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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?

#91
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to submit my email and got an access denied security warning, no explanation.

Do you have a website with your portfolio

Not OP, but I am interested in this community and I am also getting an error when I try to sign up:

Access Denied foundersnetwork.com is using a security service for protection against online attacks. An action has triggered the service and blocked your request. Please try again in a few minutes. If the issue persist, please contact the site owner for further assistance.

I have a personal website but am not comfortable sharing here - is there a way to message you?

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

#92

It is important to work with someone that you can trust. Someone that can push through hell together with you and not abandon everything at the smallest bump. It takes a strong character, ambition and sense of urgency. When it comes to non-technical / business people, it might be counter-intuitive, but having attended a good university or having worked for a good company can indicate high intelligence and not entrepr…

^^THIS! Trust is THE most important factor. Treat this like finding someone to marry, because (sadly) there's a decent chance your startup could outlast your marriage. (Pay attention to that, BTW! Your family is really important, and unless you've already made a huge mistake, no company is worth losing them over.) Any good/honest partner will be willing to tie equity to milestones - never just toss a big chunk of equity to your CEO/cofounder just because others are stupid enough to do that. (Keep in mind the dictum that in most all startup cos., your equity is simultaneously worthless and the only thing of value the company has, other than your team which is usually there because of the potential for equity. As soon as you're funded, pay people fairly - not top of scale, but enough to keep them happy and loving the job.) And yes, FWIW, I've been on (and been burned on) both sides of these deals, both as a CTO looking for a good CEO to raise money and get us to market (lost my a$$) and as a contract CEO hired to get a company off the ground. The ONLY thing that matters is the people themselves, and more importantly, their character, trustworthiness, and insistence on being fully upright in all things.

It's much harder to find these people than you might think, and it can be really hard to get rid of a bad one if you screw up. (As the Russians say, "Doveryai, no proveryai - Trust, but verify!")

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

#93

This is a semi serious answer but... If we were not in the middle of COVID I would say to take a trip to Atlanta. In the Atlanta startup community there is no shortage of MBA and marketing types with lots of ideas that are just looking for a developer who is willing to work for next to nothing and equity that is much smaller than it should be. Of course all of these business types will tell you about how they are the…

FWIW, though I love and grew up in Austin, it an extremely dysfunctional startup/VC community, so unless you just have to have the cool factor, find almost anyplace else to start your company - real estate will be lots cheaper, too, and you might even have a functioning city government. As I said, I love it here, but will be leaving before too much longer, as it's going all the wrong ways, esp. w.r.t. startup culture.

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

#94
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can't be "too rich" where they are financially retired (they are not going to be in the same motivation level) but at least have some disposable income to engage in such an activity. It's a self-selecting network. Why do people pay $150k to get an MBA at Harvard if you can pay $20k somewhere else and maybe get the EXACT same education? It's because you know 99% of the people there paid $150k and you have a "bett…

And yet we like to fool ourselves with ideas of a meritocracy.

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

#95
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This list is saas companies. Its missing all consumer brands.

Compaq grew nearly as fast as some of those SaaS companies, and was engaged in design, manufacturing and sales of a complex technology product that actually had to work, not just buggy web software. IIRC, they reached $1B faster than any company ever at the time. SaaS and "sharing" economy (really skimming economy) apps are not sustainable, but then as it turned out, neither was Compaq, after they entered into a stup…

Apple, at least back then, used to hold the record for fastest entry into the Fortune 500. It took them seven years to get there (#411 their first year on the list, in 1983).

They had $583 million in sales for 1983. $1.5 billion in today's dollar. They hit basically $1b the next year, at $982 million for 1984 (in 1984 dollars). Inflation adjusted I'm guessing they hit the $1 billion mark at about six years in business.

I similarly recall that Compaq grew extremely fast. Dell's liftoff followed a similar trajectory (the start was a bit slower, due to how Michael Dell started the company).

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

#96
post #32

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…

You can understand the customer backwards and forwards, but I think you still need a business person who both knows how to court funding, and is willing to spend all their time doing that . One example, from my past, abandoned self-funded startup: my co-founder (customer domain expert) and I (all-in-one engineering) didn't want to be the ones courting VC, but we were also too slow to seek out a startup business perso…

As a technical CEO, I was good at sales and getting deals. I didn't have the focus to close deals though. I had a non-tech co-founder, but he wasn't CEO and he couldn't close things like funding all on his own.

Putting the best tech person as CEO effectively makes it a solo founder effort. The ideal is the business person as CEO, or perhaps some multi-talented person where product development is fully delegated to a CTO.

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

#97
Non-tech founders are more abundant, but usually outside your circles. You'll probably want two types: someone who can handle business/funding/sales, and someone who can focus on the product. More people have finance degrees than tech ones, and there's a lot of people who are domain experts.

A good bet is someone who has their soul into the product. Someone who sincerely understands the pain point and works at it. If you're doing something for ships, you probably want to find someone who works within the ship industry. Spotify wasn't founded by music producers, but it was founded by people who were passionate about music streaming.

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

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a website with your portfolio

Not OP, but I am interested in this community and I am also getting an error when I try to sign up: Access Denied foundersnetwork.com is using a security service for protection against online attacks. An action has triggered the service and blocked your request. Please try again in a few minutes. If the issue persist, please contact the site owner for further assistance. I have a personal website but am not comfortab…

hey there, writing from FN. Would you be willing to share the reference ID on the WAF blocked access page so we can troubleshoot your issue? You can email it to support(at)foundersnetwork(dot)com.

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

#99
post #13

Foundersnetwork.com has a few. If you need an invite let me know.

I tried to submit my email and got an access denied security warning, no explanation.

hey there, writing from FN. Would you be willing to share the reference ID on the WAF blocked access page so we can troubleshoot your issue? You can email it to support(at)foundersnetwork(dot)com.
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