How do people find Technical Co-founders?

[Freaksta]

Hey all,

Maybe not the best place to be asking this but thought I'd give it a go.

So you come up with an idea but don't have the technical know how to implement the idea. What are common methods of getting someone onboard to help with the implementation?

1) I learn how to do it myself.
2) Hire a developer to implement the idea, lose out on the feedback loop and could be come costly to reiterate. I'm not against paying someone to do it for me but the product would turn out better if that person was also invested.
3) ???

Essentially have a website that I would like to launch, although not Facebook complex it's not static WordPress simple.

Although I'm trying to teach myself to code, I feel like I have a fair way to go. JavaScript has a lot to learn about!

Has anyone done something like this? Any input appreciated.

 

[cantankerous]

I'd say learn to code. There's 0 barrier to entry except for your time of course. You don't need to code the entire thing yourself, but a functioning Minimum Viable Product (doesn't need bells and whistles, or great UI etc) is a perfect tool to allure both seed capital as well as talent. Everyone has great ideas, winning over great talent is as hard as winning over investors; so if you can prove your idea works, it makes it easier to convince either.

 

[smc]

There are a few routes to find a tech co-founder:

1. Friends and family
2. Go to meetings of the various startup networks - e.g., Startup Grind, etc
3. Frequent tech discussion boards that deal with the skills you need, and strike up conversations

 

[Milano]

Depends on the complexity. Competent developers are insanely expensive. Cheap ones are such a pain to work with due to the language barrier. With my project it ended up being best to go for SaaS wherever possible in order to reduce custom coding where possible. Even with the reduced outside development needed, I still needed to fix up some of the developer's code myself.

 

[Freaksta]

Cheers thanks for the replies. Kinda suspected that it was going to be a pretty varied response.

Ill carry on ticking through the programming course i'm doing at the moment and see where I land. I do have an inherent interest in learning to do it myself but its just conflicted with wanting to get a product out there.

 

[cguy]

Tech people hear this kind of thing a lot and the idea is usually quite underwhelming, yet the proposer is paranoid that they will tell the idea to someone with the right skills and then they will go off and just do it themselves.

90% of the time, it’s about the execution and not the idea, so personally, I would just pay someone to do it if I were you and play to your strengths instead. If you can’t afford to pay someone good, then hopefully the idea is good enough to bring a friend or friend’s friend onboard as a partner.

 

[^^vampire^^]

Tech people hear this kind of thing a lot and the idea is usually quite underwhelming, yet the proposer is paranoid that they will tell the idea to someone with the right skills and then they will go off and just do it themselves.

90% of the time, it’s about the execution and not the idea, so personally, I would just pay someone to do it if I were you and play to your strengths instead. If you can’t afford to pay someone good, then hopefully the idea is good enough to bring a friend or friend’s friend onboard as a partner.

Definitely this. I too fell into the trap on working on many amazing ideas for free and of course none ever panned out. Nowadays I won't even entertain anything unless there is a business plan in place that contains market research and a solid marketing strategy. On top of that I expect to be paid and if I believe in the idea then I may be willing to take shares and be paid at a lower rate. Of course everyone thinks they are on to the next facebook but when they are probed about how they can validate they can't do it. I always say to them that if they are so confident they're on to a winner then they should either be willing to put their own money into the project or get a loan, which they never are willing to do. I'd rather have 5% of something than 50% of nothing and having wasted all my time on it for free. Ideas are just the smallest part of the system.

To answer you question specifically though is you can get someone that's only got a few years exp who will do it for free so that if it doesn't work out you don't pay. You can try get in contact with experienced developers and either pay them or ask for a reduced rate based on shares. If your idea is good then they may be willing to do this. Other option is to either financially back the project yourself or get a loan and pay someone/agency to do it all for you.

I'll reiterate though if you don't do the market research or build a proper marketing strategy don't waste your time. Even before you/someone else writes the first line of code go and ask some players in the market you are targeting if they would realisitcally pay for what you want to build and how much. Also find out what are the minimum features required to get them to pay for it. Once you have that then you have a shopping list of what you want yourself or a dev to code and therefore have a better chance of getting accurate pricing/timing to build that MVP.

Just as a further note. If you plan on doing it yourself you need to have that MVP feature list so you can figure out which tech/languages you need to know in order to get the job done. No point in learning js and jumping into coding only to find out that most clients won't pay for the product unless X is in it which cannot be done in js or is much harder to implement that using something else.

 

[ElixirCoder]

I'd say learn to code. There's 0 barrier to entry except for your time of course. You don't need to code the entire thing yourself, but a functioning Minimum Viable Product (doesn't need bells and whistles, or great UI etc) is a perfect tool to allure both seed capital as well as talent. Everyone has great ideas, winning over great talent is as hard as winning over investors; so if you can prove your idea works, it makes it easier to convince either.

While learning to code is always a good skill to have, I'd say this is poor advice in this instance for the following reasons:

1. It takes time to learn to code and even longer to learn to do code properly.
2. Building a website is not just about coding.
3. MVPs are always rushed and of poor quality when not specced properly for a phased market release, and almost always requires a rewrite later as a result.
4. Sometimes, technically minded people are not business minded, and vice versa. Although I absolutely advocate that everyone should learn to code, I also believe people should migrate to where their strengths would help the business best, especially in startup phase where people tend to try doing everything themselves.
5. There is absolutely no substitute for seasoned, experienced professional developers.
6. It's harder to attract talent that will need to cope with immediate legacy in the form of an MVP.

 

[^^vampire^^]

While learning to code is always a good skill to have, I'd say this is poor advice in this instance for the following reasons:

1. It takes time to learn to code and even longer to learn to do code properly.
2. Building a website is not just about coding.
3. MVPs are always rushed and of poor quality when not specced properly for a phased market release, and almost always requires a rewrite later as a result.
4. Sometimes, technically minded people are not business minded, and vice versa. Although I absolutely advocate that everyone should learn to code, I also believe people should migrate to where their strengths would help the business best, especially in startup phase where people tend to try doing everything themselves.
5. There is absolutely no substitute for seasoned, experienced professional developers.
6. It's harder to attract talent that will need to cope with immediate legacy in the form of an MVP.

I'll also elaborate on this by saying that in my experience people always think an MVP is just the test version and it will be rewritten. 99 times out of 100 businesses building MVPs don't have money to restart and once they get the ball rolling don't understand the value in it and so that MVP becomes the bullshit base of your whole product for the next 10 years. Based on that it's generally better to get an experienced dev, if possible, to help with your MVP. I find nowadays I have an established way that I approach the base of projects that is generally inline with both my experience and best practices which makes it easily scalible which helps when this **** happens. Having someone with a month of dev experience define the entire foundation of the platform generally has "a few" shortcomings". It's not always an option obviously but if it is then it tends to be better.

 

[retromodcoza]

I'm a technical co-founder of 2 products.

RetroNet and ShareFinder.

One ran out of cash it raised and is in limbo. It generates some revenue from sales of hardware that we developed , but not what we hoped for. The other is doing fairly well so far.

Over the course of about 12 years in the software industry , I've received about 25 inquiries into this very thing. Some have been requests to work for equity only , equity + cash and combinations of other incentives. I've accepted about 1.5 of these 25. I would have loved to have done others. But theres only so much you can do with one lifetime , so you pick the best ones you can and move with them.

The above advice given by others is pretty solid. My go to plan for something new would probably be something like (and to echo some of the above):

1. Do market validation and research. Talk to many potential customers about your idea.

2. Do mockups of how the interface would look before you do this. Don't code anything for the moment. There are many apps and tools which allow you to "make" software that doesn't actually work , but gives you a good idea of how it would work. Use one of these tools and iterate through them with customers.

3. Try and estimate how long it would take and how much it would cost to make a product that contains the minimum number of features that people would actually use and pay for.

Break down each component and try to get a cost per hour. Here are some actual dev salaries to help

Developer Salaries: Cape Town vs Johannesburg 2019

OfferZen flips the normal recruitment model around, so instead of applying for jobs, companies send you interview requests with upfront salary.

www.offerzen.com

As a layman , you are going to be many times off the number you come up with. Do not make the mistake of thinking your cost and time estimations will be met. They WONT. Software business don't work by controlling costs. They work by expanding revenue to meet whatever costs are needed.

4. If you are going the co-founder route , have your business together before you start. You need to answer the question of "what do I bring to the table" in a brutally honest way. From industry standards , your idea is roughly equal to what a royalty commission would be. In the tech industry thats 5-10% . That means your idea gets you 5% of the company initially. That's it. The rest is up for grabs. You don't get 50% for an idea. How will you determine how much to give yourself and the tech co-founder?

I like the Slicing pie model to distribute equity.

. I have seen a number of projects fall apart because the technical co-founder wasn't offered proper amounts of equity. In a lot of cases , the technical co-founder is more valuable than the non technical one and therefore gets more equity. You may need to adjust your mindset to be comfortable with this. Don't just try split the business 50/50. Even if the co-founder agrees up front , resentment will set in if their offer isn't fair.

And as others have mentioned : DONT start with a junior developer. You will regret it. If you can't get someone to start with that's fairly senior , don't start. I would say 3-4 yrs experience minimum.

5. Go to a software company and ask if you can work in their environment to learn , even if its for free. You cannot simply rely on the technical cofounder , and there is a lot of understanding of the software world that goes into being a startup CEO

Do all this while still working your day job. Try a slow burn approach for the first 6 months. Don't rush to go all in all at once.

 

[quovadis]

If you have a great idea they will find you but in all seriousness there’s some good advice above my post. My advice is refine the concept or idea and what it is and what it isn’t and how it differs from any similar ideas already in the market. The person you’re ideally looking for is someone who can immediately see the value in what you’ve come up with without convincing.

 

[Freaksta]

Thanks for the detailed replies, seems go be some really solid information here.

The idea I have is something that exists in another country but not in South Africa and which I think can be improved for the local market.

Revenue generation in this case is something that is quite hard to calculate so I do think I will struggle to find someone willing to put in the time (im not unwilling to pay someone in both cash and equity). At this stage I'm probably going to just build it myself as a side project because I don't believe the project is overly complex! I've been fumbling around with Colt Steele udemy courses over the past few months.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

Thanks for the detailed replies, seems go be some really solid information here.

The idea I have is something that exists in another country but not in South Africa and which I think can be improved for the local market.

Revenue generation in this case is something that is quite hard to calculate so I do think I will struggle to find someone willing to put in the time (im not unwilling to pay someone in both cash and equity). At this stage I'm probably going to just build it myself as a side project because I don't believe the project is overly complex! I've been fumbling around with Colt Steele udemy courses over the past few months.

It might be easier to rather become a sole agent/distributor for the product/service from the other country, as im assuming you're doing this for profit reasons and not from the goodness of your heart Ex Gratia. You get access to their resources and implementation (with some localisation for the target market courtesy of your input at a certain price), while they get an opportunity for market expansion with minimal capital expenditure. Of course you're carrying some business risk and lower profit share, but you have a better chance of execution and faster time to market than doing this DIY.

 

[rorz0r]

While learning to code is always a good skill to have, I'd say this is poor advice in this instance for the following reasons:

1. It takes time to learn to code and even longer to learn to do code properly.
2. Building a website is not just about coding.
3. MVPs are always rushed and of poor quality when not specced properly for a phased market release, and almost always requires a rewrite later as a result.
4. Sometimes, technically minded people are not business minded, and vice versa. Although I absolutely advocate that everyone should learn to code, I also believe people should migrate to where their strengths would help the business best, especially in startup phase where people tend to try doing everything themselves.
5. There is absolutely no substitute for seasoned, experienced professional developers.
6. It's harder to attract talent that will need to cope with immediate legacy in the form of an MVP.

I would fully agree with this and what retromodcoza said. It's a **** idea to learn to build it yourself, because it all likelihood it will be a load of garbage as it will basically be your first project. The insight from a more experienced developer would be invaluable. Of course it helps if you have some friends in the space etc... Doing something yourself is good for showing that you're serious and willing to put in the effort.

As for equity discussions about 5% sounds about right for "the big idea". The hardest question after that is answering what you can bring to the table. Most people with big ideas are just "regular Joe's" so can't bring magical CEO skills, a network of contacts, lots of funding, a pool of resources, etc. There's typically plenty of stuff to be done that a developer wouldn't be interested in doing, from doing company admin/accounting stuff, coming up with designs for user interfaces, process flows, wording, etc to phoning potential customers, managing marketing across social media, paid advertising, etc. It's typical of most startups that the first few employees are generalists anyway. If the split ends up around 50/50 then I guess you'd have to at least try match the value a dev brings to the table even if it's made up of a lot of "menial" things.