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As an engineer and ex startup founder, I recommend only partnering with someone technical and being very careful when doing so. Have a very high bar for who you

As an engineer and ex startup founder, I recommend only partnering with someone technical and being very careful when doing so. Have a very high bar for who you choose to work with. YC largely only invests in companies with technical founders. The biggest red flag is a non technical founder hiring you as an employee rather than a founder (when nothing has been built or launched yet) or asking for an unequal equity split with zero lines of code written. Such people proposing these unfair arrangements are not trustworthy. Remember, it is easier for a technical founder to learn business skills than a non technical founder to learn coding. Hope this comment helps someone.

nwellinghoff 3y ago
Agreed. Never take a deal with someone where “you do all the tedious hard stuff” and “I bring the relationships”. Exploitation at its finest!
- danielmarkbruce 3y ago
  I think many of these people are behaving in good faith. They just have no idea exactly how useless they are when it comes to building something from nothing.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
  >Never If a non-technical founder came to you with an established pipeline of sales (i.e. relationships) just waiting for a product, you'd say no?
gedy 3y ago
> The biggest red flag is a non technical founder hiring you as an employee rather than a founder But "they have an idea" and just need someone to implement "their vision". /s
- galaxyLogic 3y ago
  When you only have "an" idea it is not much. Once you start building it you find out that there is a whole continuum of things it could do, and then how to take advantage of the synergies you find. Once you build something then it is easier to build something else, but you don't really know that until you build that first thing. A single idea is not very valuable, the implementation is because it typically it has to consists of many ideas.
throwaway164023 3y ago
as an engineer who actually launched a YC company, I can say that this is not true and prevents engineers from being good cofounders. The fact is, unless you are the 0.1% of engineers who can create truly novel products, our skills are largely commoditized. I was doing well as an engineer at google, but the product I was building could be replicated by engineers out of India / China etc. Having a co-founder who could actually build relationships, have good product vision, and most importantly SELL were crucial. Don't have the hubris that OP mentioned above - it's a surefire way to fail.
- Hydraulix989 3y ago
  I do agree with you. I wouldn't recommend engineers without product vision to start a company either. Starting a successful company is hard. It's not just about coding things. That said, you can find technical founders who are good at both product and coding. I would even argue that 0.1% engineering skills aren't needed, although engineers in this top echelon are more likely to have the general fluid intelligence needed to succeed. The Steve Jobs archetype is an anomaly in a world where success itself is already one. Ultimately, there is no hubris, the real barometer is market success. Build something people want (and as a corollary / table stakes, have the skills needed to do so).
- rcme 3y ago
  Did your company work out? I understand and agree that a million engineers could build a product. But, many good engineers could also go work at Google et al. As a nascent company without a product, you have very little leverage. As an engineer, why would I want to build this thing for you so that you can go enrich yourself? If your product honestly could be built by people in China / India, then absolutely do that. Don't even bother with a technical co-founder, why would you?
  - throwaway164023 3y ago
    obviously, the split should be 50 / 50. I'm trying counteract this narrative on hacker news that if you're technical, you're the star of the show. The fact is both the technical and non-technical founders are equally important. Don't have the hubris that you can do it all, unless you are truly exceptional.
tfehring 3y ago
For a pure tech company this might be good advice, but lots of startups require domain expertise from very early on even if that means partnering with a nontechnical founder. E.g., my background is in insurance, I've seen lots of insurtech startups founded by engineers without insurance backgrounds, and in my experience they don't tend to be successful. In an ideal world you'd want every founder to have background in the relevant industry and strong business sense and the ability to build the product, but being strict about all of those criteria would result in a lot of false negatives.
- Hydraulix989 3y ago
  Imagine how scary a builder with domain expertise (the category YC funds) might be. Another word for that type of person is "disrupter"
- badcppdev 3y ago
  My take on this is: - Domain expertise = technical. Insurance underwriter, medical professional, etc etc. - Business expertise != technical. MBA, 'entrepreneur', etc
lnsru 3y ago
You’re absolutely right. If I can develop it as an engineer, I can also sell it alone. I don’t need a dead weight called “business guy”. Of course exemptions exist, I know wealth people with rolodex full of very useful contacts. I might team up.

nwellinghoff 3y ago

Agreed. Never take a deal with someone where “you do all the tedious hard stuff” and “I bring the relationships”. Exploitation at its finest!

danielmarkbruce 3y ago
I think many of these people are behaving in good faith. They just have no idea exactly how useless they are when it comes to building something from nothing.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
>Never If a non-technical founder came to you with an established pipeline of sales (i.e. relationships) just waiting for a product, you'd say no?

gedy 3y ago

> The biggest red flag is a non technical founder hiring you as an employee rather than a founder But "they have an idea" and just need someone to implement "their vision". /s

galaxyLogic 3y ago
When you only have "an" idea it is not much. Once you start building it you find out that there is a whole continuum of things it could do, and then how to take advantage of the synergies you find. Once you build something then it is easier to build something else, but you don't really know that until you build that first thing. A single idea is not very valuable, the implementation is because it typically it has to consists of many ideas.

throwaway164023 3y ago

as an engineer who actually launched a YC company, I can say that this is not true and prevents engineers from being good cofounders. The fact is, unless you are the 0.1% of engineers who can create truly novel products, our skills are largely commoditized. I was doing well as an engineer at google, but the product I was building could be replicated by engineers out of India / China etc. Having a co-founder who could actually build relationships, have good product vision, and most importantly SELL were crucial. Don't have the hubris that OP mentioned above - it's a surefire way to fail.

Hydraulix989 3y ago
I do agree with you. I wouldn't recommend engineers without product vision to start a company either. Starting a successful company is hard. It's not just about coding things. That said, you can find technical founders who are good at both product and coding. I would even argue that 0.1% engineering skills aren't needed, although engineers in this top echelon are more likely to have the general fluid intelligence needed to succeed. The Steve Jobs archetype is an anomaly in a world where success itself is already one. Ultimately, there is no hubris, the real barometer is market success. Build something people want (and as a corollary / table stakes, have the skills needed to do so).
rcme 3y ago
Did your company work out? I understand and agree that a million engineers could build a product. But, many good engineers could also go work at Google et al. As a nascent company without a product, you have very little leverage. As an engineer, why would I want to build this thing for you so that you can go enrich yourself? If your product honestly could be built by people in China / India, then absolutely do that. Don't even bother with a technical co-founder, why would you?
- throwaway164023 3y ago
  obviously, the split should be 50 / 50. I'm trying counteract this narrative on hacker news that if you're technical, you're the star of the show. The fact is both the technical and non-technical founders are equally important. Don't have the hubris that you can do it all, unless you are truly exceptional.

tfehring 3y ago

For a pure tech company this might be good advice, but lots of startups require domain expertise from very early on even if that means partnering with a nontechnical founder. E.g., my background is in insurance, I've seen lots of insurtech startups founded by engineers without insurance backgrounds, and in my experience they don't tend to be successful. In an ideal world you'd want every founder to have background in the relevant industry and strong business sense and the ability to build the product, but being strict about all of those criteria would result in a lot of false negatives.

Hydraulix989 3y ago
Imagine how scary a builder with domain expertise (the category YC funds) might be. Another word for that type of person is "disrupter"
badcppdev 3y ago
My take on this is: - Domain expertise = technical. Insurance underwriter, medical professional, etc etc. - Business expertise != technical. MBA, 'entrepreneur', etc

lnsru 3y ago

You’re absolutely right. If I can develop it as an engineer, I can also sell it alone. I don’t need a dead weight called “business guy”. Of course exemptions exist, I know wealth people with rolodex full of very useful contacts. I might team up.