[bpizzi]

I've got a problem with mixing 'co-founder' and 'hiring' terms: to me they look mutually exclusive. If you're searching for someone for 'co-founding' your startup, then you're asking for a partner. If you're trying to 'hire' someone, then you're asking for an employee. Partners are not to be interviewed, at least not with a 'coding test'.

Think of the reversed situation: you're a 'business guy' (whatever that means), and a 'technical co-founder' is asking you to join the founding team on the business side, but first he's asking you to prove your business skills by tossing an Excel sheets and saying 'please find the formula errors'? What will you think of him?

[dheera]

I agree. Co-founders are by definition not hired. They should not have to "prove themselves" over the span of a week. Rather, you should already have the proof and conviction based on months to years of prior experience that they are the right person with the right skills.

Moreover, please do not be the silly business person who walks up to some engineer and be like: "I have this great idea, it's going to be great! Can you build it for me? Oh and by the way, because I guess it looks like you're going to be the technical one, I guess I'll have to be the CEO, and I'll take 80% of the equity [despite you doing all the work]." I've had enough of those stupid conversations before.

Good technical co-founders build what they want to build. Not what you want to build. Thus, you need to align as people, and build what you collectively want to build together. Technical co-founders work for themselves, not for you.

[hkmurakami]

Regarding the non technical cofounder, he or she should ideally have a track record in either acquiring consumer users with the acquisition channel he/she intends to use, or has successfully sold to enterprises in that vertical and size.

Without that track record, you're in for a crap shoot imo.

[uptownfunk]

A Harsh truth but quite enlightening. Thanks.

[dhbradshaw]

I've now helped two successful companies get off the ground. In both cases, it wasn't Excel skills that made it happen. It wasn't my code either, although that helped. It was B2B sales. And I don't mean that just in terms of bringing in the money; the people doing the selling also learned what we needed to build to do that selling.

So although I would never administer a test saying "please find the formula errors" to a potential cofounder, I do have a basic pass or fail test: "Can you lead product through sales?" If you can, I can build it and we'll get rich. If not, I'm not sure what value you can bring. I can build projects on spec all by myself.

[baddox]

So how do you find a business partner? It sounds like you’re suggesting that you need to already have been personally close to and trusting of your partner for a long time, or perhaps find a partner based on recommendations from very close and trusted friends or colleagues. That’s probably how it happens most of the time. Is that the only viable way to choose a partner?

[rmah]

You partner with someone whom you 1) respect and 2) have worked with well in the past. I really don't understand how anyone could possibly partner with a stranger no matter how stellar their resume or how skilled they are.

[mozumder]

Go with recommendations, seek them out personally, or just take the person most willing to partner with you and use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

There is no “easy mode” in finding a partner. You will have to take some risk here as well.

[afarrell]

> use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained in environments where you have:

1) The opportunity for lots of repeated trials.

2) Rapid feedback which results from the data you currently observe rather than from

So if you're predicting tomorrow's weather, intuition is useful: your prediction can't change the weather, you can do this 365 times in a year, and you'll get feedback the next day.

Picking a founder (or heck, uni project partner) is unlike this in that you don't have many opportunities to do it and the feedback only comes months later. So, its better to think through a more deliberative and explicit thought process.

That deliberative process might involve a difficult, awkward conversation like "Hey, so if we jump into this, we are going to have to really trust each other for a lot of things. I think its best if we explicitly come up with ways to prove to ourselves and each other that we have the skills to tackle the known challenges we're going to have to face."

I don't know where "easy mode" comes into it at all.

[cirgue]

> The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained...

You have had an entire lifetime of trial and feedback in understanding the character, talents, and ambitions of other people. If you don't have that, or if you can't trust it, you probably should not be a founder yet. Wait until you actually have those skills because they're critical for everything else in running a business.

[hkmurakami]

You can have a 3rd person who knows both of you well to make an intro.

[vadimberman]

> first he's asking you to prove your business skills by tossing an Excel sheets and saying 'please find the formula errors'? What will you think of him?

This Excel test will not prove much. However, asking "what do you think is the problem with that particular company" or "what do you think the issue with the company whose P&L sheet you are looking at" may not be a bad idea.

Most importantly, they have to be extensively interviewed about the strategy. That is unless they have a proven record, in which case it might be a dangerous exercise.

However, a dirty little secret: finding a non-technical co-founder is magnitude easier. That is, unless we are talking a rock-star level, which is a totally different story.