Speaking as a technical guy, my default position is to be turned off by co-founding with a business guy unless they have an amazing track record. I like the advice of earning a technical co-founder.
I just wish more business guys realized their ideas aren't that special, aren't a magic way of printing money and just coming up with the idea doesn't entitle you to 75% of a two-man venture. It doesn't even really entitle you to an extra 10%.
In the beginning, your job is probably going to be to find a place to work, deal with the guy who's installing the Internet line, buying computers, buying food, buying and assembling furniture and generally just making things work. That's all very unglamorous work but, depending on the venture, it's quite likely your (alleged) business skills will be of very little value (while you're building a PoC/PoS/MVP).
I don't think I'm alone (as a technical guy) in generally finding business guys to have an inflated sense of self-importance who often want to treat technical people as an exchangeable/replaceable commodity.
Clearly, coming up with ideas and trying them out is not something you can only do in code, but when you do code you do that all the time. Every day, every hour, maybe even several times an hour.
Ironically, a self-described non-technical "idea guy" has relatively little experience in coming up with an idea, implementing it, testing it and iterating on it.
I'm speaking in general terms of course, some "idea guys" are simply brilliant and have an amazing vision. But they're the rare exception.
Depends on the capabilities of the business guy. The best idea in the world, with the best technical execution in the world, is worth precisely $0 without the capability to bring it to market: to build sales channels and drive growing revenues.
This is a real skill, often over-looked by gung-ho coders with a neat idea. If you don't have the contacts and the experience of engineering a proper bis dev strategy, you ain't going anywhere.
I don't think I've ever met a self-described "business guy" who wasn't a student.
If someone is a great salesman, they are a "sales guy". If they write ads, they are a "marketing guy". If they allocate capital, hire and fire, and lobby the CEO for more funds they are "managers".
When people say "business", it means they don't know what they are able to do, but want to make money. Or that they want to be the manager, but don't want to say it.
Sorry, complete nonsense.
In other words, there are a lot of business opportunities for which a majority of "the technical part" is already done.
Speaking as a business guy, my default position is to be turned off by co-founding with a technical guy unless they have an amazing track record. I like the advice of earning a business co-founder.
I just wish more technical guys realized their code isn't that special, isn't a magic way of printing money and just coming up with the implementation doesn't entitle you to 75% of a two-man venture. It doesn't even really entitle you to an extra 10%.
In the beginning, your job is probably going to be to find a place to host, writing alpha CRUD apps, buying computers, buying food, buying and assembling furniture and generally just making things work. That's all very unglamorous work but, depending on the venture, it's quite likely your (alleged) coding skills will be of very little value (until you've found a market).
I don't think I'm alone (as a business guy) in generally finding technical guys to have an inflated sense of self-importance who often want to treat business people as an exchangeable/replaceable commodity.
The difference in results across two developers can be incredibly pronounced; sometimes, those egos are very much earned.
Personally, I started a company without a business guy and no external funding. It was incredibly difficult to do without external capital, but we own it, and we're not beholden to external interests. We've hit a million a year in revenue, and are poised to completely eclipse that. I've had to step up to effectively serve as CEO and CTO, but without the code, there'd be nothing to sell.
I'm not claiming that 'business' doesn't matter, but rather, that compared to the people that imagine and then create the things you're going to sell, the usual business guy -- minus any other specific skills in the field in which he's working -- is a commodity.
What really impressed me is they had already done a lot of the leg work. They picked out a name and had a logo designed. They had used mocking software to mock up most of what will become v1. They had written content for the entire website. They had already started using their competitors products which only further validated their idea. They had also reached out to their contacts to see if the idea had legs and if people would use it. They had a big vision for what they wanted to do.
When guys come at me like this, it gets me fired up and makes it hard to say no. They aren't looking for a free ride and they don't expect/want you to do all the work. They needed a guy to build it and they wanted an equal equity partner.
That is how you land a technical co-founder.
I'm endlessly surprised to see how rare this is.
The problem quite simply is that there are a lot of wannabe entrepreneurs out there who expect someone with technical chops to join them when they a) don't have an existing relationship, b) don't have a proven track record of execution and c) don't have anything to give besides equity that isn't worth anything. In other words, "co-founder" is little more than a title bestowed upon the person you need to build your product but can't actually pay to do the work.
It's no surprise that it's hard to find a "co-founder" of any type under these circumstances. When somebody you briefly spoke to at a meetup asks you to be a "co-founder" in exchange for 10% of a company that doesn't exist yet, you're naturally going to be skeptical. If that person adds a reasonable salary to the equation, you're far more likely to take the proposition seriously.
Additionally, I think it's worth pointing out that wannabe entrepreneurs have a lot of misconceptions about what type of technical skills they need. Instead of looking for someone who can build a basic web app (which is what 99% of them want to build), they look for a hipster developer whose resume is filled with all the buzzwords of the day. You do not need a Ruby on Rails developer with MongoDB experience to build a web application where individuals can organize and share pictures of their pet goats.
In reality, you have to "earn" technical cofounders like we have to "earn" business cofounders. I hate sales/meetings/trying to raise money, so it would be great to have a cofounder to do those things, but I have to "earn" a good one.
It's nothing more than people having to prove themselves to each other, which is natural. The only content in the post is the old chestnut of people overvaluing ideas.
Also, being the 'idea guy' might be over-rated, but being the 'vision guy' is definitely the bee's knees.
At a previous company, 1 man was the vision behind the entire product. I can't tell you how many hour-long meetings were ended in 5 minutes when he showed up and made it all clear. (This was after things got really busy and cloning him started to seem like a good solution.) You could bring any question about the direction of the product to him and he would have a good, clear answer.
Without him, I really doubt the company would have been a success.
Only if the answer didn't matter. Which is the way it should be. And just like anything else, the only way to prove is to do. It didn't take long to see that he had a clear vision of the product and its destination.
He never identified himself as the idea guy, or anything like that. He actually self-identified as a sales guy. (And he was, too.) But if all he did was bring vision to the table, he still would have been invaluable.
I am yet to meet a developer who has not had this very same experience.
I've always held the view that any business venture you go in - you need to understand it from the ground up. If you're in tech - learn tech. If you're in construction - learn how to build 'something' [house etc]. If you're in finance - learn finance. Understand that "build a twitter script for me" - can't happen in 2 days [I think this comment is on "par" with the original poster's question. I smile now when "non-tech" people say to me they are building a web startup "exactly like twitter in scale in 5 days using NoSQL and the latest caching techniques" .... right ... haha]
I find the concept "strange" of "i have an idea but I don't have technical skills - but because of this idea that gives me the right to own 99.9% of the company". There isn't an " i " in the word "team". If you're a co-founder - it's an inherent facet of the word that you "co-found". The only exception I can see is that unless someones invested a whole heap of cash and others haven't - this is what changes the equity split. But that's up to the team to figure out.
Call me old fashioned - but thanks Henry Ford
"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
And thanks Thomas Alva
"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
The list goes on. You get the gist.
A small tip I'd like to give to any non-tech person. Is to watch Stanford's CS106a lectures on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps8jOj7diA0
You can watch the whole thing in about a week. It gives you a decent grasp of what coding is. And they use a very friendly language that anyone can understand.
It's a very small effort that will make it much easier for you to talk and understand tech people. Worth your time in my opinion, take a look.
Also, it's important to note that there's almost always many alternative routes that you follow to get somewhere. While learning code yourself is a great route. It's for sure not the only one. I think the most common solution for people looking for a technical co-founder is to stop looking for a co-founder and look for an employee. Which can become a co-founder in the future once you get along. The article talks about this as well.
The thing is that good business people are exactly like good hackers: Very rare. Good business people will never approach you with a good idea, they'll approach you with a thought-out strategy, proof of concept, money and customers. The idea guys are like people that have once made a wordpress theme and know basic HTML calling themselves hackers.
business people get a bad rep because everyone thinks they can be one if they can come up with a decent idea and wave their arms around a bit.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Here is an example of one of my cases dealing with such.
Mr. P schedules a meeting. He is familiar with technology I have designed. He has an idea to enhance it with new functions, combining it with another technology he has licensed and market the combined product. He already has 10 employees, an office, an incorporated company, a working prototype board, and a reasonable contract. Before the end of the week we have signed a contract, which I had no concerns about, and he has written me a check for $1.2 million. I then ramp up, hire, expand and integrate my designs with his, and a year later the product is demonstrated at trade shows which leads to sales.
Here is an example of an incompetent idea guy. He wants to make umbrellas, briefcases, and hats that are made out of fabric which is a combination solar array and video screen. They will be self powered and show video advertisements which are downloaded wirelessly and which create income for the umbrella user. He has no technology for any of this, but that is my job. It should be a simple matter since solar, wireless and screens are all mature industries. I am to fund all development and manufacturing in return for 5% equity in his new concern.
That one is probably the most coherent and well developed of the "ideas" I have heard over the years from these characters. Don't worry, he has contacts in the industry, connections that will make UmbrellaScreen Ltd a guaranteed billion dollar company. It can't possibly fail.
Make it your first question, "How much equity are you planning to give this person when you find them?"
Then you can threshold your response, one way to do that might be: < 45% hang up and walk away. >= 50% take the second meeting.
You will pretty instantly weed out all of the "I'm going to change the world, won't tell you how unless you sign an NDA, and I'm being GENEROUS by offering you 10% if you do all the work." folks.
It may be rude to ask this first but your time is valuable and really it's like bidding in bridge, a shorthand to let you know if there is a game contract in there somewhere.
So, what more can you do for the company? Although building the product is a huge endeavor, there are many smaller, administrative tasks involved in running a business. M of these are dreadfully boring compared to building the product, but if you want to justify your 50%, you probably need to take them all on yourself. Here are some of those things:
- Accounting and taxes, whether you do it yourself or hire an accountant.
- Dealing with lawyers. It doesn't stop with the operating agreement.
- Getting money, one way or another. Even though you're not paying your programmer, you'll have plenty of expenses.
- Paperwork: bills to pay, forms to fill out, forever and ever until your business ends.
- Choosing and applying for insurance providers, credit card processors, bank accounts, lines of credit, etc..
- Managing ad campaings.
- Blogging and promoting your blog.
- Hustling the tech press.
So now, as the business guy, you're thinking, "I can do all that!" And you certainly can. But that's not enough. You have to be _good_ at all those things to justify your split with an above-average coder. And I know from experience that these tasks do require talent and skills to do well.
For example, hiring lawyers and accountants may seem like a no-brainer. They're the experts; you just have to pay them so you can lean on their expertise, right? I'm afraid it's not so easy. Unless you hire true superstars--whom you probably can't afford--they're not just going to "take care of it for you." Getting the most out of hired experts like lawyers and accountants is a skill in itself, and you can easily mess it up. If you're skeptical, just read about all the startups that got into trouble despite (or because of) the advice they received from experts.
And that's just one example. The same applies to all the business tasks I listed above. So sure, you can do them, but you also need to have some unique talents for those things if you want to earn the same amount as the guy who's building the entire product.
If you were pitching to a bank or VC for funding, not a tech guy for his time, what your pitch be? Domain expertise? Your existing IP? Your UX design skills? Your sales skills? Your organization and drive? Your killer business plan? I'm assuming there's a market for the product, but you need more than that.
There's not much justification for less that 50%. The only reason for you to take less than 50% is if you won't be contributing much, and if that's the case, who would want to partner with you? Or if you get a developer who is really impressive, in which case you could offer them more.
On the other hand, technical people, like many people, value money. Hiring an employee #1, rather than looking for a cofounder on equity basis, is the right move for some people. #aaronpatzer
A successful startup requires all aspects of a business:
- leadership
- sales
- marketing
- market research
- competitor research
- product research
- product development
- product shipping & deployment
- contacts in key areas related to your business
- strategic planning
- financial management
- employee management
- investor management
- lots and lots and lots and lots of paperwork
- and of course a million other little things you discover along the way
Some of this can be learned as you go, but the most likely startups to succeed have a large portion of these areas covered by the founders, at least in the book learning sense.
So whenever I'm approached by an idea guy, my questions usually go like this:
- "Great idea. So who else is doing it?" (red flag for "nobody")
- "Who is going to buy this?" (red flag for "everybody")
- "How do you know that [group x] is going to buy it?" (I'm looking for something better than a hunch)
- "How much starting capital do you have?" (got to at least have ramen money)
- "Who have you spoken to about funding?" (red flag for "nobody", unless they are bootstrapping with their own money and have enough for 6 months of runway and a plan for after that)
- "Are you going to do this full time?" (If not, this conversation is over)
- "What skills are you bringing to the table?" (Must have at least half of the list above, or have other interested co-founders who fill many of the gaps)
So if you're looking for a technical co-founder, make sure you're bringing a business to the table, not just an idea.
1) You are trying to build this idea, you've researched and tried a few strategies in thinking about this [then explain what you're thinking], any other suggestions before you go build this thing? Fine, this is a meaningful conversation we can have and will afford opportunities for everyone to learn from it. Most of us are building something because we mostly CAN'T sit by/live without it NOT being built.
2) If you're a young and a starting out hacker, all you have to do is Google your questions. Most questions, believe it or not, have been answered. All the programming language X vs Y, framework A vs B questions are usually answered extensively by many other wise hackers that went before you. If you don't spend the time to read, understand and appreciate those reading/researches which many hackers in the community had spent the time writing them out specifically for YOU, all ou're doing is asking a VERY BUSY community to do your basic legwork for you. No, that's now how it works. Most of us learned stuff/languages because we are hungry for it. We ask questions on freenode etct, read articles, books AND discuss in depth about what we're trying to learn.
/rant
You want to succeed? Do whatever it takes. Learn how to code even if you won't be the one coding the program. Learn to speak the language, whether it's VC/investing, tech, or business. Sell your idea to a tech cofounder.
I agree idea guys who can't do sh are pretty much worthless. But I worry that there's been an overemphasis on the technical side. Sorry hackers, you aren't as special as you think you are. You have some personal projects you want to work on? Most personal hacking projects are worthless and even worse ideas than the ones business guys come up with.
Also worrisome is the attitude hackers have of only working with people with successful track records. I think that's the exact opposite of what you should do. People with successful track records have more to lose, and may have just gotten lucky the first time around. We should pay attention to the idea, not necessarily past success. You don't see business guys recruiting hackers based on whether they founded twitter/facebook/google do you?
A great hacker needs to be paired with a great vision guy. If hackers were as important as they thought they were then all hackers would have made it big already, and that is very far from the truth.
What about your UX Guy?
(apologies for the gender-specific wording; both women and men are "Guys" in my post, here)
The UX Guy the one that takes Business Guy's wacky ideas and hones them down to a limited feature set that people can actually understand. He helps the Technical Guy map out the user flows, often deals with the tedious writing of use cases, business rules, and content matrices. A good UX Guy even gets involved with the data modeling.
Your UX Guy brings the insight about how people will use a product, and knows how to create scenarios that anticipate that use. Those scenarios focus the work, and usually shrink the feature set.
The UX Guy is the one with the interaction design skills, the usability skills, and the one who makes sure the brilliant idea from Business Guy and the brilliant execution from Technical Guy actually result in something people will want to use, and most importantly, can understand how to use.
Sometimes your Technical Guy is also your UX Guy. Sometimes Business Guy is (not that often, sadly). No matter what, though, I'd argue that having a UX co-founder is one of the most valuable things you can do.
I have found that developers are much more likely to engage in conversation with me because I can speak their language. This also works great at conferences, meetups, and local events.
In the end, I decided to try and build things so awesome that I'd have developers asking to join my projects, instead of the other way around. So far, it's working well.
It's incredibly difficult to manage your own expectations until you know how technically challenging it is to build your "idea".
Hustlers should stop asking the community how to get a technical cofounder, but it doesn't mean they should stop asking technical cofounders to be a... cofounder.
Only way you're going to find one is to put your idea on the line and prove you've got the chops to support each other.
I can imagine an "Idea Guy" who just says "let's make AirBnB for pets" or something, and then the "Technical Guy" designs and codes everything according to loose goals stated by the "Idea Guy." In that setup, clearly unless the "Idea Guy" has a truly magical idea that he somehow has the means to protect, he's not worth much.
But I can also imagine an "Idea Guy" who is also a product designer, who has a concrete vision for not just what to make, but how it should be implemented, how it should look and feel, what the process should be like, and so forth. He's synthesized a lot of complicated things and just needs a "Technical Guy" to translate his blueprints into a building. In this case, the "Idea Guy" is really valuable indeed, especially if his decision about implementation differentiate the business or otherwise drive it's success.
In other words, execution is more than coding, it's making a ton of decisions. Value can be added by making lots of really good decisions, and you don't have to be a programmer to do that. Of course, if you have no familiarity with technology and can't see all of the possibilities, you won't make good decisions.
I don't like the Winklevii, but I think its a bit unfair to kick them too hard.
I wouldn't be willing to quit my full-time job and work with some unproven guy on a startup project. However, I might be willing to work during my personal time to help a business guy build a prototype which could be used to find a technical co-founder, vet an idea, or pitch the product to a customer or investor.
Of course there are the usual hazards of fixed price projects. However, if the deliverable is clearly defined and agreed to up front, it seems like a nice option for both parties. Business guy gets technical input and prototype, technical guy gets cash and an opportunity to become a co-founder if the product has value and a market.
The video is a stereotypical 'Idea Guy' - asking for a rock star developer to develop his project (for almost free), on the promise of 'riches' when they strike gold.
It is amazing how many people share this view these days (even more so after the 'social network' / success of facebook).
Despite the video author's lack of technical knowledge, there is still no excuse for his lack of research into creating a start up like that and the low value he puts on the technical co-founder.
I guess the real question to the author of that video would be. Apart from the idea, what do you as the non technical co-founder bring to the table?
It's really honestly all about teamwork - not some tit-for-tat, we are better than you. So don't perpetuate it.
For non-tech cofounders, you need to prove you bring something substantial to the table. The best piece of advice in that article is to learn to code yourself. If you really think you have an idea that could turn into a company, you should be driven to do anything it takes to build your MVP.
Just starting to code the front or backend will show people how dedicated you are and that alone is impressive to coders. Also, having a piece of your site already started will help you explain your idea to a potential tech cofounder better than words alone can.
My biggest suggestion is to go to "hack nights" in your area. You will kill two birds with one stone by doing this. First, you will be around people willing to teach and help you with your project. Second, hack nights are a great place to meet people looking to join a project.
I can only speak for myself, but it wouldn't surprise me if others used similar reasoning when being pitched (perhaps on both biz/tech side). Almost always, these things seem forced rather testing interest and seeing if there is any match. If a founding team is like a marriage, these guys pitching you to join them as a cofounder are asking you to jump straight into bed with them, there is no real courting period or build up. I feel like that's what's missing.
I second with "Spent some money" advise. Business people should also prove that they have a skin in the game by some way. Obviously it varies depending upon what else you are brining on table, and what has been done before. Money factor may not be as critical if the business person has already have mockups, market research, and many things that could have been done before or in parallel. You just have to show that you are not just looking for coder and then see if it works without spending any of your own energy.
Overall, I like the post, but title is bit confusing or contradictory to what Jason talked in the post. How to earn a co-founder would probably be a betters title.
It is so rare that a technologist or two technologists, without a business person, build a killer company (read: not product), unless one of them is a strong business person, and then what makes them more one than the other?
Honestly, the first part of the post is true - if you're a good founder, you'll figure it out. But honestly, I just could not be more sick of posts acting like business founders are nothing but a thorn in the side of the technology world.
And the comments on these types of post are laughable. "Oh, at the beginning your job is to make sandwiches." I was selling partners on our product before it ever existed. If your business person is making sandwiches, it's no wonder they had to beg people to build their product.
You could have skipped the rant (which is not going to have any sort of effect) and went straight to how to earn a technical cofounder.
I've now got as much skin in the game as him - neither of us is making a salary yet.
There's no one way to find your technical cofounder - we're all motivated by different things, and maybe what you've already got will click with someone. Just keep meeting people and putting your idea and self out there.
No designers are forced to participate in 99 designs, and no companies are forced to use them. What they do is legal and ethical, so what's the problem?
I release all of my photos under a Creative Commons license on Flickr, and I've received comments from professional photographers complaining that my hobby hurts their profession. So what if it does? If amateurs are willing to do something for free, then that should encourage professionals to differentiate themselves by being better. If lowering their prices is also a consequence of that then so be it.
It reminds me of people who are against open source software because it competes with people who make and sell software for a living. Again, should open source groups stop what they're doing out of respect for people who do this for a living? I don't think they should. Especially when you realize that most open source contributors are professional developers who make a living building software.
I don't mean to disrespect designers at all. In fact, I have a tremendous amount of respect for great designers, and I've found that you usually get what you pay for when it comes to design. I wouldn't personally use 99 designs, but I just don't understand the hatred that a lot of people have toward them.
P.S. If you're looking for a great designer in the bay area, and you can afford a little more than 99 designs, I recommend Dual Aesthetic. http://www.dualaesthetic.com/
For clarification, I worked previously at startups where development was outsourced and I was working as a project manager. This time round with my own idea I knew I didn't have that luxury and would need to contribute a he'll of a lot more if I could be lucky enough to tempt a co founder to take on the bulk of the technical development.
So what did I do, after a few months of procrastinating over the idea I finally decided what better way to get going than to learn a new language and code (I already know HTML / CSS / asp.net back in the day). I looked at languages that seemed to have a good following and active support forums that if I got stuck I could ask for help in, I chose Ruby on Rails and ordered two books on Amazon.
It was really difficult at the start but after a while I found things were clicking into place, albeit using a lot of trial and error. I installed irc and became active on the rails channel and found the guys really helpful on there.
So after a month or so I got through the books and figure I was ready to start planning and applying my ideas to what I had learnt, this was the hardest part of all and still is. Simple things like image uploading using AWS or Paperclip I found took me days to get my head around as a lot of this was alien to me and outside the comfort zone of the tutorials. I progressed and thought it was about time I start developing the front end UI so started getting to work on photoshop creating templates and designs, I found some great resources like designmoo and iconfinder which helped me in this process. After the designs were done I reached out to a previous contractor who had experience in rails and HTML/CSS and paid him to cut and code it to fit the view, I setup a Heroku hosting account, configured the DNS and hosted the code on Github for collaboration.
I suppose the site was now at 75% ready, I had feedback from a few angel investors that it was a good idea and that to get in touch when I had a working prototype, this is where the delays set in, I just couldn't find a co founder to help with that all important final backend work.
See in your post you state a co founder should bring some of the qualities you point out such as do the front end or learn to code or business networking, I've done all of them and more yet I am no nearer to finding someone local who I can get onboard. I know the first part of being a successful co founder is being able to sell yourself and your product but I think it's sometimes forgotten how difficult and time consuming development and design is to get to grips with. Whilst I know this may come across as a rather random reply I thought it at least fruitful to show that some non tech founders are willing to get their hands dirty with some code and in fact the other half, the finding a co founder is equally a struggle as learning to code
That being said if anyone is interested please feel free to get in contact ;)
