How to hire a tech co founder

When you say that you are looking for a "co-founder", I assume that it's a business partner you're looking for - i.e. someone to develop the site and the back office management functions.

What, besides ideas, do you bring to the table?
Why would I (for example) want to partner with you?

"Awesome" developers are probably pretty adept at coming up with their own ideas and will need you to bring more to the table. Less capable "developers" can be outsourced (i.e. Fiverr, etc.)

I read your post over a few times and I have a couple questions for you. It sounds like you have a strong background and no doubt you are an expert in what you do.

Why are you looking for someone awesome with php and front end?

If you think of your business as a machine, with the main components being generalized areas of your startup(HR, sales, marketing, Product dev, operations, etc), what would you say the areas you are weakest in? Be honest.

I'm sincerely interested in your response.

Santi

Warrior member anayb might have some insight for you

You could posts in Jobs listing.

Partnering with a co-founder is not like going to the grocery store for some fruit.

Late last year I partnered with my co-founder and it was a huge change. It was something I deliberately avoided for the previous six years. I had said, "No! The business is mine, under my control: people hire me to do things my way...I cannot dilute myself and partnering will only get me into trouble."

So what changed?

My co-founder came to me. He was someone I'd been connected with on social media for years, but we hadn't interacted all that much. We knew who the other was, and appreciated that person. But we had never talked about working together.

He approached me with the idea and we talked. We talked A LOT. We shared our opinions about every topic under the sun. Why? We wanted to make sure, temperamentally, we were a good fit.

Getting a co-founder is like getting into a marriage.

My co-founder has shown me 100% trust over and over and over again. He has demonstrated he will show up and continue to show up, and show up beyond when hell freezes over. I do not spend an iota of one second worrying about him or his contribution.

Pick up a co-founder willy-nilly like a one night stand at the bar and I guarantee you'll have a completely different experience.

You have to be able to rely on your co-founder.

The flip side of this is that it is DELIGHTFUL to know that you can assign a task and something will be done! Not only that, but it'll probably be done better and more interestingly (is that a word?) than you would do it!

I have seen so many horror stories from one co-founder complaining that the other left them in the lurch, never did anything, took all the money, or some other disastrous outcome. And when I ask a couple questions, I found they leaped into business with this other person having done next to no bonding or finding out what the other person is really like.

I have another market I'm interested in, a highly technical one, in which I've been told in information interviews (do you do those?) I should get a tech co-founder. So OK, maybe I do need one. But I'm proceeding SLOWLY. I'm not in a rush. If I need a co-founder there, I'll find the right person...and I don't care if it takes me six months or two years. Whatever. However long it takes. Because the price of making a bad decision is crippling.

My TCE co-founder "gets this":

Jason's Rule One: Don't Die.

If you die, you don't get another chance, another at-bat, to try to do better.

He takes Rule One as seriously as I do. Some people have laughed Rule One off. Funny ha ha funny: they run out of cash and die. Their business dies and they don't get another chance. Oh well. Ha ha.

The same people laugh at what an old builder told me almost 15 years ago now: "Most accidents are planned."

And they are. Where you put that coffee cup down. Where you put your foot. Nearly every time, you could have avoided that problem with a little forethought.

Why am I talking about these things? Because they're directly relevant to your choice of a co-founder. This is not casual. This is life and death. And most accidents--your disaster with the co-founder you chose in 15 minutes because they talk real good, but then took the first $25K you made in your business, cleaned you out and disappeared--are planned.

crendon2854,

Not sure why are are looking for a technical co-founder? What do you want to do. You can hire technical people, if you have something really good, do you want to give that away to a stranger?

If you have a current friend or acquaintance that would be one thing, but to partner with a complete stranger? Some of the greatest entrepreneurs, such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs started out in a garage with some friends.

I would suggest going to upwork to find someone with the technical skills you are looking for.

But is you are looking to meet people in the industry there is no better place than a event. You will find like-minded people and industry experts. Just find one in your niche.

Chris

There are some challenges....

1. You need someone who knows how to get results...

"Awesome with php and front end" programmers are a dime a dozen. Being able to quickly and reliably create software is an art mastered by few.

2. You need to be aware of the amount of time involved.

Even if you spend thousands of dollars to create the first version, your "Technical Co-Founder" will be spending hundreds of hours each of the first few months to work out each and every little issue... That is only fixing bugs... in the initial phase.

You also have the "Production Support" time... When the web server goes down at 2:00 AM, your partner will be up fixing the issue... sometimes for hours. Meanwhile, you'll be sleeping soundly.

3. You need to setup your business and software development processes.

Not doing this will waste tons of time, make you pull your hair out... and it will cost you thousands in lost revenue. Remember, most customers don't complain, they simply go away...

These are some food for thought...

If I were in your shoes, I'd be offering a contract where the "Technical Co-Founder" has a minimum guaranteed payout... If that amount isn't met, you go your separate ways... each with rights to use the source code in your own projects.