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Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

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Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#71

Post by unusualmonkey »

What's missing here is what value the writer is bringing to the table.

Let's look at the trade:

"I’m looking for a technical cofounder who is ready to commit in the next 2-3 months and work in-person in San Francisco. I’m looking for them to do Product, Design, and Engineering."

This requires a lead level engineer, say $200k to $500k/year salary in SF. Given that this is a 2~3 month engagement, we'd double that for contractor rate and pro rata. I'd estimate this is $100k to $250k of time.

"I’m committed to healthtech and have a few ideas, but willing to work on other ideas in healthtech."

Great, this is worth about $0.

This doesn't seem like a fair trade.

What's worse is that "Rob Balian" is a CTO with product manager background. Instead of looking for a co-founder to complement his skillset, he's duplicating the skill set.

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#72

Post by unusualmonkey »

MichaelRo wrote: post #45
braza wrote: post #3

> They want to work on this part-time > They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it > They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview I resonate with the OP because I am in this exact situation that I am building something but I cannot leave my current job now. When some friends started to build companies in mid-2000/mid-2010 you could code/build something, try to get some traction and…

>> Now the bar for new products it's absurdly high if you're out of the YC or San Francisco VC circles or if you do not have anyone in the industry; plus most of the VCs prefer to invest in "pedigree founders" than in unknown people, especially if those people are outside of the bay area. I suppose that's if you pursue the "SAAS AI Analytics Crypto Cloud" latest hype where all the low hanging fruit has been picked al…

So the first business has no competition... but also no defensibility?

The second business should be able to be much bigger AND easier, but you aren't focussing all your efforts on it because you're splitting your time with the first, non-defensible business?

It's good to be optimistic, but balance that with realism. It's easy to build a billion dollar business on paper, much harder in reality.

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#74

Post by m11a »

unusualmonkey wrote: post #70
m11a wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone. Yeah.. or even just learning how to code himself. Could learn a decent amount in 9 months.

If you spend 9 months learning to code, you get a junior engineer (at best). If you sepnd 9 months getting a technical co-founder, you likely get a seasoned engineer + thought partner for all decisions going forward. One is vastly more valuable than the other.

You don’t need to be a great engineer for most startups, unless they’re particularly specialised. Most apps are really just CRUD at small scale. These apps aren’t really hard until you scale. Eg Airbnb is really simple to make, technically speaking, at small scale.

I think it’s valuable to be able to implement your own ideas. Its going to be more productive than trying to explain what you want to someone else. (This isn’t mutually exclusive with having a cofounder as well)

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#75

Post by unusualmonkey »

m11a wrote: post #74
unusualmonkey wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend 9 months learning to code, you get a junior engineer (at best). If you sepnd 9 months getting a technical co-founder, you likely get a seasoned engineer + thought partner for all decisions going forward. One is vastly more valuable than the other.

You don’t need to be a great engineer for most startups, unless they’re particularly specialised. Most apps are really just CRUD at small scale. These apps aren’t really hard until you scale. Eg Airbnb is really simple to make, technically speaking, at small scale. I think it’s valuable to be able to implement your own ideas. Its going to be more productive than trying to explain what you want to someone else. (This…

If you're implementing you're idea's... who is marketing them? Who is handling customer support? What about sales, legal, finance, hr etc?

Writing code is not building a business.

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#76

Post by [deleted] »

shawndrost wrote: post #40

I have to repost an earlier comment of mine ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27752798 ) on this topic: I have a tip on finding a cofounder. I've been looking for the last 12 months and I tried a lot of things, but the thing that worked best is this: Post a job ad. That's it. My ad sounded like a normal job in every way, with a title like "Director of X". A couple of specific notes: 1) the first line said "cofou…

[deleted]

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#77

Post by JonChesterfield »

yaseer wrote: post #44
JonChesterfield wrote: post #38

It's a guy with an idea that he doesn't know how to build, asking you to spend hours filling out a form then three days building something to see if you know how to build stuff. And you need to be unemployed and love the idea. That should have taken unbounded time to find someone, not a mere 9 months.

Are you talking about some other scenario, rather than OP? (i.e. the archetypal 'co-founder dater'?) OP is a technical co-founder - ex-Facebook and Stanford computer science, it seems.

The OP reads much like the archetype - it doesn't make any mention of building parts of it while searching, or of finding funding, or actually if contributing anything other than some ideas. Good to hear this OP can build stuff, doesn't really change the contents of the article as written.

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#78

Post by intelVISA »

unusualmonkey wrote: post #71

What's missing here is what value the writer is bringing to the table. Let's look at the trade: "I’m looking for a technical cofounder who is ready to commit in the next 2-3 months and work in-person in San Francisco. I’m looking for them to do Product, Design, and Engineering." This requires a lead level engineer, say $200k to $500k/year salary in SF. Given that this is a 2~3 month engagement, we'd double that for c…

You would dare refuse the offer of doing the heavy lifting while he 'manages'?

Re: Cofounder Mode: My tactical guide to finding a cofounder

#80

Post by canxerian »

braza wrote: post #3

> They want to work on this part-time > They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it > They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview I resonate with the OP because I am in this exact situation that I am building something but I cannot leave my current job now. When some friends started to build companies in mid-2000/mid-2010 you could code/build something, try to get some traction and…

Trying my best to put this politely, but this reads like a list of excuses.

If you have dependents and a stable income is important then by all means, wait for the perfect conditons to arise (they likely won't - or when they do, everyone else will also be taking advantage of such conditons).

Otherwise, take the plunge. Reduce your expenses e.g live in crappy apartment to save money and go all in on your dreams

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