Ask HN: What % of equity is a technical co-founder worth? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What % of equity is a technical co-founder worth?

#21

Post by bherms » Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 5:29 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #18

bherms wrote: post #4

When it comes down to it, despite how you feel you're good at "business", if you find a good technical co-founder, you're going to actually be close to worthless (considering you get a really good tech co-founder, not just a programmer). Business is easy for smart people. It's mostly common sense, personality, and drive. Once you find a really good technical co-founder, chances are the answer to "Could this business…

if you find a good technical co-founder, you're going to actually be close to worthless (considering you get a really good tech co-founder, not just a programmer). Business is easy for smart people. I'm sorry, but I have to "call bullshit" on this (as a generalization anyway. I don't think we know enough about the specifics here to really say if the OP - specifically - is going to "be close to worthless" or not). The…

I'll give you that... It certainly depends on the person and past experience and I did generalize a bit based on my experience with technical co-founders I've known and worked with. When I said a "really good" tech co-founder, I kind of implicitly meant someone easily capable of or already possessing some of the skills necessary. I look at myself or some of my successful friends and all of them are tech co-founders who learned the business stuff pretty easily and have been successful. In cases like that, if some mba grad tried to sell them on "oh, i'm a business guy" (which has happened quite often), they'd always get told to fuck off.

Re: Ask HN: What % of equity is a technical co-founder worth?

#22

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 6:04 PM UTC

bherms wrote: post #21

mindcrime wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you find a good technical co-founder, you're going to actually be close to worthless (considering you get a really good tech co-founder, not just a programmer). Business is easy for smart people. I'm sorry, but I have to "call bullshit" on this (as a generalization anyway. I don't think we know enough about the specifics here to really say if the OP - specifically - is going to "be close to worthless" or not). The…

I'll give you that... It certainly depends on the person and past experience and I did generalize a bit based on my experience with technical co-founders I've known and worked with. When I said a "really good" tech co-founder, I kind of implicitly meant someone easily capable of or already possessing some of the skills necessary. I look at myself or some of my successful friends and all of them are tech co-founders w…

I look at myself or some of my successful friends and all of them are tech co-founders who learned the business stuff pretty easily and have been successful. In cases like that, if some mba grad tried to sell them on "oh, i'm a business guy" (which has happened quite often), they'd always get told to fuck off.

Sure, just having an MBA doesn't mean one is a good "business guy." And, to be fair, different types of businesses do have different needs. For example, it's implicit in my diatribe above that I'm referring to the kind of business that sales to other big businesses, using a direct sales model. And maybe in some other kinds of businesses it's easier for somebody who's a techie by trade to just step in and learn the business side of what they're trying to do.

Of course, once you go down that path, one could ask if you're still "a techie" or if you're now some kind of weird hybrid thing... ;-)

Anyway, in either case, I also agree that the kind of person who has nothing but "an idea" and no ability to execute in some regard (whether it be the business "side" or the techie "side") is of pretty limited value.

Re: Ask HN: What % of equity is a technical co-founder worth?

#23

Post by gersh » Sat, Mar 26, 2011, 7:25 PM UTC

How many customers do you know? How close are you to potential customers? How much time can get your potential customers to spend helping you with the product? Now, take the ratio of the amount of time you can get potential customers to help with your product to the amount of time it will take your technical co-founder to develop the product.