Should I look for a technical co-founder?
I keep wondering if I should prioritize finding a technical co-founder, or give up on the idea. It feels soooo cliché to even advertise that you're looking for a technical co-founder online, and I'm beginning to wonder if sites like CoFoundersLab actually attract quality people. What do you think? Is it worth to keep searching?
I have an ok MVP built, but it needs work, and I either need to raise money to hire a good freelancer or CTO (which seems tough since raising money without a tech team in place sounds dubious) or find a technical co-founder (which also seems tough). Not trying to complain, because hard things are hard, and I wish I could stop everything I'm doing and learn web development myself. Just wondering what the likelihood of finding a good partnership actually is and whether seasoned engs just cringe when they hear people looking for a technical co-founder.
Oh by the way, if you're interested in working with me, hit me up! I'm looking for a technical co-founder. :) www.tryprism.co
I worked as an Interim-CTO for "people like you" and my recommendation is that you are doing amazing without a technical co-founder. The site looks amazing and as far as I tested the product even works. What you need now is traffic, paying customers, a business model, and so on. If you are able to generate revenue with this page, then you can also afford to pay for further improvements.
Hi @WernerH, thanks! I appreciate that. We do have traffic. I have lots of user feedback to work on and the product has a lot of bugs. The basic concept works, most of the time..., but sometimes bookmarks don't load, you can't really search and discover anyone else yet, there's no public view making sharing boards as resources not as easy, making growth not as great. My goal is to keep the product free and follow Pinterest's model with monetizing with ads. SO I'm honestly not trying to be an Indie Hacker because I don't have immediate plans to charge. Although I've considered charging for private boards. But my concern is since I want it to be more of a social network that charging will dissuade.
My other sort of concern is around raising money without a technical partner. Or at the very least a team. Also I've been doing this on the side and am not full time on it yet. So lots of fun challenges to solve. :)
Alternate option is to get a Technical Advisor with good experience in industry. The person may be working on part-time basis and it is upto you how you want to compensate - Equity or Salary or both, till you find a full time CTO/Tech Co-founder. You may set your expectations on what do you require and may help you in pitching technical vision for future for your investment.
Hi Anna,
Sure it would be great to have a technical co-founder, but you don’t need one yet.
You can work to your advantages by spending more time talking to your target market and really understanding them and solving their problems.
Make a small group of people love your product not because it’s such a tech wonder but because it helps them with specific problems they have.
Focus on that and whenever you need to get something technical done that you really cant do, find someone to help you on that specific part only.
Over time what will happen is:
You will have a group of users that love your product because you took time to hear them out
You will have worked with some developers on some tasks, and that’s where you could have your pool of potential tech co-founders or hires
Because all you really need is to build a product that has traction and then you can start securing a small investment, which makes working with more developers easier — on your way to find a technical co-founder.
Yes sure a lot of investors will not like the idea there is no tech person on board, but will that really matter if you have a product people love and domain knowledge in solving this problem your product solves? Nope, a smart investor will know that money can buy tech, but it can’t buy product/market fit.
Hope I am making sense here!
All the best!
Hi WebMedic, thanks for that take! I sort of agree. I have some traction and a small number of users who really like the product. I guess I keep wondering how much traction is enough traction to raise.
Hi.
I think you need either a good connection or a strong offering to attract a good CTO.
Given your FB background any CTO connections there? Friends-of-friends/colleagues-of-colleagues? Can you use LinkedIn (or FB) to get suggestions?
Does your site work? If it does then get users. Afterwards get some more users. If you can demonstrate good interest/traction then likely to attract someone credible who will take it as seriously as you do.
If no CTO bites but users do and you convert them to revenue then tell all the CTO's they missed their chance and pay for tech work as you need it.
Best of luck!
Ha, thanks!
Hi Anna,
I've had this question for more than a year now. But the more I think about it, the more I think I should get a technical co-founder because I need to be quick in responding to whatever happens in my business concerning customers, opportunities, or even risks that may arise.
Until now I still haven't found "the technical co-founder", but I made a desion almost a year ago that I LOVE buidling so I started learning web development (btw my background is in finance and accounting, but I had some experience with Java programming in high school and university but the last time I used it for a university course back in 2008 and SO much has changed from back then, but once you learn one programming language it's not difficult to move onto another one).
In my humble opinion, I think you should look for a technical co-founder, but the best advice is that they have to be bought into the product and vision of the company and they LOVE the product because a startup needs years of hard and smart work put into it.
If you want to know what resources I used to start my web development path, I'm happy to share it with you.
I wish you all the best!
Thanks! I’d be happy to hear what resources you found useful to start learning code. My mvp is built in Python and React.
Hi Anna,
You're welcome!
I would suggest you use the below (either separately or it might be better to do the common things from them together, such as, HTML first from all the below resources before going onto a new topic):
The Odin Project (free)
Free Code Camp (free)
General Assembly's Dash (free) is great too.
Mozilla (free)
Codecademy
If you have more questions, please ask.
Thanks!
You're welcome!
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
This comment was deleted 6 years ago
The basic concept works, most of the time..., but sometimes bookmarks don't load which really breaks the experience, you can't really search and discover anyone else yet, there's no public view making sharing boards as resources not as easy, making growth not as great (this was user feedback from someone wanting to share with their audience which is a big part of the value of the product). Also, we need a feed. My goal is to keep the product free and follow Pinterest's model and monetize with ads. So the goal is to raise money. I've been trying to figure out whether I should try to find a technical partner or just hire a freelancer to do some work. I'm leaning toward the latter, unless I can find someone who really loves the product and sees the long term vision.
Looks like you need to get your site tested. Hire a QA agency and get your site verified for functional and non-functional areas. All bookmarks and other teething issues may get resolved.