Ask David Cohen: Finding a Developer

We recently held an AMA with Techstars’ Co-CEO, David Cohen, where he answered commonly asked questions from founders about topics such as forming a team, developing an MVP, and applying to an accelerator program.

This post is the third in a series of five which includes a transcript of David’s answers to these questions in this AMA. To sign up for our next AMA, check out the schedule here!

Can you offer any tips on selecting a developer or development team?

If I’m an entrepreneur and I have an idea, and I don’t have the development talent around me but I need to find a developer, I would do my selection just like I would with hiring an employee. I would first select on integrity. Is this a person that has high value and is well respected in the community? Secondly, I would select based on their motivation. Do they really want to do this? Is this the team that really wants to go build this thing? Are they excited about it? Are they motivated to change the world in this way? It’s going to be hard.

Somewhere down the line, I look for talent. That would probably be next after motivation and integrity.

I think talent without integrity doesn’t matter, and talent without motivation doesn’t matter.

Put integrity and motivation first and then look for the talent — the ability to actually do the task or even just the potential to learn it. I think the best developers can learn any language; if they are a good developer, they can learn whatever. But the raw talent, the ability to learn it and do it and demonstrate the ability is helpful.

Later on, experience is the next factor. Having experience in that specific domain is probably the last thing I look for, and by the way, this is true for any employee. You pick developers the same way. Motivation matters a lot because developers right now are like the investors. They are the scarce resource, they are the ones investing in your startup, so I really want to know where they are coming from and why they care about my idea. Hang out in forums and groups where people are passionate about the same things you are. That is where you are going to find the people you are going to want to work with.

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This post was originally published on Techstars’ blog.