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Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?
I created a startup project, and we have a good traction, but now we really need to strengthen our (small) technical team to improve our solution. Where should I look? Github? How can I make him/her want to join the adventure?
- deanmoriarty 6y agoPay fair market rate and decent equity. Or pay below market rate and substantial equity.
- bwb 6y agoOr give huge life balance over work plus fair salary. Find someone who wants a 4 day a week gig, has exp, etc...
- mattmanser 6y agoWhy any equity at all? It's a job.
- seattle_spring 6y agoBecause if you don't offer fair equity then any engineer worth their salt will just go somewhere that does.
- Jeremy1026 6y agoGive me real money over potential maybe future money any day.
- deanmoriarty 6y agoProfit sharing/equity sharing is an excellent way to motivate employees and attract talent, especially if the employment nature is as risky and unstable as an early stage startup. My friend works as a social worker, completely different field, and her employer created a profit sharing plan. They all love it. This is not limited to tech.
- mattmanser 6y agoA profit sharing plan is not equity, and probably has a clause they can pull it whenever they want.
- deanmoriarty 6y agoI knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it, HN is always quick to remind me that a tangential point, if casually mentioned as a way to give more context to a conversation, is going to be the focus of any further reply, rather than addressing the core. Truly my bad here, you did what you are supposed to do. Good luck hiring engineers at a tech startup with no equity, that’s all I’ll say.
- mattmanser 6y agoI think it's entirely cultural, maybe in the US in SV? Everywhere else, you're a bit silly giving equity away for free.
- visox 6y agoAS a dev i contacted someone i think it was on founders nation. In the end we did my idea haha.
- YKreator 6y agoThanks for sharing. Some founders want to build companies while developers tend to want to solve problems. So often developer ideas are much better business ideas :-)
- lmarcos 6y agoJust pay them 20% more of what they are currently making.
- YKreator 6y agoDo you think money is the only criteria? In this case it seems impossible to compete with US Startups.
- auganov 6y agoSo you're not in the US? Then why would you need to compete with US startups on salary? If you can do even half of that you should be able to get great talent in most places. Competing on the work environment, benefits, equity etc should be much easier too.
- lmarcos 6y agoNot only, but it's a huge motivator. But if the project idea itself doesn't convince, then it's hard to convince with perks other than compensation.
- deanmoriarty 6y agoIf you cannot offer liquid money offer above average equity, as mentioned in my previous comment.
- gkrishna 6y ago> Where should I look? I'd say search on your friends network first. If it is hard to find on your network then I suggest Angel.co, stackoverflow.
- internetslave 6y agoI’m all ears if you’ve got something interesting and lots of equity? I work at Amazon, lots of experience with the cloud, scale, computer science etc. 6 years experience as a dev.
- taf2 6y agoCheck us out calltrackingmetrics- bootstrapped 50+ and growing , we focus on our team, culture and customers.
- jonas_kgomo 6y agohey, i would like to talk with you, we are working on something that relies on cloud and scaling. Best way to reach out? email : jonaskgmoo@gmail.com
- YKreator 6y agoThank you for the answer. Can you email me to ["favqonak@10mail.org"] ? PS: Your nickname made me laugh. I hope it's not too difficult on a daily basis :-p
- enonevets 6y agoPay fair salary/equity/benefits. Have a clear understanding of your identity, mission, direction, goals. Have a clear understanding of what you're looking for in a hire. You're looking for someone to be a fit to what you're doing as much as they are looking to be apart of something that is a fit for them. Pay, product, culture, and various mix of expectations and what each side wants is what makes this works. You'll want to be as clear as you can about what's exciting about what you're doing, where you're going with this, and who you're looking for to join you on this journey.
- YKreator 6y agoThank you for your advices. I will clarify this before contacting people
- decafninja 6y agoIf you're willing to keep an open mind, try poaching someone from a non-tech company that wants to jump ship. There are an increasing number of such people. They likely are getting underpaid compared to their peers at a tech company. The downside is, a "senior software engineer" at a non-tech company might not be quite the same level as a "senior software engineer" at a tech company. I say this as one of the former myself.
- YKreator 6y agoWhich kind of company do you define as a non-tech company? Do you mean a company where the main focus isn't the tech?