Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
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Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#2I can see though how someone would think that finding a technical co-founder through sheer charisma is an easier route than learning to code. But usually that's probably mostly ego.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#3I think its great when the 'non-technical' co-founder even knows their way around coding a little bit. Otherwise I find you have to explain every single thing to them and they don't have a solid grasp of the problem.
Getting to know your way around a language like Ruby isn't all that hard.
As a technical person, I run into people all day long that have 'big ideas' which are often mashups of existing sites, "Its like Facebook for FOO", and will never find a technical co-founder because they don't have any idea what the scope of the real problem is, or how to distill it down to something small, useful and graceful. Lots of ideas, but having an idea of implementation is great too.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#4Even if you can't fully learn to code, having a non-technical founder who understands the basics of programming is an amazing advantage.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#5Why look for a technical co-founder? Why not just hire somebody to do the technical work? Is it the upfront salary which is the issue?
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#6Why look for a technical co-founder? Why not just hire somebody to do the technical work? Is it the upfront salary which is the issue?
Employees care about their companies they way teachers feel about their students, they care about their success and are generally enthusiastic but that particular interaction doesn't define them and it's possible to be just as happy somewhere else.
Founders care about their companies the way parents care about their kids.
I've seen this asymmetry cause some issues where founders don't get why their employees aren't as enveloped in the company as they are. A respectable salary and less than a percent of the stock doesn't get the same commitment as a founder does.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#7Why look for a technical co-founder? Why not just hire somebody to do the technical work? Is it the upfront salary which is the issue?
I originally thought I would find a technical co-founder who would be as enthusiastic about my idea as I am. Then we would work together, bootstrapping a business and salary would not even be an issue. I guess you could call me cheap, although it would be a necessity for me as startup capital is almost non-existent.
I'm certainly going to be following the path suggested by the OP. I've already been thinking about it for a while.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#8Vin (of Yipit) has a similar blog post (http://viniciusvacanti.com/2010/09/cant-find-a-technical-co-...) but from the perspective of someone who actually just got down into it and wrote the entire site. While not uniquely a NYC problem, it was refreshing to be out in the Bay Area and not be at startup events hearing MBAs pitch "it's like Facebook, but for dogs!"
I tell everyone that asks me about finding a technical co-founder to just learn the basics of databases and a web language (PHP, Ruby + Rails, Python + Django). Either 1) you'll actually learn enough to make your MVP or 2) you'll learn enough to figure out what your product really is and what to look for in a technical co-founder. If you don't have any clue what your technology portion is going to look like, you aren't very attractive to technical co-founders and those that are interested probably aren't the best fit.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#9Jeeze, I'm doing my best here, C is hard!
I will say no single effort has been more enlightening to me regarding computer science than trying to understand C. I highly recommend it to anyone with any programming experience.
Re: Stop Looking for a Technical Co-Founder, Learn to Code Yourself
#10There is a good reason to find a talented technical co-founder. Just saying, "Learn to code yourself" is in some ways akin to saying, "Don't hire a lawyer, just go to law school."
Sure, a "can do" attitude is great, and coding is very learnable, however we are talking about Founders starting a business for profit here, where time is actually of the essence in many cases. A linguistic example is how one can learn survival French in a mere 3 months, but true fluency takes years.
I think it is important to realize there are people who are amazing at doing exactly the things you need done, and though you could learn to do it fairly well yourself in a short enough time, why re-invent the wheel? This holds especially true when a seasoned hacker has much more than just recently learned skills but also has a mental roadmap of pitfalls and work-arounds from their years of experience. No amount of study replaces years of "muscle memory" from projects that have both succeeded and failed.