that will bring the marketing and the sales since that's something I'm not comfortable doing. I worked with a guy in the past and he had lots of great connections so that worked, however I found out the project worked because of my reputation and he did nothing relevant besides building the website.
Don't hire someone directly for the CTO role, if he doesn't work out, your whole product journey will turn into pain, instead hire any good freelancer, of course they will charge you more if you don't like their work then move to the next one.
Even if you don't know the code, have some consultation call with someone experienced and see what your product actually need.
Because sometimes you are thinking of your product like Google but it's not Google, it's actually a simple tool which can be build in few weeks only.
Don't think of building a product, create a MVP , once you have users and you are sure that it gonna work then spend some real money on it
Thanks @SparrowHack your advice reflects what some others have suggested, which is to perhaps work with someone on a temporary, freelance basis first and go from there. That sounds more straight forward I guess.
Yeah, that's the best way
There are some places you can go to look for co-founders like cofounder hub (https://founderhub.io/cofoundrr), or Co-Founder matching from YC's Startup School.
I am a technical founder and a solo founder. I feel that from my experiences technical founders often times team up with technical founders, and so it is hard for non-technical people to look for technical co-founders. But there I know 2 places above you can try out to look for technical co-founders.
Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, it seems that there are some very talented technical people out there who can also do the other stuff. I guess you need to bring something to the partnership if you are a non-technical person (besides money).
Hi , I'm a full-stack dev looking for a partnership
Let's connect via Email [email protected]
Here is my Stack
Full Stack development of web & mobile applications.
Design of information systems.
Application monitoring, support, and maintenance
Technologies used :
-Back End: PHP (Laravel), Java (Spring Boot), and ASP.NET Core MVC.
Front End: Angular and VueJs.
Mobile: Flutter and Ionic.
Database: MySql, SQL Server, Oracle, and MongoDB Cloud: Parse, Amazon, and Firebase
Thanks @urinive Maybe I'll reach out to you via email then.