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I am also always looking for a co-founder. When a geek approaches me (or I approach them) to be the suit for their project, I usually give them some simple soft

I am also always looking for a co-founder. When a geek approaches me (or I approach them) to be the suit for their project, I usually give them some simple soft skill to do - like go out and talk to potential customers and get feedback from say 500 in a day. Finally, before I even consider hustling customers and investors I want some paltry measure of ability. If you can hack something together in 24-48 hours or even a week, then they're quality geek co-founder material. Any longer and it's a judgement call. Most won't get past step one, and you certainly didn't want them as a co-founder. I have learned this the hard way. I raised money only to find out my tech co-founder couldn't push code in a timely manner. This street goes both ways and that is why teams of 2 work best, one to build it and one to sell it to the world. The question for me is, can the geek cut it?

cstejerean 14y ago
Talking one-on-one to 500 customers in one day to get feedback doesn't seem possible. If you only spend 5 minutes talking to each customer, and you have them lined up back to back so you don't waste time in between, it would still take 40+ hours. I guess you could do 1 minute conversations and get it down to about 8 hours, although even assuming you can get 500 people to queue up for this, I'm curious what will come out of 500 x 1 min. back to back conversations. It seems to me that the only useful way to get feedback from 500 people in one day involves sending out some kind of survey. Then again this isn't really my area of expertise, so I'm curious, how would you go about gathering feedback from 500 people in one day?
- carbocation 14y ago
  The entire post was a satirical response to the GP comment. It was meant to show how, depending on your point of view, the same logic can be applied to either the tech or the business side and maybe even "look good" but seem unreasonable to those on the other side of the table. Not saying I am in full agreement, but it's pretty clearly the purpose of the parent comment.
  - hosh 14y ago
    Except that it is possible to hack together something in 24 - 48 hours, or a week, assuming you are willing to pare it down to essentials and fake parts of the demo. Satire aside, it's enough to make me wonder if talking to 500 people is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Setting up a twitter account or a C Corp is really not that hard to do.
  - cstejerean 14y ago
    I had a feeling that might be the case when I started reading about the 500 people in one day bit. The second half however, about assessing whether the future technical co-founder can actually build a prototype over a weekend, seems like reasonable advice. Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency, and if you are about to get into a venture with someone you don't know well, I think it makes sense for both sides to do some due diligence.
    - ryanmolden 14y ago
      >Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency I would actually phrase it differently: programmers quite often overestimate their competency. I am not sure if it is unique to programmers or just an instance of the general inability to objectively analyze ourselves, but I do notice that the vast majority of programmers I have met (myself included :)) have a tendency to consider ourselves a smidge more capable than we actually may be from a purely objective standpoint. Then again the stretching is what grows great developers, so that overestimation that spurs you into attempting things just outside your current grasp is probably a net positive.
      - dasil003 14y ago
        The reason is because the skill appears as magic to others, whereas business skills are something that anyone can at least imagine themselves doing. This is completely orthogonal from how difficult these jobs may be under varying circumstances.
- hosh 14y ago
  I am curious about that too. I'm taking it at face value that "talking to 500 people" is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Only way I can think of is to do a survey and enlist the help of bored college students to stand in front of of a busy intersection. I'm guessing part of the "soft skill" is recognizing that > 90% of the people walking by won't even be interested in stopping and talking. (Or send an email/twitter/whatever blast somewhere. Or something). But essentially, "talking to 500 people" is not necessarily "talking one-on-one". I think that says a lot more about the difference in mindset between the geek and the suit than anything else.
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Alexx 14y ago
But the difference is that the 'software geeks' are the ones in demand in this senario. A geek does not typically approach an outsider and say 'I've got skills can you come up with an idea for me?'. But on the flip side 'you have skills, I've got this idea' is a -very- common occurrence. If you are the one doing the approaching applying your own quality control is a given. If against the odds you are being approached by an unknown geek wanting to partner with you, then testing their skills should be part of the process yeah, you both have to be confident in each other; though I would consider the above methods to be a truly terrible interview...

cstejerean 14y ago

Talking one-on-one to 500 customers in one day to get feedback doesn't seem possible. If you only spend 5 minutes talking to each customer, and you have them lined up back to back so you don't waste time in between, it would still take 40+ hours. I guess you could do 1 minute conversations and get it down to about 8 hours, although even assuming you can get 500 people to queue up for this, I'm curious what will come out of 500 x 1 min. back to back conversations. It seems to me that the only useful way to get feedback from 500 people in one day involves sending out some kind of survey. Then again this isn't really my area of expertise, so I'm curious, how would you go about gathering feedback from 500 people in one day?

carbocation 14y ago
The entire post was a satirical response to the GP comment. It was meant to show how, depending on your point of view, the same logic can be applied to either the tech or the business side and maybe even "look good" but seem unreasonable to those on the other side of the table. Not saying I am in full agreement, but it's pretty clearly the purpose of the parent comment.
- hosh 14y ago
  Except that it is possible to hack together something in 24 - 48 hours, or a week, assuming you are willing to pare it down to essentials and fake parts of the demo. Satire aside, it's enough to make me wonder if talking to 500 people is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Setting up a twitter account or a C Corp is really not that hard to do.
- cstejerean 14y ago
  I had a feeling that might be the case when I started reading about the 500 people in one day bit. The second half however, about assessing whether the future technical co-founder can actually build a prototype over a weekend, seems like reasonable advice. Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency, and if you are about to get into a venture with someone you don't know well, I think it makes sense for both sides to do some due diligence.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    >Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency I would actually phrase it differently: programmers quite often overestimate their competency. I am not sure if it is unique to programmers or just an instance of the general inability to objectively analyze ourselves, but I do notice that the vast majority of programmers I have met (myself included :)) have a tendency to consider ourselves a smidge more capable than we actually may be from a purely objective standpoint. Then again the stretching is what grows great developers, so that overestimation that spurs you into attempting things just outside your current grasp is probably a net positive.
    - dasil003 14y ago
      The reason is because the skill appears as magic to others, whereas business skills are something that anyone can at least imagine themselves doing. This is completely orthogonal from how difficult these jobs may be under varying circumstances.
hosh 14y ago
I am curious about that too. I'm taking it at face value that "talking to 500 people" is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Only way I can think of is to do a survey and enlist the help of bored college students to stand in front of of a busy intersection. I'm guessing part of the "soft skill" is recognizing that > 90% of the people walking by won't even be interested in stopping and talking. (Or send an email/twitter/whatever blast somewhere. Or something). But essentially, "talking to 500 people" is not necessarily "talking one-on-one". I think that says a lot more about the difference in mindset between the geek and the suit than anything else.
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Alexx 14y ago

But the difference is that the 'software geeks' are the ones in demand in this senario. A geek does not typically approach an outsider and say 'I've got skills can you come up with an idea for me?'. But on the flip side 'you have skills, I've got this idea' is a -very- common occurrence. If you are the one doing the approaching applying your own quality control is a given. If against the odds you are being approached by an unknown geek wanting to partner with you, then testing their skills should be part of the process yeah, you both have to be confident in each other; though I would consider the above methods to be a truly terrible interview...