16 ms·

You won't find a technical co-founder

368 points by vyrotek 3y ago

rickcarlino 3y ago
What are some good examples of successful growth/revenue oriented companies with a non-technical founder who never found their technical founder and instead outsourced their development to a technical freelancer?
- nielsole 3y ago
  ConnectU hiring Zuckerberg?
  - Kalanos 3y ago
    he wasn't a founder, and they were a bunch of rich boys from harvard.
  - aswegs8 3y ago
    kekd
- dtnewman 3y ago
  Calendly. He spent $200k on an MVP, but retained ownership and went on to be very successful with very little money raised early on. He eventually raised $350M at a ~$3B valuation, but that was after the product already had a lot of traction.
iamcurious 3y ago
I really liked the list, probably cause my resume kinda fits and as a true generalist, my resume rarely fits anything. It is true that working for free is bonkers. Priority number 1 is always rent, at minimum cover that so that business is priority 1.
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  +1 You have no idea much I feel that sentiment
- kudokatz 3y ago
  > It is true that working for free is bonkers. Priority number 1 is always rent, at minimum cover that so that business is priority 1. You can work "for free" if investments cover all your basics ... so only bonkers under the assumption that you haven't taken care of your basics already.
Kalanos 3y ago
startups take 3-5 years to get going. there's no way someone legit is going to hang in there and put up with that. become your own technical cofounder.
- CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
  > startups take 3-5 years to get going I'd say that if you're doing a software startup and it takes 3-5 years to figure out market fit, probably the idea/execution isn't very good. Another story if you're doing hardware or require intense R&D, but for software? That's way too long time.
  - Kalanos 3y ago
    which startups have you founded and made profitable? it's really scrappy through pre-seed if you can get one. software is the easy part
    - Turing_Machine 3y ago
      If it's that easy, you shouldn't need a technical co-founder in the first place. Right?
      - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
        But most "idea founders" fail to take that even very low hurdle and don’t make to a Wordpress site with a mailing list. Or money.
- josephg 3y ago
  > become your own technical cofounder. Eh, maybe. Software is legitimately challenging and time consuming to learn. Especially for people to whom math doesn’t come naturally. Sure, it doesn’t take too long to learn how to throw together a crappy website. But building a business on top of beginner skills would be like trying to compose the score for a movie after 6 months of piano lessons. You can do it, but the output will be visibly crap. I agree a lot more with the advice in this blog post. If you’re struggling to hire a technical cofounder, find someone who knows their craft well and hire them.
altdataseller 3y ago
If you want me as a technical cofounder, you are going to tick most of these boxes: 1. You have at least 8-10 years of experience in that domain with some of it in a leadership position (ie product manager) 2. You already have a huge following or audience. Especially important if this is a SaaS product or b2c. Not as important if this is hard tech (ie biotech). But if you’re doing a HR startup, show me your 10,000 engaged HR followers on LinkedIn. If you’re doing a martech startup, show me your Substack with 10k marketing subscribers. 3. You already have talked to at least 25 people about this, and gotten feedback about their pain points, initial reaction to your solution, etc. These conversations are documented and easily shared with me 4. You preferably have at least 1 successful exit/company under your belt, or a couple of failed ones is OK too (but I would need references to make sure they failed for legitimate reasons) the worse is 0 years of experience starting a company. 5. You are a cold email/call/outreach junkie. Because you will OWN sales in the early days. I want to see your 100 send emails or 100 daily calls or 100 sent DMs everyday asking potential customers for feedback or validation conversations or to sign up for your beta
- aster0id 3y ago
  Agree, almost the same requirements for me. I would be okay with just 1, 3 and 5 though.
  - reneherse 3y ago
    That's odd and I agree entirely.
  - hobofan 3y ago
    > the worse is 0 years of experience starting a company I think that's a crucial point of 4. I'm not sure if actual founding experience is necessary (as long as the company structure/cap table looks good if going the VC route). However a managing director position or something similar would definitely be something I'd look for nowadays as a lot of people seem to underestimate what that role entails and/or don't cope well with having the final responsibility in a organization structure.
willcipriano 3y ago
> If you're 25+, looking to start a business and do not have access to 10.000€, I question your abilities. I've only thought this but it's nice to see someone say. Guy 1: "What do you bring to the business?" Guy 2: "We are a technology business, I made the technology. People seem to like it so far. How about you?" Guy 1: "I'm a business and finance guy, I get the business money to use. I also had an idea one time." Guy 2: "can I have some money?" Guy 1: "no, I don't have any" What do I need Guy 1 for? His idea? I'll pass.
- Kalanos 3y ago
  as a technical cofounder, i would highly recommend getting a business cofounder to handle fundraising, sales, and partnerships. business/people move slow... you can't muscle your way through it. you need like 5 high-quality opportunities for 1 to close. so if you build something great, it will take just as long if not longer to develop a business around it. you need to advance each side in parallel. once you have an MVP, immediately start building for a customer
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    A legit business guy can probably pay you. If his "idea" is so valuable, he's not going to want you to take all the equity, he'd put his money forward. If I'm putting more money forward than he (in terms of doing work for free), I'm also the money guy. If I'm both the money guy and the tech guy, who is he?
    - Kalanos 3y ago
      i've done this. i used to be the business guy. it works for a time, but not sustainable
  - gilbetron 3y ago
    I think the point was that if you are the "business cofounder" and are unable to raise funds, you are not serving a purpose. The flip of this is a technical cofounder that can't actually write functional code.
gyumjibashyan 3y ago
sounds good in theory, but difficult in practice
SebFender 3y ago
If I may as a founder - If you're looking for a tech cofounder - I think the business is already at risk.
- leetrout 3y ago
  We are in a tech bubble on this website. There are lots of people with ideas and money and want to make things happen. Now to your point - that might not be / need to be a cofounder but looking for tech leadership for an idea is not an immediate death knell.
  - SebFender 3y ago
    Absolutely.
JCM9 3y ago
The main problems I see in 99% of the cases of a founder looking for a technical co-founder are: 1. The founder sees themselves as the ideas person but doesn’t have the situational awareness to recognize that their ideas aren’t that unique. 2. The founder doesn’t understand that the value in a startup isn’t the idea but the ability to execute and build on that idea. For every very successful startup in X space there were 10x more with the same general idea but that failed to execute. The founder wants someone to built it for them but wants credit/equity for having the idea. In 99% of cases the value is created by the builders (technical cofounder) which instantly creates awkwardness of the founder wanting far more equity, credit, and control than their contributions warrant For the above reasons I’d avoid 99% of asks for a technical co-founder like the plague.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  > sees themselves as the ideas person More importantly, most businesses don't need an "ideas person". They need someone who knows how to run a business. You need a total of one decent idea to start and run a business. You need tens of thousands of little hard choices, emails, and sales calls to keep the business successful, and that means getting your hands dirty. Ideas are not valuable.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    CTO = Builder first, then lead the building of both the technical systems and engineering culture. CEO = Sales and funding, maybe product owner very early days but quickly handing off to experienced product folks as soon as too painful to continue with rest of workload. (n=1 from my experience at a hyper growth startup)
    - RangerScience 3y ago
      I've been at more than a few startups (one that could be called some form of high+ growth, although it was ultimately unsuccessful), and this tracks. People do what they know; CTOs know how to build, CEOs (usually/often) know how to "business develop", marketers market, PMs design... People do what they know.
wsoczynski_they 3y ago
There are a lot of valid things mentioned in the article. HOWEVER, the most important thing missing is that the idea should be VALIDATED before even starting to build anything. If a business founder did their research and has a line of people just waiting to get hands on the product, then he can simply get a loan and build the damn thing because the money is just there on the street waiting to be picked up. So many times people start with the build without making sure there is market for their product - that is the original sin of any startup.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  > he can simply get a loan I'll go out on a limb to say that loans (famous for needing to be paid back) are not the way to fund an idea which is not likely to be successful. Funding a startup requires you to find money that doesn't require you to be liable if things don't work out. That's why it's more complicated than finding money "just there on the street waiting to be picked up." You actually need to convince people you have an idea that might succeed, so they're willing to risk their cash.
  - wsoczynski_they 3y ago
    Well, that is my whole point - do you research, talk with people, understand willingness to pay to be confident that it is worth to pursue your idea. So many times, looking for a technical co-founder is caused by the fact that the "business founder" doesn't know how to verify the idea otherwise that by building the actual product. Hence being in the black about the market for such product, they obviously want someone to do it "for free" as the risk is high. Anyone who did a solid research and even sold his product to people before it even existed won't be worried about putting their own money or taking a loan to finance the development.
    - TuringNYC 3y ago
      >> Hence being in the black about the market for such product, they obviously want someone to do it "for free" as the risk is high. This is spot on -- many Business Co-Founders want to borrow -- but they want someone else to borrow (their time, their effort) and take the risk. The risk needs to be transferred back equally to all co-founders. If only one person is taking the majority of the upfront risk, this isnt a co-founder situation! I once met a "Business" Co-Founder who "Personally Guaranteed" this business would succeed if I did 3mo of upfront work. He followed me around at multiple events in NY and kept insisting. I retorted if he was so sure, why not take a HELOC and pay for the technical PoC/MVP?
dosinga 3y ago
The article makes some good points, but at the same time, hiring somebody to built the first version of your product is maybe even harder. Especially if you don't have a technical background it is really hard to judge whether what they built makes any sense. The initial trade-offs of what to built and where to take short-cuts requires somebody with technical insight. That first proto-type that you are building to throw away ends of course up being the first product you ship.
- notnullorvoid 3y ago
  > That first proto-type that you are building to throw away ends of course up being the first product you ship. This is a good thing to remember. I'd also add that at best the prototype ends up as the Ship of Theseus, it may gradually be replaced piece by piece. The idea that you'll have a chance to re-build the entire thing starting at 0 is a myth. True prototypes are possible within the product, but not the product itself. Anyone considering joining or starting a start-up (business and technical side) should be aware of that and plan accordingly.
- sebastiennight 3y ago
  Yes I think it's useful to let go of the idea of the prototype altogether, and think of the app as a set of "n" modular apps/services that will be swapped out/improved later over time. I thoroughly hated our video player but an MVP of it had to be built for the rest of the app (AI video editor) to even make sense. And that hated video player ended up being part of the product for 18+ months (I was hoping for <6) because there were much more valuable parts of the app to improve.
bastawhiz 3y ago
If you're the idea/money guy and I'm the technical cofounder, your skills must be equal to my skills. If a cofounder could be eliminated without the business ending, they have no place in the business.
__s 3y ago
Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/lua/comments/1bn6b9k/need_coderdeveloper https://www.reddit.com/r/lua/comments/1bn6b9k/need_coderdeve... > Looking to make a Garry’s mod day z server called gmodz would need someone experienced in coding I have the ideas just need someone to make them come to life wouldn’t be able pay right now but once servers are up and get players donating we can figure a split so you can get money and i can as well
endymi0n 3y ago
I see lots of hate here for people looking for technical cofounders and bringing up unrealistic expectations into the other side, so I just wanted to offer a counterpoint as a "casted" technical cofounder. I've had an incredibly great experience and I can confidently say I could not have built this business on my own by far. Here's what got me to sign the deal for the last 10 years of my professional life that I didn't regret: - "just enough" technical knowledge to be dangerous - an incredibly well researched market opportunity demonstrating great first principle reasoning and business sense, with a pitch deck for cofounders that was almost seed investor level quality - a nontechnical early market test, executed intelligently within a few days and 200$ of budget that served as an early indication of product-market fit - previous demonstrated experience building a team and growth as an employee at a startup - a lot of grit, with a bias towards action (complementing my sometimes fragmented mind and hesitant personality) - a humble, reflected personality In the end, while 98% of pitches for the best years of your professional life are probably BS, don't underestimate how far an excellent nontechnical cofounder can bring you.
- sdrinf 3y ago
  How did you met that person?
sdrinf 3y ago
I am the person described in the requirement list. I brought 2 startups from seed to series A, built a cashflow business of my own, led teams, have 5+ years of runway (yes, in San Francisco), and actively looking for a potential idea + business person. I have worked my ass off for the past 10 years to put myself into this position. I'm doing startups to fulfill the intersection of broad positive externalities + financial reward space, which is possible, and I did it 3 times already. I'm looking for a cofounder+idea because what I can do alone is limited. Over the past 2 years, I have reviewed >1500 pitches, talked with 150+ founders, had in-depth conversation with 10, executed (and failed) with 2. My counterparties are not real. In descending order of frequency: * Tirekickers / wannabes: these people have fantasies about doing a startup... someday, but definitely not just now. * Super excited about <thing/area>... has no related experience, fails at basic business ontology ("target market", "valueproposition") <- 95% mark * Has no hypothesis about marketing channels, nor any insight on why this particular combination might work * fails on all of market scoping, TAM, customer development, financial model <- 99% mark Rest: limited operational experience, OR self-defeating / low psychological resilience, going nowhere. There is a laundry list on sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904704) for ticking boxes. My current hypo, is that peeps who check these boxes AND don't have a tech cofounder on their rolodex typically go to angels/VCs, and get a recommendation from them; and therefore will never appear on any markets for cofounders. Curious if this matches your experience.
- mistermann 3y ago
  Out of curiosity: are the issues you note here (and the ones in the linked comment) absolute hard stops for you, or more of a checklist of heuristics to take into consideration?
  - sdrinf 3y ago
    They're heuristics, but failure on them is extremely predictive, and for the n>25 ventures I had personal experience with, have a fitness of ~99% predictive power. What inspired that question?
rachofsunshine 3y ago
I'm a non-technical(*) cofounder in the process of starting a company. While I haven't committed to a single cofounder yet, I've had little trouble getting conversations with technical people that are serious about the idea and have reasonable backgrounds. Some have actively come to me unsolicited. I obviously can't say for sure why that is, n=1 and all, but here's where I see my differentiators compared to the other nontechnical founders I see on YC's own matching board (https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching): - I have domain expertise. I have done the thing I am trying to do before (I used to be part of the leadership at a company in the same space), and I'm trying to build a thing that has had some real-world proof-of-concept already. I don't have "an idea", I have a plan for how to create it and for why I think it will be a viable business. I'm not "the ideas person", I'm "the person who will make the business side of this work so you can focus on the technical stuff you like, which is an equal and complementary role". - I'm offering something "divisive". Specifically, I'm not* trying to build the next unicorn, I'm trying to build something small and sustainable. Many people do want to build the next unicorn, but the people who don't* have much slimmer pickings. I'm not more interesting on average, but I can be the most interesting to a specific subset of people. This is essentially the same dynamic you see on dating sites, as with OKCupid's old blog about attractiveness-rating distributions (archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcupid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcup...) - you don't want to be a 5/10 to everyone, you want to be a 10/10 to someone. - Related to the previous bullet, I act like a human being. Basically, I bet on the idea that other people who want to start companies are often doing it for (one of) the reasons I am: because they're so tired of the pervasive culture of corporate BS that overlays almost every company of any size, and want to laser-focus on something that keeps you honest. My profile is direct, human, emotional, and does not shy away from talking about who I am, not just why my credentials are great (which they honestly aren't - they're not terrible but it's certainly not my competitive advantage). I think people respond to that, because I respond to that, and I can't be the only one. - I'm trying to build a thing engineers care about. That's obviously not something you can control if you're trying to, I dunno, build the next fintech app that is fundamentally boring on the technical side, but if you're a nontechnical founder, it might suggest to you which ideas you have would be easiest to find a technical partner for. None of this is particularly earth-shattering, mind. If you just watch the Startup School videos, they'll tell you most of this. But as with a lot of things, a surprisingly huge chunk of the "market" fails to grab the low-hanging fruit. (* nontechnical in the sense that YC's matching uses, i.e., I cannot build the product myself with my current skillset. I am considerably more technical than the average "non-technical" founder, though.)
tomp 3y ago
If you can find a developer that will build your project for 2 months, full-time, for 10k, and will actually finish it - you’re a genius!
gitfan86 3y ago
In summary, people with the ideal skill set required for this job do not work for free. You are better off raising money and paying the market rate for these skills. "But my idea is great! I'm sure an engineer will understand and work for equity" The problem is that Angels/VCs have a lower bar for seed investment than the engineer. So if you can't get seed investment, it is a bad signal.
alexfromapex 3y ago
Instant availability is potentially viable but working for free is a definite no-go for probably most people.
deleted 3y ago
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wrsh07 3y ago
Honestly, the thesis of this should be "be your own technical cofounder" or "let ChatGPT be your technical cofounder" It has never been easier to do things you've never done before Programming tutorials are ubiquitous and high quality Claude opus and gpt 4 provide an incredibly decent starting point if you're looking to build a company If you have the hustle you are going to need to be a successful founder, you can write enough code to validate your idea
hooande 3y ago
In my experience a non technical founder should have one of the following: 1) Access to capital, normally through family or a family friend. I've worked at several companies where the main thing the CEO brought to the table was that someone trusted him or her enough to invest millions of dollars. 2) At least 5 years working a 9-5 job in the target industry and the associated social connections and experience. This eliminates most college students, sadly. 3) Something unique that enables the execution of the idea. This is normally a relationship or insider knowledge. The answer to "Why you?" can't be "Because I had the idea". The most common exception I see to this list is when both founders have the same level of passion for solving a given problem. If you have to explain the opportunity and get someone else interested in it, it could be a tough road. That said, don't lose hope. It's a big world. People meet and things happen.
sebastiennight 3y ago
I was advising a friend on this recently (he being a high-skilled engineer, looking for a non-technical cofounder) and IMHO one of the biggest items that either side should be looking for is startup experience. If you're a skilled "x", you should look for a skilled "y" that is at your level or above, and does not need to be taught the absolute basics. Getting any project off the ground with a cofounder that has never worked in an entrepreneurial environment is going to be extremly challenging. The bigger your skills/assets you're bringing to the table, the more you should be filtering for experience.
1-6 3y ago
Put it succinctly, the Tech Co-Founder the article is looking for is the grunt worker who will lock themselves in the garage doing concept and development work while the Founder CEO wines and dines.
- em-bee 3y ago
  i am fine with that, as long as i get enough cash to cover my life expenses.
sghiassy 3y ago
The saying “Build it and they will come is not true” - how many people on Hacker News built things nobody wanted Having a cofounder that can sell and market, while you build is tremendously valuable
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Here's a simple decision tree. 1) are you a tech startup? If yes, your founder (i.e. you) should be technical or you are the wrong person for the job. The definition of a tech startup is that the primary thing that company does is centered around some technical innovation. If you are not a tech startup, you shouldn't need a technical co-founder. 2) but you need a technical co-founder anyway, somehow. Is this person going to be creating patentable, novel stuff or do you just need a person to build a generic website/app? If you do need unique magic technology that you are not capable of inventing, see 1. If not, you don't need a technical co founder but a vp of engineering or a senior developer. Whatever you do, don't label this person as your CTO because they are not. Also don't give this person any controlling equity because they are not equal to you as the founder; they are merely executing your vision. Consider using agencies, contractors, etc. Whatever you can afford. Plan for replacing people in this role over time or adding more mature people at least. The people you can afford early on tend to not be management material. 3) If you are at this point still looking for a technical co-founder, good luck.
- em-bee 3y ago
  i have met people doing the second. they hired contractors to build their product. but eventually the product grew into a platform strong enough that they needed a CTO to manage it. unfortunately the contractor they hired was not interested in the role, and they had to find someone else. it looked like the changeover was going to be messy. i think they didn't expect that contractor to bail out. so it seems you are right. that initial hire was not management material. but looking at the platform they built, i am not sure anyone would be happy to just take over and work with what they already have. doesn't a CTO want more control over what is being built? so would they not have been better off looking for someone willing to grow into a CTO role from the start?
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    Sometimes you get lucky. But good CTOs are hard to find and typically they will be a combination of busy, expensive, and highly selective. If you know a person that blindly trusts you to execute on your amazing vision that's also perfect for the job, that's great of course. It does happen. But I've seen plenty of examples of not especially great developers ending up way out of their depth because they got the CTO label stuck on them by some person that was just desperate to get any techie working with them. Often a big part of the problem is that not only are such founders incapable of doing the work themselves, they are also incapable of being a good judge of the type of people they would need to do that work. Classic A's hire A's and B's hire C's stuff. This stuff should be a giant red flag for both wannabe CTOs and investors. Experienced founders usually have access to a network and know how to avoid that pitfall. Sometimes raising funding requires you to have a big name CTO. I've seen companies that had CTOs that weren't actually doing much beyond carrying the title just to woo the investors. In an extreme case, I was actually doing the CTOs work (as a freelancer) without ever even meeting the person in question. Just a name on a website. Zero actual involvement. Never saw any evidence of any technical decision making by that CTO. I fired myself from this company later because of the whole scammy nature of that particular company. A common pattern of startups that survive with a less than ideal CTO is to appoint a VP of engineering and then sideline the founder CTO as soon as convenient. I once knew a guy whose unofficial job title was "minder of the CTO". His job was protecting the rest of the team from the random bullshit, brain farts, and whatnot from this CTO founder and making sure he did no damage. The actual company was being lead technically by a very competent vp of engineering at that point.
padolsey 3y ago
Biggest bugbear is that 90% of the time, non-technical people are just looking for a CRUD app. Basic user auth, chat, forum, mobile app. Etc. The age-old scaffold. It's just dull. I'm a technical person looking for a non-technical person who can absolutely smash the sales/ops/marketing side of things, and has a killer idea in a domain they know like the back of their hand. The struggle I've found, e.g. on hn startupschool, is that people have ideas that are unproven. Like, they haven't even scrappily pieced together an mvp. They feel blocked by a lack of what is almost always yet another CRUD app. Most non-technical-domain things, outside of dev SaaS or super-technical products (which a non-eng has no business doing) can be 'behind-the-curtain' 'fake till you make it' products IMHO so I feel a bit let down when someone comes along with an idea and have hit a barrier without even trying to scrappily piece together their product with bits-and-pieces.
- justinlloyd 3y ago
  If you haven't tried solving it with an Excel spreadsheet, I'm not interested in signing the NDA to hear your idea.
hackernoteng 3y ago
If you are technical co-founder you should only hook up with a co-founder who knows how to sell, and knows how to raise money. Most likely you will pivot from original ideas anyway. Selling and raising money is key.
- c0brac0bra 3y ago
  As a technical person who finds extreme friction with the sales side, it would be nice to find such a person.
hpeter 3y ago
I think those requirements are for multiple people. I can only fit a single one, Individual Contributor, I can do all the code and design and devops... Leadership abilities? nah I'm an introvert Shares the vision? Depends on the vision... no cash grabs pls Available? Works for free? No and No Same vibe? don't think so. Same age? maybe yes, I'm in my thirties. Commitment to somebody else's idea after 2 meetings? No, there are trust issues if I don't know you already... I dunno who made this list up but imho there are conflicts. You can't be a leader and commit to somebody else's idea unconditionally. You can't be a super fullstack dev and work for free.
j45 3y ago
I once built MVPs as a service in 90 days. Technical founders create the initial actual value by building any MVP. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything, more so with founders who have solved successfully in a particular area before. It was striking how often a founder with an idea had not much more beyond that. It would scare me when the tech guy who has learned business may know more than the non-tech founder, simply from working with so many other founders with only an idea. I would offer to build free, or a steep discount to retain 100% of the IP. The non-technical founder would earn back their stake by delivering on marketing, sales, and revenue. It taught me that: - tech people can learn business easier than the other way around, even though I strongly believe non-technical founders should learn the tooling enough like they might know enough about their cars. - 90% of the MVP had nothing to do with solving a problem. Logins, billing, security. - Most MVPs would waste their innovation points, too soon, by building entirely too much from scratch, leaving it inflexible to modify as you learn through the lean startup process. Simply avoiding this pitfall would allow enough iterations quickly to uncover the valuable problems. - Boring and quickest techs for MVPs reign supreme because MVPs are supposed to be temporary and disposable, right? Just like a startup is supposed to be a temporary organization to find a repeatable and scalable business model If a non-technical cofounder cannot market or sell (establish distribution), the greater loss occurs to the Technical founder.
nadam 3y ago
The main problem is that as a software developer most of us worked at software product companies all our life and I noticed that often we know more about software product design and product strategy than some of the 'idea people'. People who never worked as developer OR product manager OR designer and have no knowledge in any of these fields and have no money to afford a payed developer are rarely the good co-founders. I absolutely agree with the OP that most of these people need simple CRUD apps, and the reason they need a 'cofounder' is that they need a mediocre programmer but have no money to pay them. I don't even like the term 'technical' vs. 'non-technical'. Ideally a smart person in the tech business should be somewhat 'technical'. If absolutely and categorically non-technical then they should be really-really exceptionally good in something that is absolutely needed for the business. (For example having a large following.)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
siva7 3y ago
Same is true for a non-technical founder. It's a shit show and platforms like YC founder matching are selling the illusion that you can found a company with a total stranger just by their CV which is dangerously wrong.
graycat 3y ago
Ideas? Can an idea be really, REALLY valuable? Can an idea get a lot of value via a patent or held as a trade secret? Uh, let's see: From Bell Labs, the transistor. They saw that it was so valuable they deliberately didn't patent it and, instead, gave it to the world for free -- that's in effect what they did, but there may be legal details, and I'm not a lawyer. Suppose that now we had to pay a penny a transistor ......? Uh, the laser? Not just one that fills a large airplane and is powerful enough to shoot down a missile but the ones the size of a grain of rice and light the long-haul optical fibers for the backbone of the Internet? How 'bout the amplifiers on the optical fibers? I'm not a lawyer, but how 'bout RSA encryption? And the FFT (fast Fourier transform)? And mRNA for creating vaccines? I know; I know; some people see the mRNA for Covid as naughty, bad, ugly, ...? Well, there were the Phase III trials, randomized, placebo controlled, double blind, reported in "Efficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine", New England Journal of Medicine, February 4, 2021, 384:403-416 at https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2035389 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2035389 with efficacy 94% and safety 100% -- uh, for just how the efficacy arithmetic is done might want to check the paper. Yes, the safety was from ~16,000 persons, and with 1 billion persons maybe safety will be lower than 100%. There are various error correcting codes, maybe some buried in hardware devices. It does appear that James Simons had some ideas that are valuable and not easy for others to copy.
- bigbillheck 3y ago
  > they deliberately didn't patent it If you'll check the historical record you'll find, for example, patents US2524035A (Bardeen&Brattain, Three-electrode circuit element utilizing semiconductive materials, oldest priority 1948-02-26) and US2569347A (Shockley, Circuit element utilizing semiconductive material, oldest priority 1948-06-26). > How 'bout the amplifiers on the optical fibers? patents.google.com reports 65279 hits for "optical fiber amplifier" > Uh, the laser? The original invention of the laser led to patent disputes and lawsuits that weren't settled until 1987. > RSA encryption US4405829A (Rivest, Shamier, Alderman, Cryptographic communications system and method, filed 1977 awarded 1983) > And the FFT (fast Fourier transform)? There's an entire category for this, G06F17/142, with 11186 entries: https://patents.google.com/?q=G06F17%2f142 https://patents.google.com/?q=G06F17%2f142
matrix_overload 3y ago
The article misses the obvious. You don't become a technical co-founder to make bank with the equity or salary. You'll get diluted, replaced and kicked out the moment traction starts gaining. You become a technical co-founder to trade in your technical skills, learn about a new domain, figure out where the pain points are, and eventually jump ship and become a captain of your own vessel. Also, the article is an obvious pitch in the likes of "don't get a co-founder, order an MVP from me instead".
- k__ 3y ago
  Do you have to get diluted? Like, can you get forced to sell?
  - hedora 3y ago
    Each funding round and new hire brings dilution. The company issues new shares for the investors and new hires. So, you might start with 100,000 shares and 10% of the company, but by IPO, there could be 100,000,000 shares, giving you 0.1% of the company. (These numbers are completely made up, though if the company ipo’s for $1B, that’s $10/share which is a plausible price per share. Companies often grant additional shares to early employees.)
    - matrix_overload 3y ago
      Exactly. And then the board votes on who gets extra shares to compensate for the dilution, and the CTO is suddenly not on the list. Because the CEO spent months playing political chess with the board members, negotiating who gets what, and before that spent years playing political chess with investors to see who gets into the board. CTO is usually not involved in these games, and has no pull beyond the CEO's goodwill.
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  > You don't become a technical co-founder to make bank with the equity or salary. [...] and eventually jump ship and become a captain of your own vessel. So by your logic, only the CEO gets to make bank from a startup and everyone else, CTO included, are to get screwed and accept this?
taytus 3y ago
You will. Email me.
SunghoYahng 3y ago
If they can't even handle those things and they need advice, what the heck is the founders on the business side of things supposed to do? The business side of things means handling those things.
taylorhughes 3y ago
Too many nontechnical folks I talk to act like they’re blocked because they don't have a technical cofounder to build their amazing app idea. But there’s so much they can do to build a business with no code with today’s tools! Technical folks will be impressed by how far you’ve gotten without having any actual custom software. I tried to capture this here: https://medium.com/@taylorhughes/to-find-a-technical-cofounder-prove-that-your-success-is-inevitable-98d191c78a00 https://medium.com/@taylorhughes/to-find-a-technical-cofound...
alanlammiman 3y ago
Forgive the arrogant tone here. But just to speak to a moment to the poor 'non-technical founder' or 'idea person' being pilloried: If you find the article and comments depressing, ignore them. They sound reasonable, but in fact if you have the idea and the guts to go out there and try to get it built, that does have incredible value. It's a different type of value - perhaps less immediately monetizable than top-notch programming skills, but potentially with a bigger payoff long-term, and whether that is fair or not is irrelevant. Yes, maybe you'll have to adjust your strategy as you go along, whether it's looking for cofounders elsewhere, hiring freelancers, learning to do the technical stuff yourself and taking 10x as long, etc. But you have to start somewhere, and starting by asking people who can help you build whatever you want to build is not at all an unreasonable place to start. When I quit my job and was starting my first business (solo, which is another thing you'll hear on this forum you can't/shouldn't do), I was trying to hire employee #1. There was one candidate who literally laughed at me. Imagine how that feels - I had no funding - I was going to pay him out of my limited and hard-earned savings. I fear that some of this stuff here is even more insidious. Because although I felt terrible in the moment, I used that to fuel my drive. He was the image of who I was going to prove wrong. Whereas all this stuff that has a veneer of logic can potentially convince someone not to go out and build. But as I read this, the word 'problem' appears 16x in the comments, 'can't' 13x, 'no' 32x, and on and on - on a forum hosted by a startup incubator of all things! In my experience you don't even need an 'idea' in the sense of a unique insight, you just need openness to the 'idea' that yes you can succeed and opportunities are as abundant as problems.
methodical 3y ago
From my experience previously looking for a non-technical founder, I've run into a lot of people who think they're the second coming of Steve Jobs or something like that and so in turn try to hardball in equity and other negotiations despite having no leverage at all, which just makes them look like a fool. An idea is worth essentially $0 without any ability to execute it. The fact that equity points are a big concern should be a glaring red flag to stay away.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  A good idea is actually worth money, and it makes sense to pay people for the generation of new ideas as some famous labs did before.
  - methodical 3y ago
    Sure, if an idea was entirely unique and revolutionary, but wanting to build the umpteenth CRM SaaS startup is not. Nobody in regards to technology ever pays anybody for ideas, they pay them for their ability to execute or sell/market those ideas. The "famous labs" you describe but don't name are _labs_, and the innovation that came out of them was a result of people with ideas and the ability to execute.
    - floren 3y ago
      > The "famous labs" you describe but don't name are _labs_, and the innovation that came out of them was a result of people with ideas and the ability to execute. and, crucially, extremely successful parent companies that could afford to throw millions at long shots that might not pay out for a decade.
thepasswordis 3y ago
This is so funny to me. I feel like I am always "seeking non-technical cofounder". I'm a great programmer, and I can build almost anything, but I am not a sales guy. I've been some incredibly sales guys in my life. People who could proverbially sell ice to eskimos or sand to egyptians or whatever. I've always thought if I could team up with one of those people (who are usually already paired up and very well paid!) it would be awesome.
mstaunton7 3y ago
While I agree in most cases, it’s not always the case. I have definitely seen the whole “I’ll handle the business side, you build it” so I know that’s not uncommon. I do think hiring a developer is a better approach for most founders. The company I currently work at is an example of a non-technical founder finding a technical co-founder. They did meet through a co-founder matching program but I do think it’s possible
parpfish 3y ago
My summary is: "don't get a technical co-founder when you could get away with hiring employee #1" People make the mistake of thinking that a business is a "tech company" just becuase it uses the internet. If you're an online retailer, just think of your self as a typical small (for now) business rather than a tech startup. There's a whole world of entrepreneurial advice on that front that you'll miss out on if you only read about VCs.
heyjamesknight 3y ago
We work with non-technical founders. I've written a version of this post—although not as comprehensive. My main advice for all aspiring founders is the same: You cannot be waiting. You must be executing. You can't wait for funding. You can't wait for a technical cofounder. You can't wait for the dev shop to finish your MVP. If you're not actively, personally building something, you MUST be executing somewhere else. Ideally this means you're talking to customers, pitching, and trying to solve their problems with the skills and resources you have available to you. But you can't just sit around and wait for someone to save you and your startup. And this article gives a great explanation of why: those saviors can save themselves. If you're 100% dependent on them for success, what are they getting out of the relationship? Don't wait. Do.
- kikimora 3y ago
  IMHO this is what most non-technical founders are missing. They come to you with a proposal like “build this thing and then I’ll sell” and you have to trust they would. Sometimes they provably can and this is a great deal then. More often than not nothing indicates they can sell anything, unfortunately.
neilv 3y ago
> Reasons you might want to pay for a developer [...] You get a much higher commitment level [...] But I'm talking more about the feeling of seriousness people take their work when it's paid vs when its unpaid. Sounds like contrasting it with people who aren't wired to be technical cofounders, or who haven't bought into this particular cofounder relationship.
neilv 3y ago
> Reasons you might want to pay for a developer [...] You get far less scrutiny Why wouldn't you want a cofounder "keeping you honest" about the startup?
- HelloNurse 3y ago
  It's mostly about the stress and waste of time of continuously justifying the existence of the company and, by extension, of the founder. Of course, convincing engineers that there is enough "runway" to pay them for a few months and that their job is going to last beyond that is always necessary.
pjdemers 3y ago
My experience with non-technical cofounders is: "We already have a CTO. However he/she is too busy/important/senior/all-of-these to build an MVP. What we need is someone to take our CTO's design and code it up, then become employee #1 for, all for 0.5% of the company."
synergy20 3y ago
On the other hand, the technical founder might find you when he/she gets bored to do marketing or sales job. Ideas are cheap, I can have 10 great ideas in an afternoon, and I can change some of them tomorrow, execution is what it all matters.
dboreham 3y ago
Co-founders typically come from the same company, or worked together previously. So you "will" find a technical co-founder if you're a business-side person working at Facebook or Google. Just go to the coffee machine... Otherwise, no, you're trying to find a zero-cost implementation of a very costly employee number 1.
cynicalsecurity 3y ago
This article contains a lot of inaccurate information.
chad_strategic 3y ago
Completely disagree. https://www.strategic-options.com/insight/2024/04/02/believe-it-or-not-your-unicorn-candidate-has-arrived/ https://www.strategic-options.com/insight/2024/04/02/believe...
Volrath89 3y ago
Does anyone know a similar article for the opposite case? Technical guy looking for a salesperson co-founder. I think many of the points of the article still apply, especially regarding opportunity cost. A great salesman can make way, way more than a great engineer, so why would he want to join me? And let's say I want to hire my first salesperson. How do I know who is good and who is not? For me as an engineer, everyone looks like a good salesman, because everyone is better than me (I suck at sales)
- rrr_oh_man 3y ago
  > let's say I want to hire my first salesperson If you don’t know the criteria for a good salesperson for your product you don’t know enough about the problem you’re solving and shouldn’t hire anyone, yet. Similarly, if you don’t know exactly what to build to solve a problem (= you haven’t already validated it with low tech tools) you shouldn’t hire an engineer to build anything.
Saulivar 3y ago
I made that mistake of partnering up with non technical co-founder to build travel insurance "configurator" to get the best deal on travel insurance. Only I discovered there were more co-founders like his wife "to do some accounting" and his buddies to do whatever. And I was the only technical person who was supposed to build the thing, to launch it and they were the ones nit-picking little stupid details that took forever to fix but didn't matter all that much. In the end I spent 5 months working on it and we still didn't get any paying clients, but many more ideas on what else I should build "to get clients". I realized they suck at marketing and business side of things and they don't know shit. If you're a tech person, don't make the same mistake I did. Most people don't understand marketing. Their ideas are shit. They don't know the technology. And YOU are the one who's gonna be doing most of the work. And THEY think that the business belongs to them because as someone said they "came up with the idea" that wasn't all that unique because everything that's needed under the sun has already been built. Many times over. They had just no idea that that's the truth. Now if they have the money and want to hire you to do the work, charge them market rate.
erikerikson 3y ago
Also in the background: technical founders often get treated as second class, replaceable citizens that can be pushed out and/or diluted. Consider the developed company equivalent: that as you rise, you must become more and more of a people manager contributing not higher quality, more impactful and difficult technical challenges but pushed into politics and "influence". If you don't bow to that pattern and you don't stay sufficiently outside of anyone's attention you'll be pushed out.
taco-hands 3y ago
There's a lot of chaff in the comments, but put bluntly - you aren't going to find a good tech co-founder randomly, online or through some hypothetically attractive matching services... Matching services are weak at best and should be treated like online dating sites; The vast majority aren't those you're looking for and frankly, some of them are bunny-boilers. If you're serious - use and exploit your own network, reach out to people you know and discover those who others value and might be interested in your hypothetical (or proven idea) backed by data, science, experience and value. I say this having experience co-founding multiple businesses; 1 IPO on LSE/NASDAQ, several trade sales and a bunch of failures (which really really hurt). The most valuable lesson being that the failures teach you more than anything else!
matthew-molloy 3y ago
Yes you will, https://github.com/whamtet https://github.com/whamtet ;) ;) ;)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Mikho 3y ago
This a classic self-righteous text from a person who doesn't want to take ANY risk but wants to be a technical co-founder in the notion of "pay me the full market salary and give a lot of shares for me to even consider being a co-founder". The whole post gives the impression that being a co-founder means to this person not starting his own business but getting a paid side gig. This person, apparently, considers that an MVP is the only value that is created by a startup team. The truth is everybody on the team risks—tech or non-tech founders: both types invest their own time and expertise regardless of a task to be done. The fact that non-technical founder doesn't code MVP doesn't mean that there is no time/expertise invested that moves the needle. So, both invest and should better "date" for some time to test getting along. The funny part is that it's people like the author who got easily tricked by a good salesman and smooth talkers into working for free. A good salesperson clearly sees what motivates such people and promises a lot of it to only deliver nothing later.
indil 3y ago
>How passionate do you need your accountant to be? Oof. Yes.
speby 3y ago
One of the biggest weaknesses of a non-technical founder looking for a technical founder are basically the following: * Not really having 'much' to bring to the table other than the idea and self-proclaimed knowledge of the problem and domain. As the article mentions, having some capital already, having some sort of following or verifiable reputation or whatever would help a long way. * Not really having any kind of story around "What have you tried so far?". The least sexy conversation is one where the non-technical founder is telling you about this "new" thing to work on and build and the reality is they've only been thinking about it for like 2 months and haven't really "done" anything other than some cursory research. Like, for example, if they don't have capital at all yet, have they tried before they came to you?
alexanderisora 3y ago
I agree. It is nearly impossible! If they are young, they are full of their own ambitions and ideas. It is hard to cooperate. If they are old, they already have built something in the past and not looking for help in exchange of new risks. Finding a co-founder is an additional full-time job. I have tried that in 2018 when I was starting my startup. I spent days on meetings and forums like this one. I found dozens of amazing folks, but it was impossible to negotiate and actually start something together. Finding a co-founder = finding a girlfriend. You do not seek for one intentionally. You just live having a chance to meet that one. Same with a co-founder.

368 points by vyrotek 3y ago

What are some good examples of successful growth/revenue oriented companies with a non-technical founder who never found their technical founder and instead outsourced their development to a technical freelancer?

nielsole 3y ago
ConnectU hiring Zuckerberg?
- Kalanos 3y ago
  he wasn't a founder, and they were a bunch of rich boys from harvard.
- aswegs8 3y ago
  kekd
dtnewman 3y ago
Calendly. He spent $200k on an MVP, but retained ownership and went on to be very successful with very little money raised early on. He eventually raised $350M at a ~$3B valuation, but that was after the product already had a lot of traction.

iamcurious 3y ago

I really liked the list, probably cause my resume kinda fits and as a true generalist, my resume rarely fits anything. It is true that working for free is bonkers. Priority number 1 is always rent, at minimum cover that so that business is priority 1.

rrr_oh_man 3y ago
+1 You have no idea much I feel that sentiment
kudokatz 3y ago
> It is true that working for free is bonkers. Priority number 1 is always rent, at minimum cover that so that business is priority 1. You can work "for free" if investments cover all your basics ... so only bonkers under the assumption that you haven't taken care of your basics already.

Kalanos 3y ago

startups take 3-5 years to get going. there's no way someone legit is going to hang in there and put up with that. become your own technical cofounder.

CaptainOfCoit 3y ago
> startups take 3-5 years to get going I'd say that if you're doing a software startup and it takes 3-5 years to figure out market fit, probably the idea/execution isn't very good. Another story if you're doing hardware or require intense R&D, but for software? That's way too long time.
- Kalanos 3y ago
  which startups have you founded and made profitable? it's really scrappy through pre-seed if you can get one. software is the easy part
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    If it's that easy, you shouldn't need a technical co-founder in the first place. Right?
    - rrr_oh_man 3y ago
      But most "idea founders" fail to take that even very low hurdle and don’t make to a Wordpress site with a mailing list. Or money.
josephg 3y ago
> become your own technical cofounder. Eh, maybe. Software is legitimately challenging and time consuming to learn. Especially for people to whom math doesn’t come naturally. Sure, it doesn’t take too long to learn how to throw together a crappy website. But building a business on top of beginner skills would be like trying to compose the score for a movie after 6 months of piano lessons. You can do it, but the output will be visibly crap. I agree a lot more with the advice in this blog post. If you’re struggling to hire a technical cofounder, find someone who knows their craft well and hire them.

altdataseller 3y ago

If you want me as a technical cofounder, you are going to tick most of these boxes: 1. You have at least 8-10 years of experience in that domain with some of it in a leadership position (ie product manager) 2. You already have a huge following or audience. Especially important if this is a SaaS product or b2c. Not as important if this is hard tech (ie biotech). But if you’re doing a HR startup, show me your 10,000 engaged HR followers on LinkedIn. If you’re doing a martech startup, show me your Substack with 10k marketing subscribers. 3. You already have talked to at least 25 people about this, and gotten feedback about their pain points, initial reaction to your solution, etc. These conversations are documented and easily shared with me 4. You preferably have at least 1 successful exit/company under your belt, or a couple of failed ones is OK too (but I would need references to make sure they failed for legitimate reasons) the worse is 0 years of experience starting a company. 5. You are a cold email/call/outreach junkie. Because you will OWN sales in the early days. I want to see your 100 send emails or 100 daily calls or 100 sent DMs everyday asking potential customers for feedback or validation conversations or to sign up for your beta

aster0id 3y ago
Agree, almost the same requirements for me. I would be okay with just 1, 3 and 5 though.
- reneherse 3y ago
  That's odd and I agree entirely.
- hobofan 3y ago
  > the worse is 0 years of experience starting a company I think that's a crucial point of 4. I'm not sure if actual founding experience is necessary (as long as the company structure/cap table looks good if going the VC route). However a managing director position or something similar would definitely be something I'd look for nowadays as a lot of people seem to underestimate what that role entails and/or don't cope well with having the final responsibility in a organization structure.

willcipriano 3y ago

> If you're 25+, looking to start a business and do not have access to 10.000€, I question your abilities. I've only thought this but it's nice to see someone say. Guy 1: "What do you bring to the business?" Guy 2: "We are a technology business, I made the technology. People seem to like it so far. How about you?" Guy 1: "I'm a business and finance guy, I get the business money to use. I also had an idea one time." Guy 2: "can I have some money?" Guy 1: "no, I don't have any" What do I need Guy 1 for? His idea? I'll pass.

Kalanos 3y ago
as a technical cofounder, i would highly recommend getting a business cofounder to handle fundraising, sales, and partnerships. business/people move slow... you can't muscle your way through it. you need like 5 high-quality opportunities for 1 to close. so if you build something great, it will take just as long if not longer to develop a business around it. you need to advance each side in parallel. once you have an MVP, immediately start building for a customer
- willcipriano 3y ago
  A legit business guy can probably pay you. If his "idea" is so valuable, he's not going to want you to take all the equity, he'd put his money forward. If I'm putting more money forward than he (in terms of doing work for free), I'm also the money guy. If I'm both the money guy and the tech guy, who is he?
  - Kalanos 3y ago
    i've done this. i used to be the business guy. it works for a time, but not sustainable
- gilbetron 3y ago
  I think the point was that if you are the "business cofounder" and are unable to raise funds, you are not serving a purpose. The flip of this is a technical cofounder that can't actually write functional code.

gyumjibashyan 3y ago

sounds good in theory, but difficult in practice

SebFender 3y ago

If I may as a founder - If you're looking for a tech cofounder - I think the business is already at risk.

leetrout 3y ago
We are in a tech bubble on this website. There are lots of people with ideas and money and want to make things happen. Now to your point - that might not be / need to be a cofounder but looking for tech leadership for an idea is not an immediate death knell.
- SebFender 3y ago
  Absolutely.

JCM9 3y ago

The main problems I see in 99% of the cases of a founder looking for a technical co-founder are: 1. The founder sees themselves as the ideas person but doesn’t have the situational awareness to recognize that their ideas aren’t that unique. 2. The founder doesn’t understand that the value in a startup isn’t the idea but the ability to execute and build on that idea. For every very successful startup in X space there were 10x more with the same general idea but that failed to execute. The founder wants someone to built it for them but wants credit/equity for having the idea. In 99% of cases the value is created by the builders (technical cofounder) which instantly creates awkwardness of the founder wanting far more equity, credit, and control than their contributions warrant For the above reasons I’d avoid 99% of asks for a technical co-founder like the plague.

bastawhiz 3y ago
> sees themselves as the ideas person More importantly, most businesses don't need an "ideas person". They need someone who knows how to run a business. You need a total of one decent idea to start and run a business. You need tens of thousands of little hard choices, emails, and sales calls to keep the business successful, and that means getting your hands dirty. Ideas are not valuable.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  CTO = Builder first, then lead the building of both the technical systems and engineering culture. CEO = Sales and funding, maybe product owner very early days but quickly handing off to experienced product folks as soon as too painful to continue with rest of workload. (n=1 from my experience at a hyper growth startup)
  - RangerScience 3y ago
    I've been at more than a few startups (one that could be called some form of high+ growth, although it was ultimately unsuccessful), and this tracks. People do what they know; CTOs know how to build, CEOs (usually/often) know how to "business develop", marketers market, PMs design... People do what they know.

wsoczynski_they 3y ago

There are a lot of valid things mentioned in the article. HOWEVER, the most important thing missing is that the idea should be VALIDATED before even starting to build anything. If a business founder did their research and has a line of people just waiting to get hands on the product, then he can simply get a loan and build the damn thing because the money is just there on the street waiting to be picked up. So many times people start with the build without making sure there is market for their product - that is the original sin of any startup.

bastawhiz 3y ago
> he can simply get a loan I'll go out on a limb to say that loans (famous for needing to be paid back) are not the way to fund an idea which is not likely to be successful. Funding a startup requires you to find money that doesn't require you to be liable if things don't work out. That's why it's more complicated than finding money "just there on the street waiting to be picked up." You actually need to convince people you have an idea that might succeed, so they're willing to risk their cash.
- wsoczynski_they 3y ago
  Well, that is my whole point - do you research, talk with people, understand willingness to pay to be confident that it is worth to pursue your idea. So many times, looking for a technical co-founder is caused by the fact that the "business founder" doesn't know how to verify the idea otherwise that by building the actual product. Hence being in the black about the market for such product, they obviously want someone to do it "for free" as the risk is high. Anyone who did a solid research and even sold his product to people before it even existed won't be worried about putting their own money or taking a loan to finance the development.
  - TuringNYC 3y ago
    >> Hence being in the black about the market for such product, they obviously want someone to do it "for free" as the risk is high. This is spot on -- many Business Co-Founders want to borrow -- but they want someone else to borrow (their time, their effort) and take the risk. The risk needs to be transferred back equally to all co-founders. If only one person is taking the majority of the upfront risk, this isnt a co-founder situation! I once met a "Business" Co-Founder who "Personally Guaranteed" this business would succeed if I did 3mo of upfront work. He followed me around at multiple events in NY and kept insisting. I retorted if he was so sure, why not take a HELOC and pay for the technical PoC/MVP?

dosinga 3y ago

The article makes some good points, but at the same time, hiring somebody to built the first version of your product is maybe even harder. Especially if you don't have a technical background it is really hard to judge whether what they built makes any sense. The initial trade-offs of what to built and where to take short-cuts requires somebody with technical insight. That first proto-type that you are building to throw away ends of course up being the first product you ship.

notnullorvoid 3y ago
> That first proto-type that you are building to throw away ends of course up being the first product you ship. This is a good thing to remember. I'd also add that at best the prototype ends up as the Ship of Theseus, it may gradually be replaced piece by piece. The idea that you'll have a chance to re-build the entire thing starting at 0 is a myth. True prototypes are possible within the product, but not the product itself. Anyone considering joining or starting a start-up (business and technical side) should be aware of that and plan accordingly.
sebastiennight 3y ago
Yes I think it's useful to let go of the idea of the prototype altogether, and think of the app as a set of "n" modular apps/services that will be swapped out/improved later over time. I thoroughly hated our video player but an MVP of it had to be built for the rest of the app (AI video editor) to even make sense. And that hated video player ended up being part of the product for 18+ months (I was hoping for <6) because there were much more valuable parts of the app to improve.

bastawhiz 3y ago

If you're the idea/money guy and I'm the technical cofounder, your skills must be equal to my skills. If a cofounder could be eliminated without the business ending, they have no place in the business.

__s 3y ago

Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/lua/comments/1bn6b9k/need_coderdeveloper https://www.reddit.com/r/lua/comments/1bn6b9k/need_coderdeve... > Looking to make a Garry’s mod day z server called gmodz would need someone experienced in coding I have the ideas just need someone to make them come to life wouldn’t be able pay right now but once servers are up and get players donating we can figure a split so you can get money and i can as well

endymi0n 3y ago

I see lots of hate here for people looking for technical cofounders and bringing up unrealistic expectations into the other side, so I just wanted to offer a counterpoint as a "casted" technical cofounder. I've had an incredibly great experience and I can confidently say I could not have built this business on my own by far. Here's what got me to sign the deal for the last 10 years of my professional life that I didn't regret: - "just enough" technical knowledge to be dangerous - an incredibly well researched market opportunity demonstrating great first principle reasoning and business sense, with a pitch deck for cofounders that was almost seed investor level quality - a nontechnical early market test, executed intelligently within a few days and 200$ of budget that served as an early indication of product-market fit - previous demonstrated experience building a team and growth as an employee at a startup - a lot of grit, with a bias towards action (complementing my sometimes fragmented mind and hesitant personality) - a humble, reflected personality In the end, while 98% of pitches for the best years of your professional life are probably BS, don't underestimate how far an excellent nontechnical cofounder can bring you.

sdrinf 3y ago
How did you met that person?

sdrinf 3y ago

I am the person described in the requirement list. I brought 2 startups from seed to series A, built a cashflow business of my own, led teams, have 5+ years of runway (yes, in San Francisco), and actively looking for a potential idea + business person. I have worked my ass off for the past 10 years to put myself into this position. I'm doing startups to fulfill the intersection of broad positive externalities + financial reward space, which is possible, and I did it 3 times already. I'm looking for a cofounder+idea because what I can do alone is limited. Over the past 2 years, I have reviewed >1500 pitches, talked with 150+ founders, had in-depth conversation with 10, executed (and failed) with 2. My counterparties are not real. In descending order of frequency: * Tirekickers / wannabes: these people have fantasies about doing a startup... someday, but definitely not just now. * Super excited about <thing/area>... has no related experience, fails at basic business ontology ("target market", "valueproposition") <- 95% mark * Has no hypothesis about marketing channels, nor any insight on why this particular combination might work * fails on all of market scoping, TAM, customer development, financial model <- 99% mark Rest: limited operational experience, OR self-defeating / low psychological resilience, going nowhere. There is a laundry list on sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39904704) for ticking boxes. My current hypo, is that peeps who check these boxes AND don't have a tech cofounder on their rolodex typically go to angels/VCs, and get a recommendation from them; and therefore will never appear on any markets for cofounders. Curious if this matches your experience.

mistermann 3y ago
Out of curiosity: are the issues you note here (and the ones in the linked comment) absolute hard stops for you, or more of a checklist of heuristics to take into consideration?
- sdrinf 3y ago
  They're heuristics, but failure on them is extremely predictive, and for the n>25 ventures I had personal experience with, have a fitness of ~99% predictive power. What inspired that question?

rachofsunshine 3y ago

I'm a non-technical(*) cofounder in the process of starting a company. While I haven't committed to a single cofounder yet, I've had little trouble getting conversations with technical people that are serious about the idea and have reasonable backgrounds. Some have actively come to me unsolicited. I obviously can't say for sure why that is, n=1 and all, but here's where I see my differentiators compared to the other nontechnical founders I see on YC's own matching board (https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching): - I have domain expertise. I have done the thing I am trying to do before (I used to be part of the leadership at a company in the same space), and I'm trying to build a thing that has had some real-world proof-of-concept already. I don't have "an idea", I have a plan for how to create it and for why I think it will be a viable business. I'm not "the ideas person", I'm "the person who will make the business side of this work so you can focus on the technical stuff you like, which is an equal and complementary role". - I'm offering something "divisive". Specifically, I'm not* trying to build the next unicorn, I'm trying to build something small and sustainable. Many people do want to build the next unicorn, but the people who don't* have much slimmer pickings. I'm not more interesting on average, but I can be the most interesting to a specific subset of people. This is essentially the same dynamic you see on dating sites, as with OKCupid's old blog about attractiveness-rating distributions (archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcupid.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110110230054/http://blog.okcup...) - you don't want to be a 5/10 to everyone, you want to be a 10/10 to someone. - Related to the previous bullet, I act like a human being. Basically, I bet on the idea that other people who want to start companies are often doing it for (one of) the reasons I am: because they're so tired of the pervasive culture of corporate BS that overlays almost every company of any size, and want to laser-focus on something that keeps you honest. My profile is direct, human, emotional, and does not shy away from talking about who I am, not just why my credentials are great (which they honestly aren't - they're not terrible but it's certainly not my competitive advantage). I think people respond to that, because I respond to that, and I can't be the only one. - I'm trying to build a thing engineers care about. That's obviously not something you can control if you're trying to, I dunno, build the next fintech app that is fundamentally boring on the technical side, but if you're a nontechnical founder, it might suggest to you which ideas you have would be easiest to find a technical partner for. None of this is particularly earth-shattering, mind. If you just watch the Startup School videos, they'll tell you most of this. But as with a lot of things, a surprisingly huge chunk of the "market" fails to grab the low-hanging fruit. (* nontechnical in the sense that YC's matching uses, i.e., I cannot build the product myself with my current skillset. I am considerably more technical than the average "non-technical" founder, though.)

tomp 3y ago

If you can find a developer that will build your project for 2 months, full-time, for 10k, and will actually finish it - you’re a genius!

gitfan86 3y ago

In summary, people with the ideal skill set required for this job do not work for free. You are better off raising money and paying the market rate for these skills. "But my idea is great! I'm sure an engineer will understand and work for equity" The problem is that Angels/VCs have a lower bar for seed investment than the engineer. So if you can't get seed investment, it is a bad signal.

alexfromapex 3y ago

Instant availability is potentially viable but working for free is a definite no-go for probably most people.

deleted 3y ago

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wrsh07 3y ago

Honestly, the thesis of this should be "be your own technical cofounder" or "let ChatGPT be your technical cofounder" It has never been easier to do things you've never done before Programming tutorials are ubiquitous and high quality Claude opus and gpt 4 provide an incredibly decent starting point if you're looking to build a company If you have the hustle you are going to need to be a successful founder, you can write enough code to validate your idea

hooande 3y ago

In my experience a non technical founder should have one of the following: 1) Access to capital, normally through family or a family friend. I've worked at several companies where the main thing the CEO brought to the table was that someone trusted him or her enough to invest millions of dollars. 2) At least 5 years working a 9-5 job in the target industry and the associated social connections and experience. This eliminates most college students, sadly. 3) Something unique that enables the execution of the idea. This is normally a relationship or insider knowledge. The answer to "Why you?" can't be "Because I had the idea". The most common exception I see to this list is when both founders have the same level of passion for solving a given problem. If you have to explain the opportunity and get someone else interested in it, it could be a tough road. That said, don't lose hope. It's a big world. People meet and things happen.

sebastiennight 3y ago

I was advising a friend on this recently (he being a high-skilled engineer, looking for a non-technical cofounder) and IMHO one of the biggest items that either side should be looking for is startup experience. If you're a skilled "x", you should look for a skilled "y" that is at your level or above, and does not need to be taught the absolute basics. Getting any project off the ground with a cofounder that has never worked in an entrepreneurial environment is going to be extremly challenging. The bigger your skills/assets you're bringing to the table, the more you should be filtering for experience.

1-6 3y ago

Put it succinctly, the Tech Co-Founder the article is looking for is the grunt worker who will lock themselves in the garage doing concept and development work while the Founder CEO wines and dines.

em-bee 3y ago
i am fine with that, as long as i get enough cash to cover my life expenses.

sghiassy 3y ago

The saying “Build it and they will come is not true” - how many people on Hacker News built things nobody wanted Having a cofounder that can sell and market, while you build is tremendously valuable

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Here's a simple decision tree. 1) are you a tech startup? If yes, your founder (i.e. you) should be technical or you are the wrong person for the job. The definition of a tech startup is that the primary thing that company does is centered around some technical innovation. If you are not a tech startup, you shouldn't need a technical co-founder. 2) but you need a technical co-founder anyway, somehow. Is this person going to be creating patentable, novel stuff or do you just need a person to build a generic website/app? If you do need unique magic technology that you are not capable of inventing, see 1. If not, you don't need a technical co founder but a vp of engineering or a senior developer. Whatever you do, don't label this person as your CTO because they are not. Also don't give this person any controlling equity because they are not equal to you as the founder; they are merely executing your vision. Consider using agencies, contractors, etc. Whatever you can afford. Plan for replacing people in this role over time or adding more mature people at least. The people you can afford early on tend to not be management material. 3) If you are at this point still looking for a technical co-founder, good luck.

em-bee 3y ago
i have met people doing the second. they hired contractors to build their product. but eventually the product grew into a platform strong enough that they needed a CTO to manage it. unfortunately the contractor they hired was not interested in the role, and they had to find someone else. it looked like the changeover was going to be messy. i think they didn't expect that contractor to bail out. so it seems you are right. that initial hire was not management material. but looking at the platform they built, i am not sure anyone would be happy to just take over and work with what they already have. doesn't a CTO want more control over what is being built? so would they not have been better off looking for someone willing to grow into a CTO role from the start?
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Sometimes you get lucky. But good CTOs are hard to find and typically they will be a combination of busy, expensive, and highly selective. If you know a person that blindly trusts you to execute on your amazing vision that's also perfect for the job, that's great of course. It does happen. But I've seen plenty of examples of not especially great developers ending up way out of their depth because they got the CTO label stuck on them by some person that was just desperate to get any techie working with them. Often a big part of the problem is that not only are such founders incapable of doing the work themselves, they are also incapable of being a good judge of the type of people they would need to do that work. Classic A's hire A's and B's hire C's stuff. This stuff should be a giant red flag for both wannabe CTOs and investors. Experienced founders usually have access to a network and know how to avoid that pitfall. Sometimes raising funding requires you to have a big name CTO. I've seen companies that had CTOs that weren't actually doing much beyond carrying the title just to woo the investors. In an extreme case, I was actually doing the CTOs work (as a freelancer) without ever even meeting the person in question. Just a name on a website. Zero actual involvement. Never saw any evidence of any technical decision making by that CTO. I fired myself from this company later because of the whole scammy nature of that particular company. A common pattern of startups that survive with a less than ideal CTO is to appoint a VP of engineering and then sideline the founder CTO as soon as convenient. I once knew a guy whose unofficial job title was "minder of the CTO". His job was protecting the rest of the team from the random bullshit, brain farts, and whatnot from this CTO founder and making sure he did no damage. The actual company was being lead technically by a very competent vp of engineering at that point.

padolsey 3y ago

Biggest bugbear is that 90% of the time, non-technical people are just looking for a CRUD app. Basic user auth, chat, forum, mobile app. Etc. The age-old scaffold. It's just dull. I'm a technical person looking for a non-technical person who can absolutely smash the sales/ops/marketing side of things, and has a killer idea in a domain they know like the back of their hand. The struggle I've found, e.g. on hn startupschool, is that people have ideas that are unproven. Like, they haven't even scrappily pieced together an mvp. They feel blocked by a lack of what is almost always yet another CRUD app. Most non-technical-domain things, outside of dev SaaS or super-technical products (which a non-eng has no business doing) can be 'behind-the-curtain' 'fake till you make it' products IMHO so I feel a bit let down when someone comes along with an idea and have hit a barrier without even trying to scrappily piece together their product with bits-and-pieces.

justinlloyd 3y ago
If you haven't tried solving it with an Excel spreadsheet, I'm not interested in signing the NDA to hear your idea.

hackernoteng 3y ago

If you are technical co-founder you should only hook up with a co-founder who knows how to sell, and knows how to raise money. Most likely you will pivot from original ideas anyway. Selling and raising money is key.

c0brac0bra 3y ago
As a technical person who finds extreme friction with the sales side, it would be nice to find such a person.

hpeter 3y ago

I think those requirements are for multiple people. I can only fit a single one, Individual Contributor, I can do all the code and design and devops... Leadership abilities? nah I'm an introvert Shares the vision? Depends on the vision... no cash grabs pls Available? Works for free? No and No Same vibe? don't think so. Same age? maybe yes, I'm in my thirties. Commitment to somebody else's idea after 2 meetings? No, there are trust issues if I don't know you already... I dunno who made this list up but imho there are conflicts. You can't be a leader and commit to somebody else's idea unconditionally. You can't be a super fullstack dev and work for free.

j45 3y ago

I once built MVPs as a service in 90 days. Technical founders create the initial actual value by building any MVP. Ideas are worthless, execution is everything, more so with founders who have solved successfully in a particular area before. It was striking how often a founder with an idea had not much more beyond that. It would scare me when the tech guy who has learned business may know more than the non-tech founder, simply from working with so many other founders with only an idea. I would offer to build free, or a steep discount to retain 100% of the IP. The non-technical founder would earn back their stake by delivering on marketing, sales, and revenue. It taught me that: - tech people can learn business easier than the other way around, even though I strongly believe non-technical founders should learn the tooling enough like they might know enough about their cars. - 90% of the MVP had nothing to do with solving a problem. Logins, billing, security. - Most MVPs would waste their innovation points, too soon, by building entirely too much from scratch, leaving it inflexible to modify as you learn through the lean startup process. Simply avoiding this pitfall would allow enough iterations quickly to uncover the valuable problems. - Boring and quickest techs for MVPs reign supreme because MVPs are supposed to be temporary and disposable, right? Just like a startup is supposed to be a temporary organization to find a repeatable and scalable business model If a non-technical cofounder cannot market or sell (establish distribution), the greater loss occurs to the Technical founder.

nadam 3y ago

The main problem is that as a software developer most of us worked at software product companies all our life and I noticed that often we know more about software product design and product strategy than some of the 'idea people'. People who never worked as developer OR product manager OR designer and have no knowledge in any of these fields and have no money to afford a payed developer are rarely the good co-founders. I absolutely agree with the OP that most of these people need simple CRUD apps, and the reason they need a 'cofounder' is that they need a mediocre programmer but have no money to pay them. I don't even like the term 'technical' vs. 'non-technical'. Ideally a smart person in the tech business should be somewhat 'technical'. If absolutely and categorically non-technical then they should be really-really exceptionally good in something that is absolutely needed for the business. (For example having a large following.)

deleted 3y ago
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siva7 3y ago

Same is true for a non-technical founder. It's a shit show and platforms like YC founder matching are selling the illusion that you can found a company with a total stranger just by their CV which is dangerously wrong.

graycat 3y ago

Ideas? Can an idea be really, REALLY valuable? Can an idea get a lot of value via a patent or held as a trade secret? Uh, let's see: From Bell Labs, the transistor. They saw that it was so valuable they deliberately didn't patent it and, instead, gave it to the world for free -- that's in effect what they did, but there may be legal details, and I'm not a lawyer. Suppose that now we had to pay a penny a transistor ......? Uh, the laser? Not just one that fills a large airplane and is powerful enough to shoot down a missile but the ones the size of a grain of rice and light the long-haul optical fibers for the backbone of the Internet? How 'bout the amplifiers on the optical fibers? I'm not a lawyer, but how 'bout RSA encryption? And the FFT (fast Fourier transform)? And mRNA for creating vaccines? I know; I know; some people see the mRNA for Covid as naughty, bad, ugly, ...? Well, there were the Phase III trials, randomized, placebo controlled, double blind, reported in "Efficacy and Safety of the mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine", New England Journal of Medicine, February 4, 2021, 384:403-416 at https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2035389 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2035389 with efficacy 94% and safety 100% -- uh, for just how the efficacy arithmetic is done might want to check the paper. Yes, the safety was from ~16,000 persons, and with 1 billion persons maybe safety will be lower than 100%. There are various error correcting codes, maybe some buried in hardware devices. It does appear that James Simons had some ideas that are valuable and not easy for others to copy.

bigbillheck 3y ago
> they deliberately didn't patent it If you'll check the historical record you'll find, for example, patents US2524035A (Bardeen&Brattain, Three-electrode circuit element utilizing semiconductive materials, oldest priority 1948-02-26) and US2569347A (Shockley, Circuit element utilizing semiconductive material, oldest priority 1948-06-26). > How 'bout the amplifiers on the optical fibers? patents.google.com reports 65279 hits for "optical fiber amplifier" > Uh, the laser? The original invention of the laser led to patent disputes and lawsuits that weren't settled until 1987. > RSA encryption US4405829A (Rivest, Shamier, Alderman, Cryptographic communications system and method, filed 1977 awarded 1983) > And the FFT (fast Fourier transform)? There's an entire category for this, G06F17/142, with 11186 entries: https://patents.google.com/?q=G06F17%2f142 https://patents.google.com/?q=G06F17%2f142

matrix_overload 3y ago

The article misses the obvious. You don't become a technical co-founder to make bank with the equity or salary. You'll get diluted, replaced and kicked out the moment traction starts gaining. You become a technical co-founder to trade in your technical skills, learn about a new domain, figure out where the pain points are, and eventually jump ship and become a captain of your own vessel. Also, the article is an obvious pitch in the likes of "don't get a co-founder, order an MVP from me instead".

k__ 3y ago
Do you have to get diluted? Like, can you get forced to sell?
- hedora 3y ago
  Each funding round and new hire brings dilution. The company issues new shares for the investors and new hires. So, you might start with 100,000 shares and 10% of the company, but by IPO, there could be 100,000,000 shares, giving you 0.1% of the company. (These numbers are completely made up, though if the company ipo’s for $1B, that’s $10/share which is a plausible price per share. Companies often grant additional shares to early employees.)
  - matrix_overload 3y ago
    Exactly. And then the board votes on who gets extra shares to compensate for the dilution, and the CTO is suddenly not on the list. Because the CEO spent months playing political chess with the board members, negotiating who gets what, and before that spent years playing political chess with investors to see who gets into the board. CTO is usually not involved in these games, and has no pull beyond the CEO's goodwill.
dmitrygr 3y ago
> You don't become a technical co-founder to make bank with the equity or salary. [...] and eventually jump ship and become a captain of your own vessel. So by your logic, only the CEO gets to make bank from a startup and everyone else, CTO included, are to get screwed and accept this?

taytus 3y ago

You will. Email me.

SunghoYahng 3y ago

If they can't even handle those things and they need advice, what the heck is the founders on the business side of things supposed to do? The business side of things means handling those things.

taylorhughes 3y ago

Too many nontechnical folks I talk to act like they’re blocked because they don't have a technical cofounder to build their amazing app idea. But there’s so much they can do to build a business with no code with today’s tools! Technical folks will be impressed by how far you’ve gotten without having any actual custom software. I tried to capture this here: https://medium.com/@taylorhughes/to-find-a-technical-cofounder-prove-that-your-success-is-inevitable-98d191c78a00 https://medium.com/@taylorhughes/to-find-a-technical-cofound...

alanlammiman 3y ago

Forgive the arrogant tone here. But just to speak to a moment to the poor 'non-technical founder' or 'idea person' being pilloried: If you find the article and comments depressing, ignore them. They sound reasonable, but in fact if you have the idea and the guts to go out there and try to get it built, that does have incredible value. It's a different type of value - perhaps less immediately monetizable than top-notch programming skills, but potentially with a bigger payoff long-term, and whether that is fair or not is irrelevant. Yes, maybe you'll have to adjust your strategy as you go along, whether it's looking for cofounders elsewhere, hiring freelancers, learning to do the technical stuff yourself and taking 10x as long, etc. But you have to start somewhere, and starting by asking people who can help you build whatever you want to build is not at all an unreasonable place to start. When I quit my job and was starting my first business (solo, which is another thing you'll hear on this forum you can't/shouldn't do), I was trying to hire employee #1. There was one candidate who literally laughed at me. Imagine how that feels - I had no funding - I was going to pay him out of my limited and hard-earned savings. I fear that some of this stuff here is even more insidious. Because although I felt terrible in the moment, I used that to fuel my drive. He was the image of who I was going to prove wrong. Whereas all this stuff that has a veneer of logic can potentially convince someone not to go out and build. But as I read this, the word 'problem' appears 16x in the comments, 'can't' 13x, 'no' 32x, and on and on - on a forum hosted by a startup incubator of all things! In my experience you don't even need an 'idea' in the sense of a unique insight, you just need openness to the 'idea' that yes you can succeed and opportunities are as abundant as problems.

methodical 3y ago

From my experience previously looking for a non-technical founder, I've run into a lot of people who think they're the second coming of Steve Jobs or something like that and so in turn try to hardball in equity and other negotiations despite having no leverage at all, which just makes them look like a fool. An idea is worth essentially $0 without any ability to execute it. The fact that equity points are a big concern should be a glaring red flag to stay away.

threatofrain 3y ago
A good idea is actually worth money, and it makes sense to pay people for the generation of new ideas as some famous labs did before.
- methodical 3y ago
  Sure, if an idea was entirely unique and revolutionary, but wanting to build the umpteenth CRM SaaS startup is not. Nobody in regards to technology ever pays anybody for ideas, they pay them for their ability to execute or sell/market those ideas. The "famous labs" you describe but don't name are _labs_, and the innovation that came out of them was a result of people with ideas and the ability to execute.
  - floren 3y ago
    > The "famous labs" you describe but don't name are _labs_, and the innovation that came out of them was a result of people with ideas and the ability to execute. and, crucially, extremely successful parent companies that could afford to throw millions at long shots that might not pay out for a decade.

thepasswordis 3y ago

This is so funny to me. I feel like I am always "seeking non-technical cofounder". I'm a great programmer, and I can build almost anything, but I am not a sales guy. I've been some incredibly sales guys in my life. People who could proverbially sell ice to eskimos or sand to egyptians or whatever. I've always thought if I could team up with one of those people (who are usually already paired up and very well paid!) it would be awesome.

mstaunton7 3y ago

While I agree in most cases, it’s not always the case. I have definitely seen the whole “I’ll handle the business side, you build it” so I know that’s not uncommon. I do think hiring a developer is a better approach for most founders. The company I currently work at is an example of a non-technical founder finding a technical co-founder. They did meet through a co-founder matching program but I do think it’s possible

parpfish 3y ago

My summary is: "don't get a technical co-founder when you could get away with hiring employee #1" People make the mistake of thinking that a business is a "tech company" just becuase it uses the internet. If you're an online retailer, just think of your self as a typical small (for now) business rather than a tech startup. There's a whole world of entrepreneurial advice on that front that you'll miss out on if you only read about VCs.

heyjamesknight 3y ago

We work with non-technical founders. I've written a version of this post—although not as comprehensive. My main advice for all aspiring founders is the same: You cannot be waiting. You must be executing. You can't wait for funding. You can't wait for a technical cofounder. You can't wait for the dev shop to finish your MVP. If you're not actively, personally building something, you MUST be executing somewhere else. Ideally this means you're talking to customers, pitching, and trying to solve their problems with the skills and resources you have available to you. But you can't just sit around and wait for someone to save you and your startup. And this article gives a great explanation of why: those saviors can save themselves. If you're 100% dependent on them for success, what are they getting out of the relationship? Don't wait. Do.

kikimora 3y ago
IMHO this is what most non-technical founders are missing. They come to you with a proposal like “build this thing and then I’ll sell” and you have to trust they would. Sometimes they provably can and this is a great deal then. More often than not nothing indicates they can sell anything, unfortunately.

neilv 3y ago

> Reasons you might want to pay for a developer [...] You get a much higher commitment level [...] But I'm talking more about the feeling of seriousness people take their work when it's paid vs when its unpaid. Sounds like contrasting it with people who aren't wired to be technical cofounders, or who haven't bought into this particular cofounder relationship.

neilv 3y ago

> Reasons you might want to pay for a developer [...] You get far less scrutiny Why wouldn't you want a cofounder "keeping you honest" about the startup?

HelloNurse 3y ago
It's mostly about the stress and waste of time of continuously justifying the existence of the company and, by extension, of the founder. Of course, convincing engineers that there is enough "runway" to pay them for a few months and that their job is going to last beyond that is always necessary.

pjdemers 3y ago

My experience with non-technical cofounders is: "We already have a CTO. However he/she is too busy/important/senior/all-of-these to build an MVP. What we need is someone to take our CTO's design and code it up, then become employee #1 for, all for 0.5% of the company."

synergy20 3y ago

On the other hand, the technical founder might find you when he/she gets bored to do marketing or sales job. Ideas are cheap, I can have 10 great ideas in an afternoon, and I can change some of them tomorrow, execution is what it all matters.

dboreham 3y ago

Co-founders typically come from the same company, or worked together previously. So you "will" find a technical co-founder if you're a business-side person working at Facebook or Google. Just go to the coffee machine... Otherwise, no, you're trying to find a zero-cost implementation of a very costly employee number 1.

cynicalsecurity 3y ago

This article contains a lot of inaccurate information.

chad_strategic 3y ago

Completely disagree. https://www.strategic-options.com/insight/2024/04/02/believe-it-or-not-your-unicorn-candidate-has-arrived/ https://www.strategic-options.com/insight/2024/04/02/believe...

Volrath89 3y ago

Does anyone know a similar article for the opposite case? Technical guy looking for a salesperson co-founder. I think many of the points of the article still apply, especially regarding opportunity cost. A great salesman can make way, way more than a great engineer, so why would he want to join me? And let's say I want to hire my first salesperson. How do I know who is good and who is not? For me as an engineer, everyone looks like a good salesman, because everyone is better than me (I suck at sales)

rrr_oh_man 3y ago
> let's say I want to hire my first salesperson If you don’t know the criteria for a good salesperson for your product you don’t know enough about the problem you’re solving and shouldn’t hire anyone, yet. Similarly, if you don’t know exactly what to build to solve a problem (= you haven’t already validated it with low tech tools) you shouldn’t hire an engineer to build anything.

Saulivar 3y ago

I made that mistake of partnering up with non technical co-founder to build travel insurance "configurator" to get the best deal on travel insurance. Only I discovered there were more co-founders like his wife "to do some accounting" and his buddies to do whatever. And I was the only technical person who was supposed to build the thing, to launch it and they were the ones nit-picking little stupid details that took forever to fix but didn't matter all that much. In the end I spent 5 months working on it and we still didn't get any paying clients, but many more ideas on what else I should build "to get clients". I realized they suck at marketing and business side of things and they don't know shit. If you're a tech person, don't make the same mistake I did. Most people don't understand marketing. Their ideas are shit. They don't know the technology. And YOU are the one who's gonna be doing most of the work. And THEY think that the business belongs to them because as someone said they "came up with the idea" that wasn't all that unique because everything that's needed under the sun has already been built. Many times over. They had just no idea that that's the truth. Now if they have the money and want to hire you to do the work, charge them market rate.

erikerikson 3y ago

Also in the background: technical founders often get treated as second class, replaceable citizens that can be pushed out and/or diluted. Consider the developed company equivalent: that as you rise, you must become more and more of a people manager contributing not higher quality, more impactful and difficult technical challenges but pushed into politics and "influence". If you don't bow to that pattern and you don't stay sufficiently outside of anyone's attention you'll be pushed out.

taco-hands 3y ago

There's a lot of chaff in the comments, but put bluntly - you aren't going to find a good tech co-founder randomly, online or through some hypothetically attractive matching services... Matching services are weak at best and should be treated like online dating sites; The vast majority aren't those you're looking for and frankly, some of them are bunny-boilers. If you're serious - use and exploit your own network, reach out to people you know and discover those who others value and might be interested in your hypothetical (or proven idea) backed by data, science, experience and value. I say this having experience co-founding multiple businesses; 1 IPO on LSE/NASDAQ, several trade sales and a bunch of failures (which really really hurt). The most valuable lesson being that the failures teach you more than anything else!

matthew-molloy 3y ago

Yes you will, https://github.com/whamtet https://github.com/whamtet ;) ;) ;)

deleted 3y ago

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Mikho 3y ago

This a classic self-righteous text from a person who doesn't want to take ANY risk but wants to be a technical co-founder in the notion of "pay me the full market salary and give a lot of shares for me to even consider being a co-founder". The whole post gives the impression that being a co-founder means to this person not starting his own business but getting a paid side gig. This person, apparently, considers that an MVP is the only value that is created by a startup team. The truth is everybody on the team risks—tech or non-tech founders: both types invest their own time and expertise regardless of a task to be done. The fact that non-technical founder doesn't code MVP doesn't mean that there is no time/expertise invested that moves the needle. So, both invest and should better "date" for some time to test getting along. The funny part is that it's people like the author who got easily tricked by a good salesman and smooth talkers into working for free. A good salesperson clearly sees what motivates such people and promises a lot of it to only deliver nothing later.

indil 3y ago

>How passionate do you need your accountant to be? Oof. Yes.

speby 3y ago

One of the biggest weaknesses of a non-technical founder looking for a technical founder are basically the following: * Not really having 'much' to bring to the table other than the idea and self-proclaimed knowledge of the problem and domain. As the article mentions, having some capital already, having some sort of following or verifiable reputation or whatever would help a long way. * Not really having any kind of story around "What have you tried so far?". The least sexy conversation is one where the non-technical founder is telling you about this "new" thing to work on and build and the reality is they've only been thinking about it for like 2 months and haven't really "done" anything other than some cursory research. Like, for example, if they don't have capital at all yet, have they tried before they came to you?

alexanderisora 3y ago

I agree. It is nearly impossible! If they are young, they are full of their own ambitions and ideas. It is hard to cooperate. If they are old, they already have built something in the past and not looking for help in exchange of new risks. Finding a co-founder is an additional full-time job. I have tried that in 2018 when I was starting my startup. I spent days on meetings and forums like this one. I found dozens of amazing folks, but it was impossible to negotiate and actually start something together. Finding a co-founder = finding a girlfriend. You do not seek for one intentionally. You just live having a chance to meet that one. Same with a co-founder.