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Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen

92 points by coderdude 16y ago

knodi 16y ago
The sad thing is that all these co-founders try to pass them selfs off as tech guy but in reality they just bad middle management at best.
infoarbitrage 16y ago
bottom line: finding great partners of any stripe is tough. it goes beyond mere competency to chemistry, empathy and passion. a bad choice and it sinks the business and leaves a trail of tears. a good choice and, assuming a truly good idea, the potential is hard to quantify. social intelligence and patience on both sides is essential for success. a good match on paper does not necessarily make for one in the real world. it's similar to finding a good investment: personal recommendations, e.g., an effective reputation filter, help winnow down the possibilities immeasurably. but the only thing that matters if whether coder and business dude click. everything else is noise.
mixmax 16y ago
The three things listed (money, promise of money and connections) are exactly what a business founder should be able to deliver. Along with customers. Paying customers. Before you launch the product. If he (or she) can't deliver that, then you've found the business equivalent of a scriptkiddie that promises a business person he can build the next Google from a wordpress install. People that think they are good at business is as common as people that think they can hack because they installed wordpress on a shared host. Just like there aren't that many great hackers there aren't that many great business people. If you find one you'll know right away because he comes with either money or customers. Great business people are worth their weight in gold. Just like great hackers. Unfortunately the two don't often meet.
- lars512 16y ago
  Before customers even, business founders can offer the credible promise of customers. The credibility comes from some sort of market validation. They should be able to convince you that a good execution will actually get traction, and help discover discover early that product X is not what people need/will pay for, but close variant Y is what should be focused on instead. In my very limited experience, non-technical partners have vaguely done this, but haven't clearly communicated what they're doing or how it contributes value. I think they imagine that I share their background, and automatically understand and value their actions. With no shared background, poor communication, and only a short relationship with them so far, the trust isn't there to really value their work. My mistake has been looking forward too much to what a product will be, and thus aiming for more than is reasonable in a small, fixed timespan. This inevitably means I can't achieve what I aim for without investing significantly more of my time than the non-technical partner, which makes me feel like I'm getting a bad deal. I have to learn to aim more minimally, and estimate more generously. It seems that both types of founders need to communicate a lot, and invest more in the personal relationships outside the venture. All that communication will build the trust which eventually makes things flow well and happen efficiently.
- ezrider4428 16y ago
  Basically you have listed a VC/Angel Investor here. As i mentioned in my reply a business (not an idea) is only 1 part technical excellence and 10 parts business excellence.
il 16y ago
Theere's obviously a lot of parasitic business "idea guys" who don't know about technology this article is talking about. At the same time, there's a lot of business guys who can bring real, tangible value in terms of strategy, customer acquisition methods, marketing, finances, etc. I think there'a huge misconception that all it takes to build a company is a couple hackers who can build a product. Building the product is NOT the hard part(except the rare case where there are real technical challenges). Building a business is the hard part. If you really think about it, most startups don't fail because their code isn't good enough. They fail because the founders are absorbed in engineering and neglect the business parts like marketing, monetizing, and so on. I'm kind of on both sides, as a hacker who's better at the business/marketing elements, so I have perspective into attitudes on both sides. I may be taking a risk making this comment on Hacker News, but I think in some places, it's actually coders who are a dime a dozen. People who can actually build and grow a business are much harder to find.
- kranner 16y ago
  I live in India and from my perspective, everybody is a dime a dozen, until they think hard and work hard to distinguish themselves.
  - klbarry 16y ago
    Even in NYC, this is true. The majority of coders are not the mythical hackers of the valley, just as most businessmen aren't amazing. Just partner with people who work hard and are great, as there's enough work to go around in a start-up.
    - kranner 16y ago
      Sure but, to clarify, by India I meant the sheer population figures of any occupation or other demographic. It's true everywhere if you're competing online, but here we're used to physically seeing it.
    - sandipagr 16y ago
      I dont understand why coders have to be mythical hackers. Isn't all it matters is if you can get the shit done? The reason I am saying this is cause lot of times there are comments that for some reason give "hackers" a higher credibility when coders and hackers are essentially same here. Of course there are projects that require real hacking to complete the job, but most of the times a normal coder can do it as well. Maybe I don't understand the difference.
patio11 16y ago
I get approached from time to time by people who think I'd be the perfect person for implementing their Big Idea. (That should be red flag number one, since if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying programmers.) Almost universally: 1) They want full-time effort out of me (often, in the exploitative sense of "full-time"), but they're not full-time on the project themselves. 2) There is zero evidence that they have produced a deliverable for the project. Not even a Powerpoint deck or a napkin. 3) They have no conception of what the BATNA for a talented engineer sounds like. My way to discourage them quickly without being impolite is to quote my consulting rate, which typically causes sputtering.
- ced 16y ago
  if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying programmers. Aren't you underestimating yourself? Most businesses don't need Knuths. They need "smart & gets things done". By my reckoning, you're way ahead of the average HNer (and myself) at this game.
  - bconway 16y ago
    Most businesses don't need Knuths. They need "smart & gets things done". This can't be said enough. I so often see people get caught up on which technology, framework, or paradigm is right for a given idea (or worse, constantly revise them) that they get slowed down dramatically, or in extreme cases, deadlocked. I do it myself from time to time. Start by grinding something out and going from there.
  - mahmud 16y ago
    FWIW, I think Patrick has shown far more business sense than actual programming. If I were to hire him, I would make sure he stays from actual coding as much as possible; that would be a waste of his talents and our time. Not "underestimating" his coding skills, it's just that his business sense far eclipses anything else he might be good at: programming, Japanese language, or competitive Polka dancing.
cottsak 16y ago
"Business Cofounders" in the HN context implies that these people should be of real value. Perhaps the title should have been "<fake;pseudo;micky-mouse>Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen".
d_r 16y ago
I'm a software engineer. After spending a few years in Silicon Valley, I have also have met many "business people" who'd pitch me their great idea and try to recruit me. Now here is the tough question (for engineers): yes, we have the superior ability to execute any idea because we can code. But are we actually going to? This might be generalizing, but most fellow engineers I met prefer working for a stable paycheck -or- prefer hacking a prototype project that never ships. And pet projects started by the above mentioned people (without that business person who pushes them) never get to see the world -- even if the prototype website, iPhone app, etc. is finished, they spend no effort on marketing and give up when no users come. Again, this is generalizing. There are many examples of hackers who have built very successful ventures (Google, Facebook, et cetera.) But my general observation makes me sad -- many engineers just don't seem to make good founders. What can be done in the engineering community to make hackers more "business-minded" or "shipping-minded," so to say?
- extension 16y ago
  As with writing code, just get your hands dirty. Once you start making things happen (making money) you'll get interested quick.
larsberg 16y ago
To the list of things business cofounders could bring, I would also add "deep domain knowledge." For example, if it's a site on selling foos to wumpats, you'd better have spent all of your years before bschool in either the foo industry, working for wumpats, or hopefully some of both. As a tip, though, I usually just ask bschooler-types a few basic questions like 1) how many foos are bought today 2) how do wumpats make their purchasing cycle (i.e. enterprise, individual, etc.) 3) who are the existing competitors in this space... Most bschoolers, despite having these questions drilled into them over and over during their 60k/year schooling, don't bother doing the legwork to investigate them before looking for a "technical cofounder."
- ultrasaurus 16y ago
  I think that's a good point. So many business decisions are made on gut feeling, and then we make a spreadsheet of wumpats sales to back up our gut. If all someone brings to the table is "I think this will work" that's essentially nothing.
cantbecool 16y ago
Sounds like the relationship between Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
ryanlchan 16y ago
I'm always surprised by the hard lines people draw between technical and business cofounders. 'Technical founders' mock the business side's naivite and reject the notion that any less than 50% of the work in building a business is programming. 'Business founders' think they have all the right stuff and see 16 year olds building facemash or yousquare, then assume anyone can program with a book and an afternoon. Truth is, if you can slot yourself into one of these classifications that easily you're probably not going to be a very good startup cofounder. A startup requires people to wear lots of different hats, with some being in the technical side and others being on the business side. While normal people, aka business and technical founders, can wear one, maybe two hats at a time, start up founders need to be 12 headed hydras. I'm not saying that there's no specialization on a startup team; it's necessary. But how will your programming ninja respond when an investor asks about how your branding fits the specific niche you're targeting? Or what will the business dude say when questioned about what stack you're going to deploy on? Maybe it's time we stopped thinking about business/technical cofounders and started evaluating people as startup cofounders.
jlees 16y ago
My issue with both of the articles, true though they are, is they don't represent the partnership model that most often succeeds: you know, people who are actually friends, who work together and trust each other. The blind "hello, please believe in me" model seems commonly believed in, but I've yet to hear of tangible cases where it actually worked. (business person recruiting techie at an event).
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
alexdmoore 16y ago
Great points on both sides. I think a top in the world business person is as helpful for a company as a top engineer, but this doesn't have to be a co-founder. It can an advisor or later hire that has a transformative effect on a business. Also I would point out consumer internet business people might not be able to have the same impact as a top bd person for an enterprise software company as ES companies have greater needs on building real sales organizations while consumer internet relies on marketing a social phenomena.
ezrider4428 16y ago
Disclaimer: I have not read all the comments below. I was too enraged by this post. Lets get this out of the way. IF YOU WANT TO GET A SALARY GO WORK FOR AN ESTABLISHED BUSINESS. This post is so short-sighted that if Joshua doesn't already have glasses he should buy a pair. I am a little surprised that someone that runs a business actually posted this. Joshua are you aware of all the activities that actually go on in a business? I can enlighten you: - Sales - Marketing - Partnerships - Legal - Design - Customer Service - Business Strategy and yes - Development The reason this post is short-sighted is that you are forgetting about what ACTUALLY makes a business (not an idea) successful. OPERATIONAL PERFECTION Some supporting evidence is looking at a business plan or even a pitch deck, how many slides are dedicated to the technical aspect? 1 of 10. "What you business guys should be thinking about is this: what am I bringing to this business?" THIS IS A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE IN EVERY BUSINESS. If you do not directly contribute to the success of the business then you are not valuable it doesn't matter if you have technical skills or business development skills. I am not a developer! I said it, i'm proud of it and i never want to be a developer. I could never be successful as a developer and i would be doing my business an injustice if i tried to code anything more then a simple webpage. Startups need to be higly efficent in the way they do work, each of the team members need to be very focused on what is important and what they are good at. Yes, a smart developer can learn to sell and a smart business development person can learn to code, but WHY would do that business development and technical development are two very different skill-sets.
- ezrider4428 16y ago
  Maybe you should refer some of the "idea junkies" to this guy http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608315 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608315

92 points by coderdude 16y ago

knodi 16y ago

The sad thing is that all these co-founders try to pass them selfs off as tech guy but in reality they just bad middle management at best.

infoarbitrage 16y ago

bottom line: finding great partners of any stripe is tough. it goes beyond mere competency to chemistry, empathy and passion. a bad choice and it sinks the business and leaves a trail of tears. a good choice and, assuming a truly good idea, the potential is hard to quantify. social intelligence and patience on both sides is essential for success. a good match on paper does not necessarily make for one in the real world. it's similar to finding a good investment: personal recommendations, e.g., an effective reputation filter, help winnow down the possibilities immeasurably. but the only thing that matters if whether coder and business dude click. everything else is noise.

mixmax 16y ago

The three things listed (money, promise of money and connections) are exactly what a business founder should be able to deliver. Along with customers. Paying customers. Before you launch the product. If he (or she) can't deliver that, then you've found the business equivalent of a scriptkiddie that promises a business person he can build the next Google from a wordpress install. People that think they are good at business is as common as people that think they can hack because they installed wordpress on a shared host. Just like there aren't that many great hackers there aren't that many great business people. If you find one you'll know right away because he comes with either money or customers. Great business people are worth their weight in gold. Just like great hackers. Unfortunately the two don't often meet.

lars512 16y ago
Before customers even, business founders can offer the credible promise of customers. The credibility comes from some sort of market validation. They should be able to convince you that a good execution will actually get traction, and help discover discover early that product X is not what people need/will pay for, but close variant Y is what should be focused on instead. In my very limited experience, non-technical partners have vaguely done this, but haven't clearly communicated what they're doing or how it contributes value. I think they imagine that I share their background, and automatically understand and value their actions. With no shared background, poor communication, and only a short relationship with them so far, the trust isn't there to really value their work. My mistake has been looking forward too much to what a product will be, and thus aiming for more than is reasonable in a small, fixed timespan. This inevitably means I can't achieve what I aim for without investing significantly more of my time than the non-technical partner, which makes me feel like I'm getting a bad deal. I have to learn to aim more minimally, and estimate more generously. It seems that both types of founders need to communicate a lot, and invest more in the personal relationships outside the venture. All that communication will build the trust which eventually makes things flow well and happen efficiently.
ezrider4428 16y ago
Basically you have listed a VC/Angel Investor here. As i mentioned in my reply a business (not an idea) is only 1 part technical excellence and 10 parts business excellence.

il 16y ago

Theere's obviously a lot of parasitic business "idea guys" who don't know about technology this article is talking about. At the same time, there's a lot of business guys who can bring real, tangible value in terms of strategy, customer acquisition methods, marketing, finances, etc. I think there'a huge misconception that all it takes to build a company is a couple hackers who can build a product. Building the product is NOT the hard part(except the rare case where there are real technical challenges). Building a business is the hard part. If you really think about it, most startups don't fail because their code isn't good enough. They fail because the founders are absorbed in engineering and neglect the business parts like marketing, monetizing, and so on. I'm kind of on both sides, as a hacker who's better at the business/marketing elements, so I have perspective into attitudes on both sides. I may be taking a risk making this comment on Hacker News, but I think in some places, it's actually coders who are a dime a dozen. People who can actually build and grow a business are much harder to find.

kranner 16y ago
I live in India and from my perspective, everybody is a dime a dozen, until they think hard and work hard to distinguish themselves.
- klbarry 16y ago
  Even in NYC, this is true. The majority of coders are not the mythical hackers of the valley, just as most businessmen aren't amazing. Just partner with people who work hard and are great, as there's enough work to go around in a start-up.
  - kranner 16y ago
    Sure but, to clarify, by India I meant the sheer population figures of any occupation or other demographic. It's true everywhere if you're competing online, but here we're used to physically seeing it.
  - sandipagr 16y ago
    I dont understand why coders have to be mythical hackers. Isn't all it matters is if you can get the shit done? The reason I am saying this is cause lot of times there are comments that for some reason give "hackers" a higher credibility when coders and hackers are essentially same here. Of course there are projects that require real hacking to complete the job, but most of the times a normal coder can do it as well. Maybe I don't understand the difference.

patio11 16y ago

I get approached from time to time by people who think I'd be the perfect person for implementing their Big Idea. (That should be red flag number one, since if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying programmers.) Almost universally: 1) They want full-time effort out of me (often, in the exploitative sense of "full-time"), but they're not full-time on the project themselves. 2) There is zero evidence that they have produced a deliverable for the project. Not even a Powerpoint deck or a napkin. 3) They have no conception of what the BATNA for a talented engineer sounds like. My way to discourage them quickly without being impolite is to quote my consulting rate, which typically causes sputtering.

ced 16y ago
if I'm the best you can do, you clearly don't have good skills at identifying programmers. Aren't you underestimating yourself? Most businesses don't need Knuths. They need "smart & gets things done". By my reckoning, you're way ahead of the average HNer (and myself) at this game.
- bconway 16y ago
  Most businesses don't need Knuths. They need "smart & gets things done". This can't be said enough. I so often see people get caught up on which technology, framework, or paradigm is right for a given idea (or worse, constantly revise them) that they get slowed down dramatically, or in extreme cases, deadlocked. I do it myself from time to time. Start by grinding something out and going from there.
- mahmud 16y ago
  FWIW, I think Patrick has shown far more business sense than actual programming. If I were to hire him, I would make sure he stays from actual coding as much as possible; that would be a waste of his talents and our time. Not "underestimating" his coding skills, it's just that his business sense far eclipses anything else he might be good at: programming, Japanese language, or competitive Polka dancing.

cottsak 16y ago

"Business Cofounders" in the HN context implies that these people should be of real value. Perhaps the title should have been "<fake;pseudo;micky-mouse>Business Cofounders are a Dime a Dozen".

d_r 16y ago

I'm a software engineer. After spending a few years in Silicon Valley, I have also have met many "business people" who'd pitch me their great idea and try to recruit me. Now here is the tough question (for engineers): yes, we have the superior ability to execute any idea because we can code. But are we actually going to? This might be generalizing, but most fellow engineers I met prefer working for a stable paycheck -or- prefer hacking a prototype project that never ships. And pet projects started by the above mentioned people (without that business person who pushes them) never get to see the world -- even if the prototype website, iPhone app, etc. is finished, they spend no effort on marketing and give up when no users come. Again, this is generalizing. There are many examples of hackers who have built very successful ventures (Google, Facebook, et cetera.) But my general observation makes me sad -- many engineers just don't seem to make good founders. What can be done in the engineering community to make hackers more "business-minded" or "shipping-minded," so to say?

extension 16y ago
As with writing code, just get your hands dirty. Once you start making things happen (making money) you'll get interested quick.

larsberg 16y ago

To the list of things business cofounders could bring, I would also add "deep domain knowledge." For example, if it's a site on selling foos to wumpats, you'd better have spent all of your years before bschool in either the foo industry, working for wumpats, or hopefully some of both. As a tip, though, I usually just ask bschooler-types a few basic questions like 1) how many foos are bought today 2) how do wumpats make their purchasing cycle (i.e. enterprise, individual, etc.) 3) who are the existing competitors in this space... Most bschoolers, despite having these questions drilled into them over and over during their 60k/year schooling, don't bother doing the legwork to investigate them before looking for a "technical cofounder."

ultrasaurus 16y ago
I think that's a good point. So many business decisions are made on gut feeling, and then we make a spreadsheet of wumpats sales to back up our gut. If all someone brings to the table is "I think this will work" that's essentially nothing.

cantbecool 16y ago

Sounds like the relationship between Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.

ryanlchan 16y ago

I'm always surprised by the hard lines people draw between technical and business cofounders. 'Technical founders' mock the business side's naivite and reject the notion that any less than 50% of the work in building a business is programming. 'Business founders' think they have all the right stuff and see 16 year olds building facemash or yousquare, then assume anyone can program with a book and an afternoon. Truth is, if you can slot yourself into one of these classifications that easily you're probably not going to be a very good startup cofounder. A startup requires people to wear lots of different hats, with some being in the technical side and others being on the business side. While normal people, aka business and technical founders, can wear one, maybe two hats at a time, start up founders need to be 12 headed hydras. I'm not saying that there's no specialization on a startup team; it's necessary. But how will your programming ninja respond when an investor asks about how your branding fits the specific niche you're targeting? Or what will the business dude say when questioned about what stack you're going to deploy on? Maybe it's time we stopped thinking about business/technical cofounders and started evaluating people as startup cofounders.

jlees 16y ago

My issue with both of the articles, true though they are, is they don't represent the partnership model that most often succeeds: you know, people who are actually friends, who work together and trust each other. The blind "hello, please believe in me" model seems commonly believed in, but I've yet to hear of tangible cases where it actually worked. (business person recruiting techie at an event).

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

alexdmoore 16y ago

Great points on both sides. I think a top in the world business person is as helpful for a company as a top engineer, but this doesn't have to be a co-founder. It can an advisor or later hire that has a transformative effect on a business. Also I would point out consumer internet business people might not be able to have the same impact as a top bd person for an enterprise software company as ES companies have greater needs on building real sales organizations while consumer internet relies on marketing a social phenomena.

ezrider4428 16y ago

Disclaimer: I have not read all the comments below. I was too enraged by this post. Lets get this out of the way. IF YOU WANT TO GET A SALARY GO WORK FOR AN ESTABLISHED BUSINESS. This post is so short-sighted that if Joshua doesn't already have glasses he should buy a pair. I am a little surprised that someone that runs a business actually posted this. Joshua are you aware of all the activities that actually go on in a business? I can enlighten you: - Sales - Marketing - Partnerships - Legal - Design - Customer Service - Business Strategy and yes - Development The reason this post is short-sighted is that you are forgetting about what ACTUALLY makes a business (not an idea) successful. OPERATIONAL PERFECTION Some supporting evidence is looking at a business plan or even a pitch deck, how many slides are dedicated to the technical aspect? 1 of 10. "What you business guys should be thinking about is this: what am I bringing to this business?" THIS IS A QUESTION FOR EVERYONE IN EVERY BUSINESS. If you do not directly contribute to the success of the business then you are not valuable it doesn't matter if you have technical skills or business development skills. I am not a developer! I said it, i'm proud of it and i never want to be a developer. I could never be successful as a developer and i would be doing my business an injustice if i tried to code anything more then a simple webpage. Startups need to be higly efficent in the way they do work, each of the team members need to be very focused on what is important and what they are good at. Yes, a smart developer can learn to sell and a smart business development person can learn to code, but WHY would do that business development and technical development are two very different skill-sets.

ezrider4428 16y ago
Maybe you should refer some of the "idea junkies" to this guy http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608315 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608315