The best way to find a technical co-founder…
….is to not need a technical co-founder.
In any startup Q&A session, it’s a pretty safe bet that someone will ask “I have a great idea for a startup, how do I find a technical co-founder to bring it to life?”.
It’s an even safer bet that literally no one will say “I have a degree in Computer Science and five years experience as a full-stack developer. How can I meet someone with a great idea?”.
This is a common question to lob at VCs, who will give you a VC answer: they’ll tell you to ‘network’. Attend one of the many startup events and mingle with the people who attend. I’m sorry to tell you that well-qualified engineers are not hanging out on Zoom calls desperate to meet a non-technical founder. Anyone worth their salt is already working or doing.
If you’re going to attract someone worth working with, you’re going to need to put in some effort. The good news is, it’ll make you a better founder.
First, the bad news — The Value of Your Idea is Practically Zero.
The primacy of ideas is a misconception many non-technical people labor under. When I worked in London, one of our partner agencies had “Ideas & Ideas” carved into the stone of their doorway. Unfortunately, ideas are common enough to be practically worthless. You’re going to need a lot more than that to attract a CTO.
I won’t repeat it here, but this article by Derek Sivers is a great response to this. TL;DR Great Idea*No Execution =$20
Wait, it gets worse, your business skills are not that unique either.
The job of an engineer is to understand a problem, break it down, and solve it in the most efficient way possible. Read this quote from an interview with John Carmack, co-founder of Id Software and lead programmer on the second greatest software application of all time (after Excel, of course):
justin_saunders asks Many people consider you to be one of the best programmers in the game/graphics scene, based on your ability to keep pushing the limits of current PC hardware.
I was wondering what measures you use to gauge the skill of a programmer, and who, if anyone, you look up to and consider to be a “great” programmer.
John Carmack Answers:
Like most things, it is difficult to come up with a single weighted sum of the value of a programmer. I prefer to evaluate multiple axis independently.
Programming is really just the mundane aspect of expressing a solution to a problem. There are talents that are specifically related to actually coding, but the real issue is being able to grasp problems and devise solutions that are detailed enough to actually be coded.
Being able to clearly keep a lot of aspects of a complex system visualized is valuable.
Having a good feel for time and storage that is flexible enough to work over a range of ten orders of magnitude is valuable.
Experience is valuable.
Knowing the literature is valuable.
Being able to integrate methods and knowledge from different fields is
valuable.
Being consistent is valuable.
Being creative is valuable.
Focus is extremely important. Being able to maintain focus for the length of a project gets harder and harder as schedules grow longer, but it is critical to doing great work.
If that isn’t the working of a great business mind, I don’t know what is. When you find someone worth working with, it’s unlikely that yours will be the first pitch they’ve heard. A rational, analytical mind will respond best to a proof-based argument.
How To Craft a Pitch That Will Attract A CTO
These things are hard, rare, and do not require a CS degree.
- Bring multiple unique things to the table: industry, money, and a cheat code. Non-technical founders should have a great pedigree in the industry you want to enter. My friend Randy Schwartz is fond of asking ‘what right do we have to solve this problem?’. If you can answer ‘ten years doing it the hard way’, that’s a great start. If you can add ‘$50,000 to fund the MVP’, that’s even better, and if you can finish with ‘and a client who’s ready to pay for it when it’s done’ then you’re worth listening to.
- Close the gap. If you can make a great Keynote deck, you can build a prototype. Sit yourself down with one of the many excellent tools on the marketplace (Figma, JustInMind, Bubble.io) and put together something that at least appears functional. The first demo of xCheck was a fully clickable and good enough to pitch clients made without a single line of code. The process of putting together something like that forces you to clarify your ideas and shine a light on all the aspects you haven’t considered yet. Do this before you make a pitch deck.
- Prove the model: Get to ‘Ramen Profitable’. The only thing that beats a prototype is an MVP with revenue. Many of the no-code tools on the market today should be robust enough to build the first possible increment of value. Famously, Brian Chesky’s goal during AirBnB’s stint at Y-Combinator was to get to ‘Ramen Profitability’. One thousand dollars a week was just enough to cover the founders living expenses. $1,000 a week from people you don’t know is a huge signal that your idea is valid and ready to be scaled with the help of a CTO.
- A day-to-day interesting problem. The best engineers I know are highly motivated to solve novel problems. Business milestones won’t happen every day and there may be periods where things get really tough. If you can provide your CTO with the opportunity to solve a challenging, novel problem and put that solution into the hands of actual users — that in itself is hugely valuable.
Founder, Heal Thyself
Of course, this list isn’t exhaustive and you should never accept ‘one size fits all’ advice. In other scenarios, the ability to raise money or get media attention are valuable superpowers in their own right. If you listen to the excellent How To Start a Startup series you’ll also notice that many brilliantly talented developers find elements of management like hiring and firing completely foreign. These skills do have value. As brilliant as Carmack is, his management style sounds too aggressive to be sustainable — shipping Quake nearly killed his team.
These softer skills will help keep your company together after the start. If you follow the steps outline above, you can remove a lot of the unknowns, improve your odds of success, and attract a better team.
