Why is it so hard finding a technical co-founder?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4610186

by jkaykin • 14 years ago

10 32 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Yes I understand the whole "why would someone who is technical making $120,000 a year want to join your startup as a CTO for small pay and equity" argument but aren't startups all about taking risks?

I just want to find a great technical co-founder in the bay area but it's harder than I thought.

jtchang• 14 years ago

If you understand why someone making $120k /yr would quit and join a startup then you get the idea.

If you want a technical cofounder then you have to view it as the first hurdle in your business. If you can't even pass this hurdle what makes you feel like you can succeed at anything else?

As a random aside...do you guys think finding a technical cofounder is harder than any of the business problems you will likely encounter on the road to success?

jkaykin3• 14 years ago

But the technical co-founder should understand that it's a startup, are people really not that open to taking a cut now for the possibility of better returns later?

I think that finding a technical cofounder can be as hard as any business problem. The reason I say "can" is because many people are lucky and find their technical cofounder in college and that makes it pretty easy.

epc2• 14 years ago

So, you have an idea, and all you need is a technical guy to make it happen.

The problem is, whatever your idea is, you're failing to sell it to the very people you need to help make it succeed.

"the technical co-founder should understand that it's a startup" is a bogus excuse. The co-founder you're looking for is smart enough to take your idea and implement it, but you don't respect his or her ability to assess risk?

If you're selling an idea and no one's buying, you're either not making clear how you expect the idea to succeed, or you're being very clear and your potential co-founders don't think it's worth the risk.

chc• 14 years ago

> But the technical co-founder should understand that it's a startup, are people really not that open to taking a cut now for the possibility of better returns later?

It depends on the possibility! "Possibility" could mean "vague chance in hell," it could mean "almost a sure thing," or it could mean anything inbetween. They need to feel that this "possibility" is enough to offset what they're giving up. Nobody's going to say, "Oh, this will probably be a huge loss, but they're a startup, so it's OK." They need to feel strongly that what you're proposing will be more rewarding in the long run than their other prospects. If you can't persuade anyone that working with you will be highly rewarding, then either a) You need to work on your communication and persuasion skills, b) What you are proposing is just not worth these people's time, or c) You're approaching the totally wrong kind of person.

samstave2• 14 years ago

>The reason I say "can" is because many people are lucky and find their technical cofounder in college and that makes it pretty easy

This is the secret sauce that stanford has realized - and pretty much the rest of the valley VC market.

College students are (young "dumb" and full of [ambition])

The VC field uses the same model as the military.

While there are many exceptions - the bang-for-buck is clearly on the out-of-college founder group.

EDIT: when I say bang-for-buck - I mean cost-to-risk ratio

college students are far cheaper, require less overhead and the potential return on them is far greater in large numbers.

Although there are many many areas where you need a certain amount of domain knowledge that comes from experience in your field which would be required to disrupt the sector you are focusing on... it would be great to see a 30+ year old only fund to address this...

anigbrowl• 14 years ago

Not having your contact email in your profile doesn't help.

jkaykin3• 14 years ago

Sorry about that, I added it now.

propercoil• 14 years ago

if it's all about taking risks then why don't you take one and borrow 120k to pay for a developer? oh, you don't want to do that now do you? well that is exactly what the developer risks ~100k

alid• 14 years ago

Hey man, I'm in the same boat in the sense that I'm ready to make my first hire. It is hard - yes - but hopefully that's because you've set your standards high. I think it's about attitude. I'm determined to put an A-Team together for an idea that is backed by a solid pitch and has industry traction. If you're able to articulate your idea clearly and with passion - make people excited - then you will, eventually, find people very willing to jump on board or recommend friends.

I'm taking my time with it, as the right team is crucial to success. As a random aside, I'm even going tech partner 'speed dating' next week! (I'm actually ridiculously nervous...having been with my husband for 8 years, I don't have a clue how to go on a speed 'date' lol)

kstenerud2• 14 years ago

If the potential co-founders you're speaking to aren't showing interest, more than likely the problem actually lies on your side. As the initial founder, your job first and foremost is as a salesman. You need to sell your idea such that other people are HUNGRY to join.

Money is not the primary motivator here; passion is. Until your potential co-founder feels that passion inside himself to make your idea a reality, he won't join you (or if he does, he'll be more likely to leave once the going gets tough).

amorphid• 14 years ago

It's not about selling, it's about having something worth buying. Does a techie look at your situation and say "I want me some o' that?". If not, no amount of high-pressure selling is going to make your company/idea significantly more compelling to someone who isn't interested.

kstenerud2• 14 years ago

Who said anything about high-pressure selling? Don't confuse sales with manipulation.

project23• 14 years ago

Its not about "why would someone who is technical making $120,000 a year want to join your startup as a CTO for small pay and equity", it's about why would they want to work with YOU. You may think you're qualified, but most non-technical founders (which I assume is what you are) are not.

px1999• 14 years ago

I'll bite and try to give some hopefully useful thoughts...

You're not just asking someone to give up 120k and join your company, you're asking someone who's probably quite creative (assuming you're trying to hire the right guys) to get completely on-board with your vision/idea. That means:

* Give up $120k / yr (this is really unimportant in the grand scheme of things IMO)

* Give up their financial security (this is more important)

* Taking the big, long list of ideas that they'd want to implement and put yours at the top

* (Likely) give up far more time than they had to before

* Stepping away from what is hopefully a group of other smart people that they enjoy solving software problems with

You have to be careful that your pitches don't seem like "Well, I have this really great idea, you sit around and pour 5000 hours of your life over the next 18 months into implementing it exactly as I have envisaged, and I'll handle all of the business stuff! We'll totally split the profits down the middle!"

I almost fall into the group of people who you'd be looking for (maybe, though while I consult I haven't done a startup yet), and there are a few things that I'd be looking for:

* Confidence that (even if you weren't involved in any way) the product will make money (or a difference, depending on the developer).

* Interesting problems to solve. Browsium for instance probably have a hell of a time trying to hire developers, and if they weren't all coming from Microsoft, I'd imagine it would have been impossible to get a CTO.

* Confidence that you're actually going to be adding significant value, or at least bankrolling the venture. A lot of devs see a lot of non-technical roles as "easier", usually because they've never seen someone that's really great at the non-technical role. It's probably easier to hook someone by starting them contracting for you to build a prototype or something, I dunno.

I don't know how you're trying to bring people in, but you're also not hiring at this stage, you're pitching - trying to sell yourself (both ability as well as desire to add value) as well as your idea to these people. Maybe it's also SF, have you tried looking elsewhere for people?

whichdan• 14 years ago

How many developers - ones that would fit your criteria and be willing to join your startup - could afford to live off of savings for 1-3 years?

ryanlchan3• 14 years ago

Let's clarify the implicit assumption you put in there: Why is it so hard finding a good technical co-founder? It's the same reason it's hard finding a good non-technical co-founder.

With a technical co-founder you're looking for proof of skill - they've done an app on no budget, limited time, and little sleep. Twice. They scaled it singlehandedly to 20m users. They not only know Node, they're on the core team.

What a technical co-founder is looking for is the exact same proof of skill. Can you sell ice cubes to Eskimos at 50% mark up? Can you get investment just by walking down Market? Do you have customers begging you to give them the privilege of sending you their money?

I wrote a blog post about this a few days ago [1]. The tl;dr: If you want a co-founder, earn one.

[1] http://ryanlchan.com/post/32483578213/non-technical-founders...

samstave2• 14 years ago

>they've done an app on no budget, limited time, and little sleep. Twice. They scaled it singlehandedly to 20m users.

This is not true. You do not need to have such credentials for a technical co-founder.

I think your entire response is full of regurgitated garbage designed to serve the valleys current paradigm: devs are worth money - ideas are free.

This has been argued ad nausea here - but the fact is that ideas are NOT worth nothing. VCs are in a position to PAY developers til the cows come home - finding an idea in a market that is sizable, people are passionate about their support and willing to pay for, and can scale etc etc etc is HARD.

This is where YC has found the sweet spot - they have a model to vet the dev skill + idea-ability of the team.

Your claim that you need to have a hacker + hustler that can singlehandledly scale to 20M users and raise funding whilst walking down market street is retarded.

I agree with your TL;DR - but not on the same level you claim it.

The real problem is that finding a technical co-founder is hard because typically the skills to be the technical side are SOLELY what support the technical person, whereas the skills that are required to be the idea/business guy are NOT the SOLE means of supporting the idea guy - so it is intrinsically easier to be in the idea position, FINANCIALLY - but it is NOT easy/free to come up with the next $X billion dollar idea.

so - I would rebut that it is important to focus on how quickly your idea can be a revenue positive business. If you have an idea - make sure you can convince a tech co-founder that your amazing idea can sustain the OP-EX as early as possible then you will have a better chance of attracting a tech co-founder.

---

Anecdote: ahve a guy that I am working with who is really smart and is an idea guy with degrees in foreign language and international business. He worked with Mayor Newsom, the De Rothschilds and others...

His ideas typically revolve around disrupting institutions, non-profits and social behavior.

These are all great ideas that he is proposing but NONE of them have any clear way to 1) make money quickly 2) have any easy/cheap adoption path 3) not require significant upfront capital to even get to a pilot...

It is critical that you have an idea that is rock-solid in its ability to actually be "something people want to use" (and pay money for).

If you cant A) pay your tech co-founder then you damn well better be able to B) come up with an idea that is so enticing that people will pay for it out of the gate.

waveman2• 14 years ago

While it's true that really really good ideas are not free, you seem to be understating the importance of execution.

There is a huge difference between "Let's start an online bookshop", which was an idea many people had, and Amazon.com.

Or between "let's use links like academic citations as a measure of quality of web pages" and google.com.

ryanlchan3• 14 years ago

I never said that these credentials are required (in fact I don't think they are), but that the OP implicitly believes them to be true. If you complain about the "lack of good technical cofounders" when there are 14,000 CS graduates every year and a flood of 'Ask HN: Smart developer needs job' posts springing up, you must either not be looking very hard or have ridiculously high expectations. The post is meant to highlight the ridiculousness of what many people expect of a "good" technical cofounder.

> I think your entire response is full of regurgitated garbage designed to serve the valleys current paradigm: devs are worth money - ideas are free.

Well that'd be quite ironic, as I'm on the non-technical side myself. In fact my argument is that neither of these are true. If you want to go start a start up, just go goddamn start it. Don't wait for your magic non-technical cofound to come around and solve all your problems.

antonwinter• 14 years ago

Getting a technical co-founder can be easy. There are plenty of talented techies that have already got a product ready to go or nearly ready that need someone to go out there and pitch and sell it. look for them. Ask on HN if anyone has a product that you can sell. I'm sure the response would be good, as long as you can deliver.

dwwoelfel• 14 years ago

small ... equity

I think the expectation of potential co-founders is that they will get a large chunk of equity. Maybe you'll have more luck if you up the equity offer.

codegeek• 14 years ago

Technical or non-technical, it is just hard to find a co-founder. Heck, it is just hard to find any kind of partner.

allwein• 14 years ago

The reason it's hard is because you're lumping together two really difficult problems:

1)How do I find a good technical worker?

2)How do I find an entrpreneurial partner who's a good fit?

tptacek• 14 years ago

It's not hard to find a technical cofounder. It's hard to find a pedigreed cofounder.

Instead of trying to recruit someone who can walk in the door at an SFBA company at 150k, instead start getting drinks with a few people like that and leverage them to help gauge promising up-and-comers --- people just coming out of school, or, better, people hoping to make a transition from ops (administration, network engineering, &c) to development.

devb0x• 14 years ago

Here's the thing, it is hard. Its hard to filter out the guys who can mention buzz words but push comes to show they are lost and directionless. Technically able in a past position in a different field in a related industry just may not cut it. Plus, the guy has got to want to hustle too, right?

helen842000• 14 years ago

I think you're looking for a co-founder before you need one. That's not the step you need to solve right now.

Have you done anything towards your idea yet? When you start showcasing your abilities (selling, designing, writing, networking, planning) that's when it's far easier to get technical people on board, because then you sound hardworking, creative, easy to work with & thoughtful (i.e you've done what you can before you expect others to pitch in)

You need to get to a point where you have done EVERYTHING you can possibly do to prepare for the building stage. That shows a co-founder they can hit the ground running with their skills & won't have to think every tiny detail through, you've shown commitment to your own project.

Go speak to potential customers, do surveys, ask if they'll part with their money for your idea, Create a Twitter account & start to draw a following, name your startup, buy the domain, set up a Wordpress blog, draw wireframes of EVERY stage of your idea. Collect examples of designs, interactions and UI that you love.

Having pre-orders turns heads like you wouldn't believe.

If that all sounds like too much work then having a co-founder is the least of your worries.

witoldc• 14 years ago

The answer is because most non-technical co-founders don't bring much to the table. Many don't have startup experience, management experience, fundraising/angel/VC connections.

If you want to tech co-founders to work with you, you need to demonstrate something.

charlesjshort• 14 years ago

Why is it so hard to land a hot girlfriend?

Why is it so hard finding a technical co-founder?

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