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Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

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Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#71

Post by skmurphy »

wesammikhail wrote: post #44

For context: I am a software engineer and angel investor that specializes in early stage exits. I have built and exited multiple startups together with a bunch of wonderful people over the years. The problem you are describing is not unique in any way, shape or form. I coach dozens of startups every year and your problem is more common than you might think. When I first started, I was just like you. I had no one to t…

your email is not currently in your profile https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wesammikhail

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#72

Post by AlchemistCamp »

Judgmentality wrote: post #47
paulsutter wrote: post #23

From Paul Graham ( http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html ): > The good news is, choosing problems is something that can be learned. I know that from experience. Hackers can learn to make things customers want. [6] >This is a controversial view. One expert on "entrepreneurship" told me that any startup had to include business people, because only they could focus on what customers wanted. I'll probably alienate this g…

> Larry Page and Sergey Brin were grad students in computer science, which presumably makes them "engineers." Do you suppose Google is only good because they had some business guy whispering in their ears what customers wanted? Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally wanted Google to be a pay-to-use service and were against ads. I don't know how they came to their change in business model, but I suspect it was after th…

> I suspect it was after they hired people that weren't engineers to help

For years, they required that all their hires could program, even those in completely unrelated roles.

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#73

Post by ilikebits »

ditonal wrote: post #25
zbruhnke wrote: post #17

Honestly my advice would be to leave FAANG and join an early stage startup ... you're much more likely to meet a wider array of people with similar passions and interests and varied skillsets. Even if that startup itself fails you are likely to meet people you could start another company with and if it succeeds it will be an even better place to start a company from when leaving, most exceptional founders love to sup…

Respectfully this is awful advice, as someone who’s worked at FAANG and early stage startups. The idea that working for early stage startups will help you start your own is a myth propagated intentionally by founders/VCs to recruit SWEs with lowball offers. FAANG is actually way better to meet cofounders. At Google you can have lunch with a talented person every day (there’s internal apps to network like this), plus…

YMMV. I've been in the same FAANG-to-early-stage position, and I found:

1. It was easy to find people interested in startups at Google, but the quality of those interactions tended to be pretty low. The vast majority of people really did not have any experience with how startups actually functioned, and most people I talked to were more taken with the prestige and fantasy of being a founder than with actually seriously thinking about running a startup. I'm sure there are great and experienced operators at Google who are very competent and pragmatic startup folks - but those were generally not the people you found at internal events geared towards "people interested in startups".

2. I learned a lot cross-functionally when I joined my current team (which was When I look on my list of "people I would co-found with", the vast majority of those people are the incredibly intense and competent folks I met working at the (now no longer early stage) startup I moved to. In general, I think about finding a co-founder less as "cast a wide net to find your one true partner" and more as "work alongside the most aggressively competent people you can find, and hopefully some of those people will mesh with you well enough that you would consider co-founding with them" (with the corollary that, if you find yourself in a job where you feel like you're mostly coasting, this is probably not a good environment for finding co-founders (although it certainly may be a good environment for you for other reasons)).

As usual, grain of salt - I was basically a new grad when I joined Google, and I expect the experience would be very different if I had a strong, senior network there. I also come from a position of unusual privilege - my parents are both engineers and I have lots of friends in engineering and I'm good at what I do, so I am unusually risk tolerant because "running out of money" or "being unable to easily find a job" is just not a thing I worry about.

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#74

Post by taurath »

chrisgoman wrote: post #69

Unfortunately, founder-dating is the same as normal dating but probably even harder as the stakes are higher. It's very difficult to find same "motivation-level" people (how much do they "want" it, are they as "hungry" as you, etc.) and it is very hard to gauge with talk as you have to see their actions to really know and sometimes it may be too late. At the same time, there is also the "stage in life" (single, marri…

Basically, go hang with rich people. It’s probably not bad advice. I’m not entirely sure why but it makes me a bit sad to think about.

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#75

Post by langitbiru »

Why don't you learn some business skills yourself? The materials are available on internet. Sure it takes time.

You want to learn digital marketing? There are many good tutorials on Youtube or you can buy some digital marketing books.

If you took this path, you would reach the state on which you may not need a business co-founder anymore. If you met a good business co-founder, at least, you could gauge whether they are competent or not using your business skills.

Some good materials for you to start learning business skills:

Digital marketing: https://www.youtube.com/user/neilvkpatel

Corporate finance: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP63B2lDhyKOs...

Supply chain: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/supply-chain-manage...

HR: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/human-resource-mana...

Of course, YC Startup Library is a top-notch resource: https://www.ycombinator.com/library

About networking in Covid-19.... Actually it's still possible. You could join some online communities. You could build your brand on social media (Linkedin, Twitter, etc). For example, if I wanted to network with some influential people on blockchain space, I would follow their Twitter and contribute to the conversation (Twitter threads), I would join an opensource blockchain project and build some connections with the core developers. You get the idea.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#76

Post by francescopnpn »

As the solo founder of a profitable $1MM ARR company I'd say you can do it on your own and there's nothing they can add anyway. Just pick a domain you're deeply obsessed with in the first place.

Remember, in software in 2020 the only important thing is distribution. Work backwards from distribution. The biggest SaaS products aren't that great, they just have a great way to get sales/leads. The best consumer products, aren't that great (or weren't that great) - they just found an hack. 99.9% of startups thinks they need to make a great product and then raise VC and throw millions on FB and G ads -being highly unprofitable- (since PPC is a game for established deep-pocket companies with ridiculous CACs)

Literally just hacks: Airbnb, spamming Craiglist. Dropbox, referral incentive-based storage + a viral funny video for hackers. Stripe, they happened to be in an early YC batch. Facebook started with the most exclusive place in the world: Harvard. Hotmail: adding "sent with hotmail" at the end of the email. etc.

If you find a way to for ex. post on Facebook Groups at scale, then you should work a product backward from there since not all channels are suited for all products. If you have many friends in the intel community, probably you should make a product for the US Defense. Get the gist?

in 2020 any decent dev can create any product and/or copy your idea. what's impossible is getting tons of customers at a reasonable acquisition cost as to be profitable and have to spare to re-invest in growth.

Hardware/scientific breakthroughs are obviously different. Making the product is h hard part and distribution is easy: if you inventhe the transistor, the customers will be there.

so yeah a sales cofounder will add nothing as he wont happen to know which temporary weird thing on the internet allows in a very specific way to get a ton of customers at a very cheap price (ideally free). If he did, he would hire anyone in the world as a contractor to build a prototype and distribute it through the hack he found- 99% of the work is already done when you found the well. If you'll attempt to methodically find a well (usually one just stumbles upon it), know that before you'll find find 1 you'll have to go thru 100+ dry wells.

The alternative I guess is you could make software for a super niche kind of business. like Insurance. Software for insurance agents. Maybe an even more narrow niche. That's because you can reach these people via phone or email. which is free.

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#77

Post by wesammikhail »

skmurphy wrote: post #71
wesammikhail wrote: post #44

For context: I am a software engineer and angel investor that specializes in early stage exits. I have built and exited multiple startups together with a bunch of wonderful people over the years. The problem you are describing is not unique in any way, shape or form. I coach dozens of startups every year and your problem is more common than you might think. When I first started, I was just like you. I had no one to t…

your email is not currently in your profile https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wesammikhail

Fixed!

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#78

Post by vmurthy »

As an engineer who later did an MBA, I found b-school to be a great melting pot for people from different backgrounds. Granted your situation is different, but your uni might be a great place. Depending on what you mean by "non-technical", you might want to seek out alumni who are successful salespeople or marketers etc. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#79

Post by Grustaf »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #72
Judgmentality wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Larry Page and Sergey Brin were grad students in computer science, which presumably makes them "engineers." Do you suppose Google is only good because they had some business guy whispering in their ears what customers wanted? Larry Page and Sergey Brin originally wanted Google to be a pay-to-use service and were against ads. I don't know how they came to their change in business model, but I suspect it was after th…

> I suspect it was after they hired people that weren't engineers to help For years, they required that all their hires could program, even those in completely unrelated roles.

I suppose this might explain why all google products have terrible UX, to this day. But it's not really an argument against non-technical co-founders. Steve Jobs was non-technical, I think it's safe to assume Woz's Apple would have been less successful.

Re: Ask HN: Where to meet non-technical cofounders?

#80

Post by Grustaf »

langitbiru wrote: post #75

Why don't you learn some business skills yourself? The materials are available on internet. Sure it takes time. You want to learn digital marketing? There are many good tutorials on Youtube or you can buy some digital marketing books. If you took this path, you would reach the state on which you may not need a business co-founder anymore. If you met a good business co-founder, at least, you could gauge whether they a…

Everyone should learn the basics of business, but people have different talents and if you're born an engineer chances are you'll never be a very good salesman, and vice versa. Much better to focus on what you enjoy and do best, and find a business guy to focus on that part.

Obviously, if you are both well rounded and have some understanding of the other's area that will make things more efficient but don't try to BE the other.

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