How did you find your business partners?

Post by comatose_kid » Mon, Apr 09, 2007, 12:24 AM UTC

I found mine through past work experience.

I approached two of the smartest hackers I had worked with, and showed them a very brief Keynote presentation followed by a demo of the concept I had been working on part time over the last 6 months.

The Y-combinator application process prompted me to expedite my search for other founders. I was originally planning on launching v.1 of the app before approaching them. Take-aways from this:

It is tempting to get a co-founder quickly, if only to validate your idea. That's fine, but don't approach potentials just because you believe there is a high chance of them accepting. Always try to bring in the best people you know.

Know that you can work well together. Often said, but it's still worth repeating.

Presentations are great, but it's easier to convince someone to spend their time on an idea when you back your presentation up with a demo. Regardless of the outcome, you'll receive valuable feedback, and it's probably good practice for when you meet VCs.

Post by SteveC » Tue, Apr 10, 2007, 11:47 AM UTC

newbiedude wrote: post #9

SteveC wrote: post #2

I met mine through a mutal friend. He had the product idea and could do everything needed except for the technical side of things. My name was eventually brought up and I got a phone call later that night to go over the idea. A week later I had a prototype version ready to demonstrate and we moved on from there. That was 5 years ago and we're still business partners to this day.

I'm interested in the relationship between the idea creator and the coder. I have the idea, but I can't program for the life of me. I've outsourced to people in China but I need to have someone local who can take care of the small stuff. It just seems that if I find somebody I'll just be telling them what to do while I sit and watch them code... How do you deal with this?

If it was just him giving me an idea then I would have simply done it myself without his involvement. Our product is about teaching guitar. I didn't have any guitar experience while he has nearly two decades worth. He has to produce all the content which is a massive task in itself. The difference is he works on a guitar and I work on a computer. I should make clear the idea is no longer just his. He may have had the initial idea but it's developed a great deal from there to be made up of many ideas from both of us. Ownership of an idea seems to dilute over time. I believe our relationship works because it is equal. Equal decision making power, work load, and business ownership. I think any business relationship where the workload isn't equally shared is doomed to failure. Ideas aren't really worth much. His idea was seemed pretty obvious but we discovered no one was really doing it (due to technical restraints which have only started lifting over the past five years, not through lack of a market ;-).

For a successful business relationship I believe you need to bring an essential skill that helps the project get off the ground, not just an idea. Otherwise, your only alternative is to learn how to code or pay someone to do it.

Re: How did you find your business partners?

Re: How did you find your business partners?