This year alone, I have got over 5 offers to be a Tech co-founder for some start-ups. It seems like a smart thing to do when a non-techie person has a start up idea to find someone to build the idea and in return act as a co-founder. Some of these offers are exciting and cool but we all know the success of a start up is most often not in the development (alone).
Most often, I reject such offers because I don’t have enough resources in terms of time, passion, technical know-how or even for no reason. Sometimes, i just object because I feel the non-techie person with this idea is just trying to play smart by looking for someone who will do the whole development of the idea, while he sits atop the business.
Some of the guys that have approached me didn’t even start while a few are doing quite well and I am like “whao! I should have been a part of that”
My question is; how do you best handle this situation in your own case. For me, its just like i have built a wall against that, once you are discussing a project with me and you mention the tech co-founder thing, i know you are looking for free job, I just shut my mind immediately.
@lordbanks Some people can really be very funny. They will send you documents upon documents on how the start up should work and in your mind you are already putting up a bill, then they say "I want to give you the rare privileged to be a co-founder on this but you will built it " I’m like “are you kidding me?”
Cast your bread among many waters but with “paper work o”. You have nothing to loose venturing provided you have the resources you rightly mentioned.
Also, pretend to be an investor and deduce if the idea pitched is business worthy. If you are not convinced and your guts says may-day, my brov, RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
@ekemini I have seen business worthy ideas that didn’t even see the light of day. You may end up wasting all your bread if you cast too many tiny pieces on too many waters. All may not add up.
Or maybe I should ask, How can you know a business idea that will fly? These things are highly unpredictable nowadays.
@Diadem, You just bared your mind on one of the issues most non-techie founders are struggling with and fair enough, I think it’s the typical opinion of any tech person. I’m currently in the dilemma of deciding if I should reach out for a tech co-founder or outsource. Preferably, I’d love first option. However, your post confirmed my assumptions that it would be quite difficult to convince a techie (who is competent enough) to leave what he’s doing and join “my next big thing” as a co-founder. It sounds unreasonable and impossible, because even if I am such a techie, I won’t easily leave the random gigs that come my way and commit to one with an unsure future, with little or no pay.
I think the best thing for non-techie founders to do is to outsource in developing the product while having a good marketer/hustler as a co-founder.
Ok, so you’re not really asking my type …I’m from the dark side, since I’m a non-techical co-founder but then I’ve asked people to be technical co-founders. Any ways, if I was some sort of rock star coder (perhaps like you) and I was getting loads of suitors (just like you), these are the 3 questions that I would bear in mind:
• What are the chances if the project is successful, the startup can create value and become valuable in the process? Now this might appear subjective but as anyone who hear pitches will tell you, some ideas are a no go for all sorts of reasons. No time for time wasters.
• Does the non technical co-founder demonstrate that they can play a valuable role (apart from being the originator of the idea)? Maybe you check their past records, consider reference checks etc. But this is tricky as its only a snapshot of the past. You really want to know what they will bring to the table on an on-going basis. For instance, I wrote candidly about my experience for Techpoint on what I actually did before our launch below;
• Is the project interesting, technically rewarding or stimulating enough to spend your time on? Of course your time is a valuable but finite resource, so you might as well spend it working on something you enjoy.
I think we can all agree that a founder (whether technical or non technical) has to overcome a lot of hurdles to get a startup off the ground. Questions to be solved include; what problem to solve, how to test viability, what platform to build on, financial resources (or lack of it), any regulations to consider, how to position your brand, which skills set/knowledge do you need on board urgently, etc all before finding your first customer/user. Finding a technical co-founder for a non technical founder, is a major question…but it’s actually part of the continuous test of their hustle.
Hmmm… (According to your article, your weakness…) I thought all smart/intellegent folks have strength in reading (books). Here I find solace but I won’t stop ‘trying’ to read
Before you can accept the offer for any co-founder role(technical or otherwise), there are important things. I started out coding (my first job was a coder job at Swift), and get asked to be technical co-founder later on. And I am on the other fence now so I believe I know this a bit. In fact, just last week, a technical person requested I join him on the business side of things. So the request is not usually one way. It goes both ways but I will agree it is biased to the technical partner request direction. Because everyone believes they know and understand business side of things, which is why every programmer today, is a founder of something.
Like @PapaOlabode said: There are important things to note before you embark on any project.
Look out for a few things:
The relationship you have with the individual. You can’t just meet someone or call up the first programmer number you see, and request him to be a technical founder. That’s stupid. If a nigga you have no relationship with, calls you for the first time, and he goes “let’s be partner, I have this world-changing idea”, you should run. That call has only demonstrated he knows absolute nothing about founding a business.
So relationship matters. If it is coming from a friend, an old classmate, your spouse, a work colleague, then there is a place to start. Running a business is hard, so hard that you can’t be co-founding with just anybody you meet on the street. It’s an emotional roller coaster.
Examine the resume of the individual. What is this person’s background? If an ex-Konga, or ex-IROKO or ex-Paga or ex-Jumia(you get my point!) or a Stanford GSB grad that is a friend is requesting you to be a cofounder, you might just want to consider it. He probably knows what he is doing. Is this his first business or project? Does he have connect like Phyno? Where has he worked before? Generally, know his background. Because he is your friend(point 1 satisfied), this should be easy. If @lordbanks or @seyitaylor have a relationship with you, and want to start a media company with you, jump at it. They have demonstrated they can. I hope you get my point.
A very good friend, currently in Stanford for his MS who happens to be a former business partner, pitched me earlier this year of starting a business together on his return. He is not even technical. But because he is uber smart, and we have a relationship, I considered it for a minute even without examining the project. Same another friend just from UPitts a few weeks ago. He knows next to nothing to tech startup founding, but just because we are friends and he is uber-smart, I met with him.
Examine the business worthiness of the project. Do this because life is short. And you will be 50 before you know it. So after satisfying 1,and 2, you can always have a conversation about this. Work on something that matters. That truly matter. Not just another Mango selling ecommerce site. Once you establish the worthiness of the project, and satisfy item 1, and 2, you will find that it is not that ridiculous to be asked a cofounder. Sometimes it’s an honour. For all the times I have been contacted by my friends, I felt good.
On project worthiness, look at the following:
Will I enjoy working on this?
What is the timeline for profitability? Or what are the opportunities?
Am I working on what matters?
And the most important question: What can this become in another 5 years, and will I be happy to still be on this?
The hack to the fourth question will be: when you are with friends and everyone is talking about what they are working on. Mr X is doing his PhD, Mr Y is working at Shell. Will you be proud to say you are building xyz.com?
Relationship over everything. Being a cofounder isn’t a big deal. It is an honour if it is with the right person for them to consider you founder-worthy.
From my experience, I’ve come to believe that the process that creates sustainable co-founding relationships is substantially organic. Make no mistake however…this isn’t the sort of organism that you can culture in some 48-hour hackathon petri dish. Co-founders that stay together will have typically have some personal history together, have mutual career interests and be close in communication in the same space till they practically start completing others’ sentences. I’m serious. I could almost swear that AY and I had a pyschic link. Many times one person would say something that was just on the tip of the others’ tongue.
Just to add, non-tech founders are open to contracting/paying freelance developers to build out their products, but fear of these developers abandoning the gig half way into it make them go the tech co-founder route.
It is now a common place for some devs to collect money and bail half way into the gig…from experience, I personally would advise against contracting. You don’t want to burn money!
So this is something I’ve done before. It’s paid off (an obvious case being Jobberman) and in some cases it did not.
Here are my own rules - for developers.
No free lunch. Your chances of success are higher, if your co-founder pays you first as a contractor (or has a history of paying you) before you make that co-founder decision. Anyone that does not value your skill enough to pay for it yesterday or today would be a bad cofounder.
The only exception here for me is if the so-called co-founder has visibly invested a lot in the business and is still investing a lot. Even at that, make that observation/decision yourself, not because he/she rubbed the fact in your face.
For the non-developers, you have to meet us(them) developers halfway. Put your money where your heart is. Money is new of the few ways to judge commitment, nonetheless money isn’t enough either.
There is nothing more heartrending than a dev getting the feeling that he/she is doing all the work and you are just doing talk-talk out there because that’s what some non-tech cofounders do. In the early days of Jobberman, all the jobs were typed by Deji and Lekan while I coded, and I could not but respect their grit.
…I’m from the 