How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
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How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#2I'm not a technical guy and I see a lot of other non technical guys out there trying to sell their ideas. I like the angle to look for a guy who is really good at something. I would go even further to say find a business guy who knows your market, industry and potential customers. This may not always be easy but time and time again in and out of tech startups are successful because the people running them understood the industry, market and people they were targeting
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#3I still can't understand how this gets missed in every one of these posts; a great business cofounder can be someone with an insane level of domain expertise either selling something like the thing you're making, or selling to the exact same people you want to sell to.
If you're making, say, web analytics software for online retailers, your best business cofounder would be a guy who had just spent a year convincing online retailers to buy his company's Magento extension (or whatever). This guy will make your product better, will know what to say to customers, and will probably even dial up all the people he already sold to so he can also sell your new product. A second best fit might be someone from an ad agency, for example, who had pitched and won the business of a few online retailers.
Don't buy this visionary, motivator, fundraising, connector bull. If you need a life coach, hire a life coach. There's only two critical functions to your startup: Make the thing, Sell the thing. You can fake the rest if you do the big two.
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#4After seeing what happens when you partner with an "ideas guy", the only way I will have a non-technical co-founder is if they can offer me: connections in my industry or cash.
Otherwise, I don't need them and I can do the rest myself.
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#5great topic, something that interested me for a while. but i was disappointed that it failed to deliver the answer, where to actually find them?
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#6I've been dealing with the flip side: I'm a highly technical MBA, started as a coder and got my MBA because I knew I needed it. I'd love to find serious minded technical co-founders, or even moderately experienced non-technical co-founders. I had good technical co-founders originally, but not good enough in that they drifted off when the startup took longer then they they wanted. Today, I'd love to find a strong technical set of partners, but no one I'm meeting has the skills. People seem to be only interested with Ruby/Node/WebGL/Flavor-of-the-day projects.
In an effort to meet more like minded technical entrepreneurs, I've started a free co-working space in Downtown Los Angeles. It's called Droplabs, www.droplabs.net.
Anyone is welcome. The original founders, I'm 1 of 7, all work with the Drupal CMS, but also work in other systems. There's other independent creative consultants there too doing Ruby, Node.js, C/C++, various client projects and about 4-5 startups.
I'm still looking for the right people. I'm ambitious: http://about.me/blakes In a week or two I have a project for Show HN...
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#7great topic, something that interested me for a while. but i was disappointed that it failed to deliver the answer, where to actually find them?
Venture capital firms. The younger professionals at the top firms are smart, know a lot about technology business models, and are very well connected relative to their age. Plus, most of them got into VC not to become investors, but because they have aspirations of starting a company.
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#8One test for business co-founders is test if they can make cold contacts. There are so many MBAs who are nothing but marketing/strategy types, with no real sales ability, and so are of little use to a startup. When I hear a business person say, "I know this market/industry", I pretty much write them off. If a business person says, "I have worked in this industry, and I know dozens of people that shouldn't live without this product", then my interest is peaked.
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#9great topic, something that interested me for a while. but i was disappointed that it failed to deliver the answer, where to actually find them?
Venture capital firms. The younger professionals at the top firms are smart, know a lot about technology business models, and are very well connected relative to their age. Plus, most of them got into VC not to become investors, but because they have aspirations of starting a company.
These ones are going to be the types that will be able to provide value on the business development side since they have the industry connections. (Tough to call them hustlers since it's not very clear whether they are "scrappy.") If you're looking for someone who can deliver on the product side, VC firms aren't going to provide those kinds of individuals, especially the younger ones. For product folk, it's best to poach Product Managers from slightly larger companies who are dealing with the same domain. They may not be as competent on the fundraising side but they will have a good idea of product & marketing.
Re: How to find a business cofounder that doesn't suck
#10These lists always seem to miss what I consider to be one of the most important elements of a co-founder: You have worked with them before. If you're starting a company with someone else it is absolutely critical you have worked together and operated under stressful conditions before. This is the #1 reason most startups will see 1 or more co-founder leave.
If you are a technical person starting a company and you don't know any business co-founders whom you have worked with then don't bring them on as a co-founder. Find another technical co-founder and make your first hire the business person. This will give you time to build out the product and understand more of what you need.