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Ask HN: As a bizdev person, how do you get a coder onto your startup team?

4 points by gacxllr9 ↗ HN
If you're a coder, chances are that you've been approached by three million people who want to get you working on their brilliant idea.<p>A few years ago, I was one of these incredibly naive "idea" people. I've since learned quite a bit on the business and marketing end, am cruising through the "Personal MBA" book list, have done extensive market research on my new idea, have mocked it up over and over again, have networked extensively, etc. I've tried learning how to code, but I'm so much more passionate about business development that I often lose interest in coding. I want to know this: What is it going to take in order to attract a talented coder onto my team? As a coder, what does a potential business co-founder need to do in order to impress you?

5 comments

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barrydahlberg
I've been approached a few times even down here in NZ. For me you would need to:

1. Be a nice interesting person I would like to work with.

2. Convince me you have something valuable to contribute while I am hacking away.

3. Have an idea that I believe in.

Probably in that order too. #2 might sound arrogant but that's partly because it is harder for me to judge business ability than it is to judge technical ability. It will also depend on whether the idea is weighted towards technology or business risk.

Good luck!

hga
You need to find someone you absolutely and unconditionally trust and respect. What software developers do is sufficiently different from what you know that any other approach (besides becoming sufficiently experienced in it yourself, which will take months at minimum) is a mistake, often a fatal one for a startup.
kineticac
As a coder, there's a few things I look for:

1. The business person needs to understand that they can't make all the shots. Because they're business doesn't mean they handle all of it, especially product 2. Passionate about your idea, but understand that a technical point of view can greatly change the idea 3. Don't act like an enterprise business person. Don't think about team size as a measure of success for example. 4. Show you can bring more than ideas and opinion to the table. You need to be able to close deals, raise money, talk and persuade, have user acquisition plans that you can execute without code, have a very popular blog, twitter account, and a following of people who respect you already.

famfam
That's funny. As a coder, it seems like EVERYONE around me is a coder, and I can't for the life of me find any people interested in bizdev/marketing/etc to partner with.
djb_hackernews
If all you want is a coder you just need $$$.

If you want a co-founder, you need to not refer to her as a coder.