[HN Gopher] Ask HN: What do technical co-founders look for and a...
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Ask HN: What do technical co-founders look for and avoid when
joining a startup?
Hello, Curious what are top 3 things technical co-founders care
about when joining a startup? Also equally import, what are the
top 3 things they avoid? Thanks!
Author : aaronaltamura
Score : 10 points
Date : 2022-06-19 19:53 UTC (3 hours ago)
| malux85 wrote:
| The business dev guy who spits out an imaginary list of features
| (not backed with empirical data in any way) and then just sits
| there while I work hard building and building and building, and
| them claiming nothing or very little can be done until the
| product is finished.
|
| In reality good business guys are rare (like good programmers),
| and the good ones can get money from investors and customers with
| the product in it's current, incomplete state (hint: it's always
| incomplete, the completed, idealised version will never exist)
|
| Poor business devs sit around waiting for stuff to be built,
| interview 1 or 2 customers, and then say yes to all the customer
| requests (even illogical, ill-thought out ones) and then sit
| around more until the new features are implemented.
|
| This can be solved with hard goals.
|
| Technical founder has hard time goals of finishing X,Y,Z by this
| date, and business dev founder has hard goals of revenue A,B,C by
| these dates.
|
| If the business dev founder is unable to reach the goals then
| 100% of ownership of the codebase that I just wrote (myself) is
| mine, and I'll go find another business dev who can sell it.
|
| That way I'm happy to take all the risk by investing a bunch of
| my own time and resources into building it up front, and then if
| it doesn't work out, I can find another way of monetizing that
| effort.
|
| This has allowed me to kick out some useless business dev's who
| are all talk, and get in the guys who are going to make it
| happen. This strategy changed my life for the better a lot.
| idealmedtech wrote:
| That's a really neat strategy for ownership! Did you write the
| contract that you use? Any interest in sharing it?
| withinboredom wrote:
| I've seen this a couple of times.
|
| Basically the "legal" way is to just "buy them out" as the
| company isn't worth all that much and you've done most (all)
| the work. If the partner is someone decent, you'll arrive at
| a number that makes sense for both of you.
|
| The other way is a lot more spicy: just do it and one day
| they will sue you. Maybe.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| 1. Do you know who to sell to?
|
| 2. Do you know how to reach them in a cost-effective way?
|
| 3. Did you spend enough time talking to customers to know what
| they want / need?
|
| Avoid:
|
| People who blame issues on others. People who are bad with money
| planning. Companies who are too old to grant co-founder equity.
| eyphka wrote:
| If joining a startup with a business partner, have they already
| proven market? (Making a website and having demand, e.g.
| flexport)
| goncaloo wrote:
| - Have you proven the market? (how many people have you talked
| with? is the pain point big enough that they are willing to pay?
| how many in the waiting list?)
|
| - Do you have a right to play? (do you have experience in the
| field that not many people do, etc)
|
| - Are you passionate about the _problem_?
|
| If you check all 3 then you're in a good position I would say.
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(page generated 2022-06-19 23:01 UTC)