How to Find a Technical Co-Founder in Hong Kong
An Excerpt of Live Chat Interview
Guest: Jacqueline Chong from Green Tomato
1. How to identify if someone has enough technical know-how to be a technical co-founder?
The thing is, no one can ever have “enough” technical know-how. I always stress that it’s the “mindset” that matters.
2. How depth of tech knowledge should I equip with in order to communicate well with my tech partner (given that I have no tech background)?
For non-tech founder, it’s how ready that your technical partner is to work with you to design a product FOR USERS. Tech partner shall not be qualified if they JUST have good coding skills, focus on developing and programming only. These are great tech people you may hire, but definitely NOT your co-founder/partner. Again, they should be the partners who work with you to design a product FOR USERS.
Tech partner shall not be qualified if they JUST have good coding skills
And the number one attribute of a tech partners is not technical, but they need to be digital. Another important thing as a non-tech founder: learn to grow users in the technical way. You need to be comfortable with readily available tools like making a landing page, developing prototype and building your mailing list service with eDM services.
3. What makes a tech guy join a startup?
Tech people are looking for startup: Your startup already has proven traction and significant user base. Ideation stage rarely attracts good tech people.
So before finding a tech guy, using following tools can help you build the traction and user base.
4. Do you think outsourcing/finding a dev house is a good idea?
Outsource is definitely an option once you really don’t have someone in the team that’s strong in tech. Dev house can do all the dirty work and don’t bother about hiring and managing your own. Nothing against outsourcing, be clear what you constraint and what you wanna achieve.
The key is the non-tech founder needs to have the minimal project management skill to manage the outsource team and don’t overload them with feature list. Otherwise, it will end up be a total waste of money.
