Seeking Technology Co-Founder (NYC)

I predict you'll fail with whatever you try to startup AS LONG AS you have this attitude. A founder who used to be a former user and can point to the flaws in everything on the market and came up with a better solution is an IDEAL person to have start something. Their intuition is based on their experience of what people like them (ie, former customers) will PAY MONEY for. That's a business. Hackers hacking all night is not a business. Sorry to burst your bubble.

You can't be more wrong. You only get PRACTICAL, USEFULL business ideas AS a customer/user. That's why 99.99% of programmers who start businesses flop - they're so wrapped up in some tiny aspect of their warped reality and how their awesome code makes a tiny part of it a bit better in ways nobody understands, that they never stop and think that 99.99% of the general population of who they think will be their customers couldn't care less.

That's if they even bother to think about who their customers will be. Most programmers can't think beyond "users" and I'm sorry, but now that we're entering recession times, you'll learn really quick that users does NOT equal same as paying customer.

The sad truth for you is that most successful companies were started by people without the technical skills but who were users of many things, had a "big picture perspective" and thought to themselves, "You know what sucks about the current state of things, this, this and that - someone should make something different like this and this."

Otherwise, from your model, you just have programmers making something most likely nobody will care about. That's not a company, that's code. If you get some users, that may a service, by which I mean of the charity kind. If they pay you, that's a product, though not necessarily a successful company.

HERE - FORGET MY THESIS - imagine instead this scenario - let's say all the "big idea" people went on some Atlas shrugged type of strike. That leaves you programmers in boston, and those in virginia, in New York, S.V, and about a hundred million others in Russia, Eastern Europe, India, China, Netherlands, Ireland, France ...

If the idea people are that irrelevant to starting great companies, and programmers are that all-important, why don't you guys all get together, form some sort of super development virtual company and spit out 50 million uber-companies all based on your awesome code?

I'll bet 50 idea people in various industries will start successful companies that MAKE MONEY for every 1 programmer with a brilliant algorithm to load YouTube videos 2% faster or whatever passes for a great business idea among hackers these days that manages to fool some desperate, inexperienced VC to put money into their project.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Masons build, but building without a good plan leads to well-executed crap. No inspired architect/designer, no beauty, no inspirational "thing" that PAYING customers can wrap their minds around. I've said it before and I'll say it again: just because you get "users" and maybe bought out by Mega-Corp. doesn't mean you've created a successful company. Get people to pay you money for your thing, that's a business. Otherwise, just a delusion that will never survive the next 4 years of economic slowdown. Can't figure out how to make people hand over their money for your "thing"? That's where you need "business idea" people who've honed their intuition from using everything in the market.

on another point, when u don't have a product yet does it always make sense to get someone to start selling it before it's there in every situation (as opposed to getting someone to help you build it)?

"imagine going to a doctor or surgeon only to have them tell you, "Well, tell you what - if you're willing to go to med school, I might operate on you. Otherwise, you're not worthy of my effort.""

that's a bad analogy, considering patients are doctors' customers

But most business competence is recognized in retrospect. How many Harvard MBAs with awesome corporate track records do you see starting awesome companys which make products you love? Like, almost none?

> to convince or he has a proven track record or he already has money

"proven track records" are what jealous people who inherit money to start investment funds look for to make business starters feel small. Tell me, based on the "track record" of Steve Jobs/Woz, Howard Shultz (door-to-door expresso machine salesperson), Richard Branson, and God knows who else, would you invest a penny in their "I dropped out of college/never went to chase my dream of beating huge, well-financed, well established companies on their own turf by doing something unproven" ideas? I bet not. But you'd be very rich if you did.

> from your perspective would you partner/hire an engineer who can't build something. you can guage who's a solid engineer by what they've built, as oppose to just what they claim...

But most people just showcase what they CAN build, which, in my experience, rarely translates into the ability to build what they've never built before.

>on another point, when u don't have a product yet does it always make sense to get someone to start selling it before it's there in every situation (as opposed to getting someone to help you build it)?

Sure. I'd gladly pick an awesome salesperson who can pre-sell it to 100,000 paying customers over 10 of the best programmers working away day and night all the time. That salesperson's ability will get me the money to tell VCs to go to hell and then have plenty left to hire the best programmers I can find. The programmers, meanwhile, don't guarantee anybody will buy it once its done.

>that's a bad analogy, considering patients are doctors' customers

Not really. Most surgeons make enough money to not have to work for the money and do it for the challenge/love. Imagine they got offended at everyone's lack of medical knowledge.

Exactly. Hence, track records are useless. Unless you have a track record of starting big successful companies. Nobody who has that would bother talking to programmers. They'd hire them to wash their ferraris for the entertainment value.

>well I mentioned charisma right? Jobs and Branson are bad examples for your argument, since they are extremely charismatic - hell they're legendary for it

Psst! AFTER they get rich it's called "charisma" .. until then, it's called being a loon. Take away fame and money and "charisma" suddenly = annoying personality.

> better than empty words...

Not really. I can build the biggest house of cards you ever saw. Not sure how that makes me money. Same thing with most applications I've seen programmers show me when they told me they're too busy to build my thing. Awesome. Profound. They even convinced me their solutions were technically superior to everyting. I can't figure out who'd give them any money for it, so in the end they amount to the same thing as my house of cards or "empty words" , ie, nothing anybody would actually buy.

> what if it doesn't get built after you presold?

Um, well, if programmers are still too snobby here after I got 100,000 people to pay me for it up front, (a) they're too stupid to hire because they don't realize the value of 100,000 people willing to pay you before it's even built and (b) I'd use the money to fly to Russia and spend 3 months finding programmers there.

> well all the doctors I know from college have a lot of bills to pay, which don't include the extremely high cost of malpractice insurance.... =)

Doctors, maybe. Surgeons, I doubt. Most surgeons can pay off med school with 1-few proceedures, depending on the nature.

> extremely high cost of malpractice insurance.... =)

I don't think the doctors themselves pay that - the hospitals / private companies which own/manage them these days do that.