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I have been exactly in this situation. I had an idea a few months ago, which has a great potential. My problems were the same, I don't have the necessary coding skills to turn it into reality. I needed a cofounder, and I too, had a chance of getting my idea stolen. But I managed to overcome this. I knew I simply couldn't approach and pitch every coder I knew, because after all, it is just an idea, I had to bring something else to the table. Instead, after I pitched a few people (risking the idea, I know, but I had to) and after I thought I was ready, I went after an angel. I was lucky that the first angel I pitched the idea offered me help. He didn't try to find me a cofounder or incentivate me to code, his help was much different. At first, his help was actually questioning the idea itself. I had to think and address the questions he raised. He also pointed me towards a couple books (The 4 Steps to Epyphany and Business Model Generation), which have been helping me alot (this is my first entrepreneurship). After those first steps, he asked for a market research that should show if the market had potential or not. I didn't even know how to do that, took me a while, but the result was very positive, he was surprised by the quality of it. Anyway, there is a limit how far one can go without having coding skills, and I knew my limit was close, I needed a cofounder soon, so after that research, I went to pitch a friend of mine, giving him a copy of the presentation I did. He was surprised by the research, and the fact I already had an angel interested and one that was actually investing time on me (we had 4 meetings at that time already, and I think I can say that time is more expensive than money for them). I guess that this, and the fact that the idea grew alot from the first time I pitched him (he was one of those first few people that I trained my pitching) convinced him to join me in this entrepreneurship. We are currently assembling our beta team and just started development. We are also applying to YC! If you are thinking that I actually pitched a friend of mine, so I didn't had the whole "trust issue", I am actually living in Brazil, and my friend is in the US. We never actually met face to face before this. We used to play a game together, over 4 years ago, and kept in touch since then. All I knew about him was that he was an excellent person and coder. We just had some interesting values and other interests in common. |