How To Find A Technical Co-Founder

What is worse are idea people whose pitch to technical people is "I have this great idea that will revolutionize industry X" and/or "I will take on megacorps X, Y and Z with this idea", and then continue immediately with: "But I cannot tell you anything until you commit and sign an NDA." That's very poor salesmanship, which is the exact opposite of what I need from a non-technical co-founder.<p>It also tells me straight away that the idea has never left the idea person's head. He hasn't talked with technical people to understand if it's feasible, he hasn't talked with potential customers to understand if his idea is attractive to them and if they're willing to pay for it, and he hasn't pitched to anyone for funding. In fact, he is probably guarding his idea so tightly because he knows that idea alone is all he has to contribute. I have drawers full of those kinds of ideas I could build, I don't need an idea person for that.<p>If all the idea person brings to the table are things I could do myself with a trivial effort, then they have no value at all. The real value comes from things that are difficult to achieve and take hard work. Like relationships with customers, deep understanding of what is the simplest possible technical solution that will satisfy those customer's needs, and the ability to bring in highly skilled employees, partners and funding.

I would sum all of these good thoughts up into one bundle:<p>A developer will be expected to work their ass off turning ideas into awesome software. If you're not a developer, you must be prepared to bring an equal amount of energy and expertise to the table.<p>If you can communicate that commitment to your potential developer (technical co-founder), I suspect you'll have a much easier time getting them interested.

<i>"If you’re an Idea Person, lock yourself in a room for a couple of months and teach yourself the basics of the relevant technologies. For example, if you’re doing a web app, learn Ruby on Rails. Build something."</i><p>Alas, I learned this after my first failed venture. Now I'm a developer and love it.<p>Note to all awesome business people that think they can kill it if only they had a developer... Go learn to code. At the very least you will learn something to throw under your project management belt. An even better outcome will be that you figure out if the venture is actually worth the trouble- It will happen a lot quicker than if you are trying to manage the idea with another person.

The nightclub analogy is appropriate. The truth is that the idea person isn't even necessary. It's easy enough for two technical co-founders to play that role, the rare exception being an idea person with unique experience in a niche industry.<p>The idea person who invests a few months in learning a language is infinitely more attractive to a technical type. Nobody wants to be in a partnership, knowing that someone is depending on them 100% to accomplish the overwhelming majority of the work involved.<p>PS- What's up, Michael. :) ~CJS

I've seen this question before, and it always seems to be phrased in a way that implies a) that tech people aren't ideas people, and that b) tech people are just a 'resource' that the 'idea man' (aka. the 'real' founder) owns. As in 'Oh yeah, look at my awesome software. Oh that guy? He's just the one that, you know, wrote it all'. I think we as techies owe it to ourselves to be flipping this on its head, and asking questions on business sites like "How to find a business cofounder?" I recently started working in a coworking space full of startups. I occasionally overhear ludicrous conversations where an 'idea' person, with a lame idea, is trying to find a 'tech' person for some piddling share of the equity. I definitely think there's a huge advantage to being two instead of one, but I also think it should be a balanced one, where both people contribute to expanding an idea, and both truly own the idea, despite who initially started out with it.

The best advice I ever got about how to hire people and fill gaps in your team is to do the job yourself first - this applies to everything, not just tech.<p>The advantages of this approach are enormous - it helps you understand what you're looking for, helps you evaluate candidates and helps you understand the needs of your own company better than anything else ever could. And you're no longer desperate - you can afford to wait until you've found the best person to work with. It means that when you do start talking to people, they will respect you more because you took the time and effort to work out exactly what it is they do and how valuable they are.<p>It might even turn out that you don't even need that person, that the company is doing just fine because you worked out you can do it yourself more cost effectively than bringing on someone else.<p>Develop your skills so you can be the tech co-founder until you can get someone better than you.

My personal opinion is that by the time you have a business you want to build, you should already be close to several people who you'd like to work with. The feeling should be mutual. That means building a relationship -- trust, rapport, history, etc. -- <i>before</i> there is any extrinsically motivated <i>need</i> to find and know someone, whether they are technical or otherwise.<p>I'm sure some people can make things work with a team that is in essence a group of mutually hired guns [1]. I don't think <i>I</i> can succeed in that kind of relationship, and so I actively shun it.<p>[1] admittedly, I can see how such an arrangement can at times be valuable.

Funny that you are in San Antonio. I had the pleasure to work with Richard Ortega @ PickGrapevine. We meet in college and he always had these crazy ideas. While we were building PickGrapevine he would take time to do his own research about the tech stack we choose to use and seem genuinely interested into learning more about development. I wasn't able to say on become one of the founders but Richard went on to become a great CTO in the process ,he picked up some ruby and to my knowledge is doing great with it and the company seems to be doing good.

It's an interesting problem, looking for a solution to it myself: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5767447" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5767447</a><p>I think a platform which allows you to work on smaller projects to build up your credibility could be useful.

Hmm, technically there's nothing in there that helps you <i>find</i> a co-founder, just stuff that might make you look more attractive once you have.

"Someone has to make it rain"<p>this made me laugh!