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Hey, at least he told you the idea. Most of the time when I get this email, the project is suuuuper secret and I'm just supposed to take the senders word on the awesomeness.
And sign an NDA,before he could tell you his suuuuuper awesome idea.
Since when are computer programmers too good to want ideas to work on from people who may have valid business domain knowledge?
In my opinion software and programming skills are worth LESS THAN NOTHING if they don't have a business idea to monetize them... And last time I checked, my programming colleagues rarely possessed valuable insights into what problems non-programmers are willing to spend money on.
Tell you what, if anyone wants has ideas like the one posted above, please send them to my email address because I would be more than happy entertain your start-up ideas in my spare time. If its not a good fit I would love to take the time to discuss it with you as it will probably be a good learning experience for the both of us if nothing else we will both make a new friend or connection.
email: imechura AT gmail DOT com
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It said you need ANY of those, not ALL of them.
My bad, I misread it. Still, I would ask the same for the requirement of "have considerable technical skills".
HIM - you need a technical cofounder
ME - don't I know it ... perhaps you could learn objective C and not only work with me but have tons of high paying freelance work available
HIM - that's a huge time investment. Maybe you should learn objective C and then you wouldn't have this problem any more.
ME - I would genuinely enjoy that. But then who will go out and talk to bands (my first target customer) not to mention doing all this design work, architecture for the product, finding more staff, managing projects, marketing the product ...
HIM - Lot's of people can go talk to bands. Get a college kid to go talk to bands. Developers are what's hard to find.
The thing is, he's probably right ... but there is a structural problem in how we make these decisions about working with other people ... it is nearly impossible to assess expertise in something that you are not knowledgable about. So we often either massively overvalue stuff other people do; i.e. "set up a C corp" is quite a small undertaking and isn't how I would evaluate a business cofounder, or undervalue it "anybody can go talk to bands" displays a lack of specific understanding of the music industry.
It's a little like having an idea for a book or a movie, and going to an author or director wanting to "collaborate" to make the idea a reality. The simple fact is that it's hard to render ideas into any form that is widely digestible . Just like directors and authors, programmers "prechew" ideas. There are some surprising rewards to learning how to do this, in that much like a sculptor or a painter one realizes that…
He describes a similar situation and points out that the reason why the scriptwriter got into the profession very likely was to learn the difficult craft of translating their own abundant ideas into scripts.
Rant warning... Since when are computer programmers too good to want ideas to work on from people who may have valid business domain knowledge? In my opinion software and programming skills are worth LESS THAN NOTHING if they don't have a business idea to monetize them... And last time I checked, my programming colleagues rarely possessed valuable insights into what problems non-programmers are willing to spend money…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am with you all the way on this. The great businesses and fortunes of the last 200 years of industry did not come from engineering or technical expertise, but rather from those few, adept individuals who were able to navigate the mysterious world of relationships. If you do not make a dozen friends in every crowded room and instinctively form lucrative relationships on a daily basis, then knowing someone who does i…
That's a simplistic view. I did almost exactly what you suggested and failed because although my co-founder was good at building lucrative relationships and even had some technical knowledge, he thought that he always knew best what should be done, wasn't really open for discussion, and generally was full of BS thinking he's likely the next Steve Jobs. Unfortunately I recognized this way too late. Also, he never real…
Sounds like you're partner didn't have anything like that. That's too bad because there's no relationship more important than the one with your co-founder.
I'm always looking for a co-founder, whether I'm the geek or the suit. When a suit approaches me to be the geek for their idea, I usually give them some simple technical task to do - like setup a Tumblr or a Twitter account for the idea. Then I'll often ask for something businessy - form a C-corp for the idea or file a provisional patent. Finally, before I even consider opening my laptop to code their idea, I want so…
Rant warning... Since when are computer programmers too good to want ideas to work on from people who may have valid business domain knowledge? In my opinion software and programming skills are worth LESS THAN NOTHING if they don't have a business idea to monetize them... And last time I checked, my programming colleagues rarely possessed valuable insights into what problems non-programmers are willing to spend money…
Tell that to the developers that Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc are fighting each other to bring on board. The skills are worth a job with a guaranteed paycheck.
"And last time I checked, my programming colleagues rarely possessed valuable insights into what problems non-programmers are willing to spend money on."
Nobody possesses this without putting in the legwork to see if the idea will somehow make enough money to be worth the effort. You do the legwork and from that feedback, decide to keep moving forward, drop the idea, or pivot. The key is getting the process started. Sure, different people have different industry knowledge, but nobody can predict success from the beginning.
Just my two cents. I can understand why the developers here might hesitate to work with someone who hasn't proven that he's willing to put in the work. But on the other hand, if you're a serious non-technical co-founder, I'm not convinced it's a great idea to just pick the first developer who's willing to work with you. Seems like a recipe for disaster.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you don't have that problem if you used a single competent coder.
a competent coder will not build a person's turd-trading platform in five-minute increments for $60 per 12.