Ask HN: What would it take to convince a tech cofounder to join your startup?

This answers the question: http://paultyma.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-to-get-hired-as-tec...

At this point you'd be looking to take %50 of the company just by having an idea. The rest (%99 of the job at that point) will have to be handled by your tech co-founder. Plus, you'd be in charge of telling him/her when to deliver and how.

My best recommendation is to start your "CEO" job earlier and to land an appointment with an investor willing to invest in your idea and to include your potential co-founder in that meeting. That would make you worth %50 easily.

50% at least. I've worked at a few startups and all you need at the beginning is engineers. To be honest I probably wouldn't take the position at all unless you already had funding.

Would you start a restaurant without ever working in one? A bank with no finance knowledge? If you're not a tech cofounder become one. The reality is that a company with a handful of people needs to have every one of those working on their product or they will be at a massive disadvantage to anyone else that does.

At the beginning what matters are the initial vision / intuition & the ability to deliver the MVP. MVP will be the tech cofounder role. Tech cofounders have numerous opportunities to work for. They have their own ideas and tens of non tech people who want to partner with them. They will join your project if they both think that the vision is interesting and that you as their cofounder have an unfair advantage to turn this project into success. It can be a strong market knowledge, a solid network in this area, a demonstrate ability to launch a project from zero, a strong competence in customer acquisition / marketing, a strong leadership or something else. The idea on its own worth very few to nothing. Your cofounder must be convinced that you will be the relevant person to team up and achieve the vision. Demonstrate that you are this person is I think the best way to convince a tech cofounder to join your startup.

If the business co-founder were to have an MVP built and a little traction but no funding, would you guys join?