Sales Guy Looking for Technical Co-Founder

[kylex]

Just an idea I had for a sentiment value analytics program.

How do I go about finding a Technical Co-Founder for my idea? I know this is a very genreal question but I hope to get some valuable insight.

Thank you!

[hashtree]

The other comments are solid, and this is one of those questions whose answer probably won't help much in solving your problem (due to its nature, not for a lack of good answers). However, I can offer you some time and insight if you want a technical person in the ML/NLP domain to bounce your ideas off of before you get too far into it. Contact information is on my profile, if you so wish.

[kylex]

Thank you I will definitely be in contact. Thank you!

[phantom_oracle]

This also:

http://founderdating.com/

Whenever this gets asked, someone always mentions the YC concept of how to find a co-founder.

It should really be:

- Someone you know - Someone you've possibly worked with - Someone you may even consider a friend

Check more on the PG/YC blogs for more info on this.

[kylex]

I definitely agree with this model, and before i work with anyone I would definitely have to do some befriending. The only problem, none of my friends have a passion for business, or have the technical skills for it.

I really appreciate your input.

[llama052]

This might be what you're looking for..

https://www.cofounderslab.com/

[kylex]

Thank you so much!

[brudgers]

Instrument your passion for making your idea real. Write some code. Start with tests.

[tobylane]

What's your idea?

[kylex]

In short form- an analytics software that analyzes what people are saying and the meaning. yes, i know there many variables and algorithms and it will never be 100% AND there is a way to monitize the data

[Someone1234]

Gathering what people are saying is relatively easy. Figuring out the meaning accurately is extremely difficult, and as you add longer text the difficulty grows.

Something like Siri wasn't developed in a void, the technology behind it took quite a long time, with many millions of dollars, and that is only aimed at "understanding" short sentences.

What you're asking for might cost a pretty penny to develop, it isn't just a "one guy in a basement for a long weekend" type of concept, it is a legitimately hard Computer Science problem with no easy outs.

If you were able to scan social media and extract WHAT people are talking about then it is definitely a monetizable idea. However from zero through to profit is a very long ride.

Maybe contact the NSA and try to negotiate re-using their in-house technology?

[kylex]

I really appreciate the lengthy response, it really means a lot and it helps a lot getting insight from the tech world. It definitely is not an easy thing to do, but then what is right?

I have found some open source algorithms that claim to have a decent amount of accuracy, though decent isn't enough it may be a start. What is your opinion?

Going as far as contacting the NSA, I don't know how willing they are in sharing their technology. I know they do work with private corporations which benefit both parties, I guess it would be worth a shot. That would be an interesting approach.

How long do you think it would take to build something like this? Even if we could just get sentiment values ie. Positive / neutral / Negative comments, that would be a great start and I believe much simpler.

[soneca]

I do have good advice on how to find a tech co-founder, but this is the hard kind of idea for you to start as a non-tech. You would need a top level engineer on a niche domain. If he/she decide to do it, the tech challenge would be so much harder than the non-tech challenge, that he/she wouldn't need you at all as a co-founder.

I think you should pursue more a not so high tech dependant idea, like: Airbnb, Groupon, Yelp, this sort of thing.

This might apply to you: http://xkcd.com/1425/

EDIT: I think the NSA part was just a joke.

[Someone1234]

> How long do you think it would take to build something like this?

If you were starting from complete scratch, 15 years (assuming 1-2 people). But the reality is you aren't starting from complete scratch because the academic community in particular (and previous technology) have a great deal of prior work in this specific area.

So maybe 3 years until you have "something basic" and then 5 years until it is really profitable (presuming its accuracy rises year upon year). That's if you exploit all academic work you can find and try to build on existing technology as much as possible.

You could maybe do it in about 1.5 years with a large team.

[tobylane]

If you had a PhD dissertation discussing this then you would have more luck finding someone. At the moment it sounds too much like a guy from Mad Men saying "Hey! Highway billboards just aren't frequent enough!" Good luck though, I will follow you.

[iqonik]

Where are you based?

[kylex]

Canada, Ontario Toronto :)