Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You do need a technical co-founder [video]

ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 381 posts

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#81

Post by TurkishPoptart »

sebmellen wrote: post #44
atoav wrote: post #4

This is what I constantly tell my students: The hard part about doing a tech product for the most part isn't the what beginners think makes tech hard — the hard part is wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way. Many non-tech people e.g. look at programmers and think the hard part is knowing what this garble of weird text means. But this is the easy part. And if you are a person who would…

More people need to read https://grugbrain.dev/

I like this but I don't understand one part under "Saying OK"

*sometimes probably best just not tell project manager and do it 80/20 way.*

Does 80/20 in this context mean that we'll implement 80% of what is asked for an leave out the remaining complex parts?

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#82

Post by sebmellen »

jeremyjh wrote: post #59
sebmellen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people need to read https://grugbrain.dev/

I really wish I'd read this 25 years ago, but probably I wouldn't have believed any of it.

In some way, building absurdly complex systems and watching them fail is a rite of passage.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#83

Post by bob88jg »

gnicholas wrote: post #73
bob88jg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What so the person who "provided a lot of value in getting us to where we are" got ditched in the end? Is that your story? Use people and then chuck them to the curb once everything u need has been extracted?

Absolutely not — he vested founder's shares just like me. And then I continued to work with no salary and no additional vesting for years after that. Also, I was working full-time while he was working nights/weekends. Perhaps don't assume the worst?

I assumed he got some $$$ - but did he want to be removed or did you tell him he was no longer needed? Was he just as sure that he was no longer needed as u were?

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#84

Post by ginkgotree »

DelaneyM wrote: post #47

Corollary: you do not need a non-technical co-founder. My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to learn business/sales than to learn to like a co-founder, especially the type generally drawn to being a "business" founder. It is good to have a co-founder in general though, get one of those if you can. Just don't worry about finding complementary skills, bias entirely towards someone you can work with.

Second this. I worked in Sales Engineering for 5 years, ended that career selling a $25MM solution to the CEO of a fortune 100. There is no secret sauce, and it is all learnable. The key skills are interpersonal. I know its hard to do as an engineer, but most of (enterprise) sales is shutting the F up, listening, carefully listening, earning trust, and learning to navigate stakeholders and what their potential incentives are to help you.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#85

Post by jensneuse »

Tactical45 wrote: post #54
jensneuse wrote: post #17

The inverse is also true. As a technical founder, and maybe even an introvert like me, you should definitely look for a non-technical co-founder who can help you with networking, etc... I found my dream co-founder through YC Co-founder match and what can I say, it's going great. We're focusing on enterprise GraphQL/API solutions ( https://wundergraph.com ) and I benefit from the networking and communication abilities…

You hit the nail on the head with complimentary piece - and extending that to personality as well. You need a mix of technical skills (engineering, product, marketing, etc) but also personalities (which manifest in different behaviors which are all useful & compliment each other - eg bias for action and hitting targets vs careful analysis).

I'm very strong in logical analysis and strategic thinking. My problem though is that I have a natural tendency to not talk to people. Ask me a question and I'm happy to answer, but I don't like to initiate conversations. Stefan is the opposite. Everybody loves him. He can talk to everyone and he's very creative in finding leads and building connections with other companies. But he's a really bad developer. Together, we're a really strong team. I'd say without him, I would still not have a strong network.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#86

Post by sebmellen »

TurkishPoptart wrote: post #81
sebmellen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people need to read https://grugbrain.dev/

I like this but I don't understand one part under "Saying OK" * sometimes probably best just not tell project manager and do it 80/20 way.* Does 80/20 in this context mean that we'll implement 80% of what is asked for an leave out the remaining complex parts?

Kind of, and it usually works. Even as a founder you can trick yourself into doing things that way. I've found that 20/80, Pareto style, is even better. 20% of the features can achieve 80% of the sales, and you'll be a lot happier if you're not constantly chasing the long tail.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#87

Post by jensneuse »

ryandrake wrote: post #66
jensneuse wrote: post #17

The inverse is also true. As a technical founder, and maybe even an introvert like me, you should definitely look for a non-technical co-founder who can help you with networking, etc... I found my dream co-founder through YC Co-founder match and what can I say, it's going great. We're focusing on enterprise GraphQL/API solutions ( https://wundergraph.com ) and I benefit from the networking and communication abilities…

Honest question: Why can't this person be employee #(single digit), SVP of sales or something, hired during product development? Why the need to elevate to co-founder? Does an introverted technical founder really need an extraverted non-tech networking expert from day one?

When you build a startup, you have to go through so much crap, a lot of people wouldn't do that for money. But there's another aspect. Early on in the startup life, sales is not just about selling but "exploring". You have to learn about the market, what people want, what your ICP is, how to target them, etc... Does an employee care enough? Do you really want to put this responsibility into someone else's hands? I'd say no.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#88

Post by throwaway5752 »

DelaneyM wrote: post #47

Corollary: you do not need a non-technical co-founder. My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to learn business/sales than to learn to like a co-founder, especially the type generally drawn to being a "business" founder. It is good to have a co-founder in general though, get one of those if you can. Just don't worry about finding complementary skills, bias entirely towards someone you can work with.

Let's just say - there are some critical things you have to be good enough at and those correlate with commonly observed corporate structures. Some degree of Sales, Marketing, Legal, Security, R & D, and Finance competencies need to exist across the founders. Sometimes one person can do it, but they also need to know how and when to bring in experts if they are lucky enough to need to scale up.

On a very basic level, not having a cofounder in any capacity can create a structural bottleneck when two important things have to happen at the same time. A trusted second party provides resiliency.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#89

Post by [deleted] »

DelaneyM wrote: post #47

Corollary: you do not need a non-technical co-founder. My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to learn business/sales than to learn to like a co-founder, especially the type generally drawn to being a "business" founder. It is good to have a co-founder in general though, get one of those if you can. Just don't worry about finding complementary skills, bias entirely towards someone you can work with.

[deleted]

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#90

Post by danjc »

gnicholas wrote: post #78
ChrisCinelli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you do not have need of innovation? Usually a company with software need to develop new features, reengineering to reduce infrastructure costs and improving performance bottlenecks, maintenance, etc. Do not you have that in your company? And if you do, who is leading those initiatives?

We are not innovating on the core product, which has remained static for many years. Instead, we are pushing adoption through our licensing partnerships. We now have over 250k students using our reading tech through education platforms that we work with. Building more of these partnerships, based on the data we have gathered from our existing partners, is the focus.

Hate to tell you this but a business cannot thrive if it doesn't innovate. At best, you'll ride on your momentum for a while.
Post reply on HN