It'd be interesting to find some successful CTOs (e.g. people who built up a company from the ground up to a successful exit) and ask them how they'd want to be interviewed for their job.
How to interview a technical co-founder
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Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#12I've got a problem with mixing 'co-founder' and 'hiring' terms: to me they look mutually exclusive. If you're searching for someone for 'co-founding' your startup, then you're asking for a partner. If you're trying to 'hire' someone, then you're asking for an employee. Partners are not to be interviewed, at least not with a 'coding test'. Think of the reversed situation: you're a 'business guy' (whatever that means),…
> first he's asking you to prove your business skills by tossing an Excel sheets and saying 'please find the formula errors'? What will you think of him?
This Excel test will not prove much. However, asking "what do you think is the problem with that particular company" or "what do you think the issue with the company whose P&L sheet you are looking at" may not be a bad idea.
Most importantly, they have to be extensively interviewed about the strategy. That is unless they have a proven record, in which case it might be a dangerous exercise.
However, a dirty little secret: finding a non-technical co-founder is magnitude easier. That is, unless we are talking a rock-star level, which is a totally different story.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#13I've got a problem with mixing 'co-founder' and 'hiring' terms: to me they look mutually exclusive. If you're searching for someone for 'co-founding' your startup, then you're asking for a partner. If you're trying to 'hire' someone, then you're asking for an employee. Partners are not to be interviewed, at least not with a 'coding test'. Think of the reversed situation: you're a 'business guy' (whatever that means),…
So how do you find a business partner? It sounds like you’re suggesting that you need to already have been personally close to and trusting of your partner for a long time, or perhaps find a partner based on recommendations from very close and trusted friends or colleagues. That’s probably how it happens most of the time. Is that the only viable way to choose a partner?
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#14This is great advice. Any decent CTO will immediately be put off by this kind of interview for a “co-founder” and be spared working with someone who doesn’t know his circle of competence.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#15For finding a technical co-founder, I think this is more like it: Imagine you are looking for someone to marry and to cook for you. You will have to get along with them for years. You will need to share intimate secrets with them. The main thing that is really different is that you will not be having sex with them (although from what I hear that is not actually very different from most marriages). The other thing is…
The implied power structure here is so typical.
Way too many startup “CEOs” want to sit on their ass watching TV and drinking beer (eg going to conferences and drinking beer) while their partner builds the product based on their incoherent and ever changing whims.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#16For finding a technical co-founder, I think this is more like it: Imagine you are looking for someone to marry and to cook for you. You will have to get along with them for years. You will need to share intimate secrets with them. The main thing that is really different is that you will not be having sex with them (although from what I hear that is not actually very different from most marriages). The other thing is…
Finding a spouse or long-term romantic partner certainly seems like an apt analogy, but I wonder if the analogy really holds for any specifics beyond the empirical observation that a significant percentage of both marriages and businesses “fail.” I put that in quotation marks, because I’m not convinced that the “success” criteria for either are well-defined. The standard view for marriages seems to be that any marriage that ends before one partner dies was a failure, but I don’t see why a separation or divorce necessarily implies that there wasn’t a net benefit for both partners. Likewise, if a business eventually ceases to exist, I don’t think that necessarily implies that the founders didn’t benefit on net (even if there was no obvious benefit, like a payout). I claim this even though I realize that both “failures” must usually cause considerable pain and/or hardship for all participants for some amount of time.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#17As an experienced developer, who spent the summer exploring options after my last company was sold, I had many approaches from non-technical founders. Most of them completely skipped vetting me, and just were hungry for someone who could code. One I worked with part-time for a few months, with the explicit agreement that it was a test run on small projects to decide if we wanted to move forward together. The last one did interview me, and ended up being my #1 choice to work with because, aside from agreement on the product and how we'd build it, she was clearly thinking about the bigger picture, not just trying to find a coder. (Although the market drove me to take a different full-time job instead, anyway.)
All that to say, another criteria is that if your potential co-founder is too easy to convince to join you, that is a red flag - a good potential founder will have many options on the table. If you are their only option, there is a reason for it, and you should walk away.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, even that's a crapshoot. In fact this article presumes that it should be an interview, when it should really be a conversation. If a non-technical founder wanted to "interview" me, I'd tell them to shove it. If they wanted to have a conversation about how we could bring our complementary skills together to solve a problem, then I'd certainly be much more interested.
I mostly agree. A co-founder interview should be more of a conversation rather than a traditional "company vs. employee" interview. Nevertheless, if it is already a running project, there is an imbalance of trust and skin in the game, similar to a job interview. So going through a technical screening can be a very easy way for the candidate to close that trust gap. Also, the popular perception between technical co-fo…
I'm assuming this is a technical co-founder in the stricter sense, rather than an early-employee CTO. If the case were the latter, I'd most likely be inheriting a dumpster fire built by an agency or a jilted technical co-founder, neither of which is a good position to be in.
If that's the case, then the onus is on the founder as much as me to prove their worthiness. I've inherited too many dumpster fires in my career to implicitly trust the word of non-technical co-founders.
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#19Looking for anyone who is an expert in a domain your not familiar with is difficult. Especially a co-founder, as your success together will depend maybe more on dedication & your relationship VS technical ability.
At a minimum, look for someone who:
- Has the ability to explain something complex from their area in terms you understand.
- Is not afraid to question or disagree with you, but does so in a way that doesn't make you feel bad.
- Is looking for a challenge and is genuinely interested in what your doing
- Displays a history of non-conformity, thick-headedness in some way.
- Really thinks/codes in terms of minimal viable product
- Who you get along well with!
Re: How to interview a technical co-founder
#20As an experienced developer, who spent the summer exploring options after my last company was sold, I had many approaches from non-technical founders. Most of them completely skipped vetting me, and just were hungry for someone who could code. One I worked with part-time for a few months, with the explicit agreement that it was a test run on small projects to decide if we wanted to move forward together. The last one…
> If you are their only option, there is a reason for it, and you should walk away.
Depending on your other options, it still might be interesting. Just know you are walking into a potential trainwreck.