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Ask HN: startups web dev advisor

6 points by Travis ↗ HN
My startup is pretty close to getting funding, and will be able to afford to hire me full time. I'm the main developer, and we'll have 1-2 more guys full time. I've 5+ years in this, and we're not building anything that is too complex. The other guys all have 100% confidence in my abilities, and don't doubt that I can do the work and manage the other coders as well.

However, my president has said he'd like for me to have a senior level advisor for the coding and architecture. Specifically, he wants a person who has done it all, so I can ask questions if needed.

I've explained that 1) developers generally don't work for free (we've gotten great business advisors like that, but I don't think that's generally how the dev world operates) and 2) between HN, SO, and a few other communities, I've got a ton of resources for questions.

His response: "if Paul Graham were willing to talk architecture with you, would you do it?" Of course I would. But that doesn't seem to be a realistic option.

Do any of you guys have advice on looking for an advisor? The kinds of questions I'd like to chat (with someone who has done this in a startup, successfully) are things like: - what kind of problems were you initially unaware you'd face? (What do you not know, that you're unaware you don't know?) - what are some tips for managing a small in-house team and a larger external outsourced team?

Thanks for any advice you guys have. I know (and importantly, my team knows) that I am capable of this, but they still want the official "development advisor" person.

Also, we'll probably be hiring in a few months, so keep an eye out for a posting regarding that coming here soon.

3 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 19.4 ms ] thread
kls
What is your market? What have you built. Any advisor is going to want to know what the market is. People want to be part of a success story so most of all they have to like your idea. It is important because many times development questions don't just center around pure technology questions but are a mix of business rules and tech. Finding someone who has the right profile starts with matching interests.
Travis
We're a b2b startup in the manufacturing and design sector. The basic app is a profile page gets matched to a project posting (think craigslist-like, where someone posts "wanted to buy" and it matches with people's profiles who sell that object). Nothing too complex, scalability shouldn't ever be too much of an issue. The hardest problem we'll end up facing is our search/matching technology, although our input data is very clean and structured to search against.

In general our dev stuff is simple -- post a project, and it gets matched to profiles. I'm just starting to delve into the matching component (I think we'll use Solr), but I guess we're just trying to find someone who has gone the following route before (as the lead dev): bootstrapped -> get out MVP -> get money -> lead/primary/sole developer -> adding a few local developers -> moving out of code as you re-architect system for growth.

kls
Another thing to consider is many advisors do not provide there service for free. Maybe, if you are the flavor of the month like chatroulette you may get someone that wants the high profile of advising for it, but most everyone else has to cough up a small share of equity for advisorship. Unless it is a friend or some other existing relationship.