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Looking for a co-founder in South Africa

10 points by daveungerer ↗ HN
With the way the Rand (our currency) is going, I think it would be a good idea to start a business with global potential. Please get in touch if you're interested. I can supply a bit of capital in exchange for larger shareholding.

Also, if you're already working on or planning a startup, please reply to this thread so that the other South African readers can know that there is hope!

I'm a developer with 5 years of experience, mainly Microsoft, but have started doing a lot of Ruby on Rails in the last year and have played with PHP, did a year of C++ etc. Running Ubuntu and I'm ready to repent from my Microsoft development ways. I had a serious aversion towards PHP, so I'm glad RoR came along. I think I would work well with another developer or potentially a designer.

I have a degree in computer science - best in class, for what it's worth. But I was too busy pretending not to be a geek to meet any interesting people to start a company with. Sigh.

18 comments

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edw519
Nice post. I hope it works well for you. And for other South Africans (sorry, US here).

As a single founder who sometimes feels pressure (mainly from here) to not be a single founder, I would hope to see more posts like this. I realize the ycombinator is not a matchmaking service, but what better place to look?

You don't mention a compelling reason for starting a business other than "the way the Rand is going". Do you have an idea (or even a concept)? Or are you purposefully not sharing it?

Which brings up an interesting question. If you're a single founder looking for co-founders iN a public place, how much should you share?

sonink
The answer to the last question is definitely 50%.
edw519
Oops, sorry. What I meant was how much information should you share in your public search for a co-founder.
daveungerer
The most compelling reason for me is to do something meaningful, rather than stagnating due to lack of motivation as I am in my current job. I'm hoping to find someone with the same outlook.

Have a couple of ideas, but I'm open to anything.

Thanks for the reply. Got me thinking.

inovica
I don't understand why people feel the need to have a co-founder. I don't think there's anything wrong with setting up your own company and then employing some other people to fill in any skills gap that you feel you might have. Personally I've always found it easier on my own... I make the decisions (for good or bad) after consulting with people, but there are never any issues or deadlocks where decisions can't be made because its down to me ultimately. Why do you feel you need a co-founder? Just curious and not wishing to start another thread on the merits either way
ph0rque
I don't know about Dave, the author of this post, but I am in a position where I'm developing my web app while learning RoR and programming in general. I feel I could go 3 to 10 times faster if I had a co-founder with RoR and programming experience better than what I have. Hiring someone right now is out of the question, due to my financial situation.
daveungerer
You know what they say... if you can get at least one person to believe in your crazy idea, it might just work.

The other reason is that I'm still working full-time. Finding someone to work with would be a good catalyst for quitting my job. Then again, my future co-founder might be right here under my nose.

But you raised a good point and I've recently started considering going it alone

pistoriusp
Hey!

Yup, the Rand took a beating last week, but doesn't that make it cheaper for foreign investors?

I'm South African and busy on my own startup. I was a PHP programmer for 6 years, now I'm just doing Python/ Django - and sometimes some PHP to pay the bills.

I'm in Pretoria and my co-founder is in Cape Town chasing down clients. I'm self taught.

Btw, Didn't you run the quake/2.co.za back in the day?

daveungerer
The weakening of the Rand will result in higher Rand revenues for the same amount of foreign currency. This is the exact reason why so many exporters have selfishly been calling for a weakening in the Rand. The idea is that the higher import costs won't increase the cost of living and doing business quite as much. So your startup must simply export its service / product to the rest of the world to take advantage of this.

I'm in Joburg. It would be good to stay in touch with like-minded individuals. My e-mail is on my profile.

Didn't run quake.co.za, but I used to hang out in #quake on irc all the time! Good old days

pistoriusp
I couldn't find your email in your profile?
daveungerer
daveungerer at google's free mail service
alaskamiller
with the collapse of eskom, would this be a good idea?
blackswan
With the exorbitant cost of rackspace/bandwidth in SA one shouldn't consider hosting here if one wants to serve any serious traffic, especially to an international audience. Thus Eskom's inability to realise that planning for a 2% p.a. increase in electricity consumption when GDP growth runs at +- 5% is a bad idea shouldn't really be a consideration before getting to work on a startup in SA, although having a laptop with enough battery to get through the load shedding might be a good idea :)
daveungerer
Agreed. Hosting a site locally when your target is global would bankrupt you, your grandchildren and everyone your grandchildren will ever meet, so I'm not too stressed about Eskom. And even if you get loadshedded for 4 hours by accident, there's always a mall nearby with power!

Currently hosting in the US for the few small projects I'm working on now, pretty fast once you optimise a few things.

Good to hear from someone who won't let Eskom get the better of them. Stay in touch.

duke
ok.. i'm a designer with an idea for a business with global potential, stalled because i'm programming illiterate.. thus, i seek a programming partner, and am especially interested in data driven read/write web, hence RoR.. i'm not in South Africa, but would consider moving anywhere to get this thing done.. to learn more, google "twexter"
daveungerer
Had a quick look and twexter seems quite interesting, especially as I started learning French a while ago and am quite keen on learning more languages after that. Will investigate it further when I have a spare moment. Thanks!
blackswan
I don't think the prevailing economic situation can really affect a few guys working hard to solve a problem startup style - people will still use the internet when growth slows. I'm in CT and working on two projects, one on my own and one with a cofounder. I find I work much harder on the one with the cofounder, the desire to not let a friend and business partner down is a powerful motivator! Our project will initially focus on SA, but we're building it in such a way as to be able to internationalise it country by country as it grows. My own project is inherently international; its going to take a while though, real-time clustering with adaptive algorithms is hard! Good luck, I hope you find a lekker cofounder, I have found it really makes a difference!
defen
My advice would be to get out of SA. It's going to turn into Zimbabwe in the next few years. If your startup is successful your best case scenario is that it will be taken away from you.