Why Should I Work On Your Idea

Hello there! This will be a little insight from a developer's perspective on this topic. I'm not going to tell you where to find a technical co-founder. My goal here is just to help you have a better chance of convincing a dev to join you.

I will assume that you have no money to "hire" your technical co-founder and you're in the initial or idea stage of your business.

We all have ideas. I'm a developer because I had so many things I wanted to build since I was a kid and being a software developer was just what I needed. Felt like having a superpower.

When you finally become a developer and want to start working on your ideas, you suddenly realize that you need money and that means that you need to go work for someone. You'll work on someone else's project, in exchange for money.

You're hoping that one day you'll have the freedom to work full time on your own projects.

Many times in your life as a dev you receive requests that go something along the lines of:

"Hey, I have an idea for an app (placeholder app idea here). We should partner up! This will be huge! We will be rich for sure"

Now, imagine this person is you, even if these are not the words or approach you would use. Now, here's the deal, unless I know exactly what's the value you'll bring to the table other than your idea, I will always hear those exact words regardless of what you say.

What a prospect technical co-founder wants to know is:

• What will this person do every day as I work really hard on their idea?
• Why should I work on this person's idea instead of my own?
• Do I even care about this idea?
• If I forget about this person and go build it myself, will it change anything?
• Why should I trust this person?

If your initial approach answers these questions from the get-go, you'll have a higher chance of convincing said dev to join you.

You're basically asking someone to marry you so, treat it as the big deal that it is.

Ideally, you've already started working on your project, in which case your chances of convincing a dev are exponentially higher. Maybe you're using no-code tools to build a prototype. You did an initial test on the market and proved that there's a need for what you're building.

If you don't have much to show for, unless you have a good track record, it'll be really hard, to say the least.

If you don't have a track record, build one. Many self-taught devs like myself had to do this when looking for jobs. I actually built a portfolio of projects to show employers that I was capable. I went through technical interviews. I did the hard work and proved myself.

Nobody would take me for my claims of being good, sadly! 😂

Helping someone with their project is a great way to build your track record. Either paid or unpaid, you can bring them a real value proposition like: Hey I can help you go from a to b in x time. This is how I'll do it and this is what I ask in return.

Build a portfolio of your work. And let me emphasize, "work" and not "Hey look at my book of ideas" because ideas are worthless without execution and nothing turns devs down more than an "idea person".

Even failed executions are valid, unless you made a big exit you're probably working on your first idea or your 1000th project after 999 failures.

I know I am at least. No shame in that! Show your battle scars!

Many of these things apply also to people looking to join someone else's project, regardless of they being technical or not.

Assure me that you'll fight with me, shoulder to shoulder. Assure me that you'll take a punch for me and not just send me to fight your battles. Ultimately, I want to know that we'll triumph together or we'll die together with honor.