7 Things A Developer Needs to Know Before Joining Your Startup

“I’m looking for a developer. Are you interested?” — every developer’s Gmail inbox

Clearly there is a high demand for developers these days. I recently oversaw Tom Hessert of Derby Jackpot write the perfect pitch to a developer.

Here’s his email…

The Perfect Developer Pitch

Chris (aka. The Developer),

I’m working with a team of two to build an online horse racing app called Derby Jackpot.

Our research shows that there is no legal way to gamble on horses in America. Derby Jackpot solves that demand by offering the first online horse racing app. In the past 6 months, we’ve worked hard to validate our MVP, and now we’re certain there is a market demand of over 100,000 people.

We have strong domain expertise: my co-founder has over 10 years experience on the business side of horse racing. We’re fully funded, and offering equity and/or a very competitive salary.

Thanks for taking the time! I’d love to tell you more.

Tom (aka. looking for a developer)*

What the Developer Needs to Know:

Let’s deconstruct the best parts of Tom’s email:

1. How many people are on your team?
2. What problem are you solving?
3. What is your proposed solution to that problem?
4. Have you validated your MVP?
5. Do you have domain expertise?
6. Are you funded?
7. What are you offering in terms of compensation?

With all that said. Keep it relatively short! And don’t be discouraged if you can’t promise as much as Tom. Which brings me to my next point…

The Easy Part Is Writing the Email

The hardest part about finding a developer to work on your project is doing the prep work. Above you can see that Tom:

• Has done his market research
• He has expertise in the field
• He’s validated his MVP. (Way to go Tom, we like that!)

Now it’s your turn! So maybe you have some work to do before emailing another developer?

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• All names and numbers in the email have been changed for privacy reasons.