Where to find co-founding developers?

[ericseidelman]

I'm a business & marketing person with a great idea for a start-up. It literally has HUGE potential in an area that is growing.

However, I'm not a hacker, programmer, developer or whatever else a tech person is called.

So, I'm reaching out to all of you in this community and hoping you can provide me with some direction.

Take away my circle of friends... where else would you advise I look for a skilled, reliable, co-founder? Or at the very least, someone who could assist in creating a basic prototype?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[ScottWhigham]

Okay - let's say that I, a technical person, meet you at a bar. We start talking and you mention just what you said - that you are looking to meet a possible co-founding developer but that you don't really know anyone and you're stuck on even where to look for such a person. You know what I'm thinking to myself? "If this guy can't figure this part out, then I'm certainly not about to tell him that I could be that technical co-founder."

Sorry - that's the truth though. IMO, if you are business & marketing person, then either you should already have a set of contacts that you could ask for help on or, plan b, you would have a handle on groups locally in your area that would lead you to such a person (or to someone who could lead you to someone). If plan A isn't working out for whatever reason, then figure out plan B. I can promise you that posting here is less productive than pressing the flesh with local folks in your own town.

[ericseidelman]

I agree. I'm already going out to local meet-ups etc. and networking that way. This post was to expand that process.

I'm essentially looking into any option at this point and you make perfect sense with your response. Thank you

[ScottWhigham]

Okay - gotcha. Colleges, craigslist ads, local networking groups for entrepreneurs - those would be my best guess at where you would have the most luck (not necessarily in that order). Sounds like you have those covered so then it makes sense to come here.

FWIW I don't think you should necessarily consider becoming a developer. It really depends on how much control you want and how quickly you think that, once you found the co-founder, you could start making money. Let's say you think that a competent co-founder could get you enough of a prototype coded up/mocked up in three months and you could go raise money (or sell it) then. If it takes you a year to learn to code, will you be able to mock up/code a prototype as good as the professional could in three months? I doubt it but maybe. But you are nine months behind the curve at that point. Even if it takes you six months to find a co-founder, you are still ahead of the game assuming it works out since his work for three months would be superior to your one year's worth of work.

Just my $0.02 though

[ericseidelman]

agree to your $.02 100%.

[marknutter]

Learn how to develop. There's no excuse in this age not to empower yourself to participate in one of the greatest entrepreneurial opportunities in the history of business. A developer with good business sense can prototype a product and go to market with little to no cost in a very short amount of time, something that was basically impossible for most people before the internet became popular.

If you look at most of the success stories for internet startups, especially YC funded startups, the cofounders are usually both hackers. You'll have a much harder time finding a co-founder if they're doing all the work and you're handling all the marketing/business/ideas stuff.

[ericseidelman]

I agree with you marknutter... to a point.

Although I don't know how long it takes to learn programming... I'd be willing to bet it's not a quick learn. So, would it be wiser for me to find someone to assist in developing a prototype and while that is happening I study and learn some basics.

Or, is it better to delay an idea for months or more while I learn and then struggle through doing it on my own.

Personally I think it makes more sense to find help and learn at the same time. But I completely agree - I do need to learn this stuff, somehow.

[marknutter]

I'm one of these self-taught guys so my advice is of course going to be to learn it on your own. It takes about 6 months to a year to become pretty proficient in one of the popular web frameworks out there, and along the way you will meet a lot of talented developers - perhaps even future co-founders, who are going to be a lot more willing to work with a hacker/business person rather than just a business person. It's not that you need to become a rockstar developer, you just need to know what it's all about and be able to contribute (and perhaps eventually become a rockstar one day).

[Travis]

Agreed with what marknutter says. You should start learning it yourself. Start attending other meetups. Your willingness to learn will pay dividends down the road for your startup:

1) it's signaling. Tells a developer that you're serious about what youre doing, and youre going to do it. 2) it's a start. your ideas will change and coalesce more as you code it. As well developed as you think you have it, once you write code you realize you didn't account for many things. 3) You might end up being good at it, and make progress faster than you think.

Seriously, the modern web languages are pretty straightforward. My non-technical cofounder who has become an intermediate level PHP coder finds that DNS and email is much much more confusing than writing code.

[ericseidelman]

Travis, you & mark make great points.

Any insight into where to begin. With so many different programming languages (php, java, ruby, c++ yada yada yada)... where does a newbie even start?

[marknutter]

I'm a Ruby on Rails guy, and the community is really excellent, so that'd be one place to start. Ruby has a very friendly syntax, so I think it's easier for a beginner to get into. Find out if there's a local Ruby users group, or PHP or Python for that matter, and start going to the meetings. Also, buy a beginners book like Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails. That's the book I started with and if you go through the whole thing you'll have pretty much all the tools you need to build a good web app.

[mikelbring]

I'll talk to you, email if you want, email is in my profile. (I am a programmer)