I recently moved to Palo Alto and don't know many people or how the startup process works (if there is such a process).<p>I'm an everything developer and am currently building an App prototype for an idea of mine. I think it has a lot of potential and would fill an important niche.<p>Given that I'm a developer and can build out the infrastructure/backend/mockups+app myself, what makes more sense? Should I seek funding and then try to "hire" people, or should I try to meet would-be co-founders first?<p>I'm not trying to be greedy by doing it all myself; equity-hoarding is a solid way to sink your potential. I simply don't know the point at which I should really seek out others. I also don't know where I should go to meet people who would be a good match.<p>I've been to local entrepreneur Meetups and haven't had much luck in finding people to work with. It almost seems like getting seed funding might make more sense and then I can simply post job ads.<p>I think I can move aggressively with a proper designer, another developer, and marketing help.<p>Thank you for any advice you might have!
This is not an answer to your question, but I'm curious - have you shown your prototype to any potential customers/users yet? I may be wrong, but your post makes me guess that you had a bunch of ideas, chose the one which seemed most promising to you, and started coding. It's worth stopping for a reality check.<p>The first step to convincing others (co-founders, employees, investors) is convincing yourself. Learning from customers/users will help.<p>If I'm wrong, and that part is covered, you may want to spend some time making a monthly financial plan for the first 2 years of your business. List out all the revenues and costs you expect to have (on a cash basis, not P&L). Be generous in assuming costs, and conservative in estimating revenues. That will (i) force you to think about all the things you'll need to do and (ii) give you a way to determine whether and how much external funding you need.
I am not sure what your idea is, but there are lot of assumptions you are making.
1. You are assuming you will get funding in near future
2. You are assuming you will get employees once you get funding
3. You are assuming your idea + execution will make it big<p>Let me tell you 99.9% of people have same belief about what they do or ideate.
I can't be a better judge of what idea you have or your execution policy.
Good idea to start this off is to build relationships (people, engineers, investors). Don't ask for money, ask for advice. Don't try to recruit, try to influence. Don't go to metopes, organize one...these will lead you to right foundations for your startup
Meetups are great to meet a large audience, but you don't get quality time with people that way. That's why I did launch[1] the concept of meeting a small group of people (typically 4) over lunch. I believe that it's a great format: an hour lunch is the right amount of time to chat with a small group, find common interests, how we can help each other, while remaining a low-key, no pressure environment.<p>[1] <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id926598094" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id926598094</a>
As for the process, I think Sam Altman's startup class at Stanford might be the best intro resource out there: <a href="http://startupclass.samaltman.com/" rel="nofollow">http://startupclass.samaltman.com/</a>. It's a lot of information, from a lot of different people, but it's fairly comprehensive, and the matter-of-fact style is extremely orienting.
Regarding co-founders, my non-expert advice is to only look inside your own co-worker/friend network. While there's a lot of data that points to 2-3 co-founders being a good number, I tend to think going solo is better than finding a stranger to co-found with. Founding a startup with a stranger adds another huge variable to the equation.