Ask HN: I just thought of a startup, got funding and now I am stuck...

Network, hustle, hustle.

In that order.

1a. Ask people you know for referrals of coders they trust. Hit up local networking events. Try to find people through yourself and others you know and trust before branching out to regular hiring ways.

2. Get a corporate attorney to help set up your company and the appropriate paperwork so whoever you hire, sign the right paperwork needed. This is important.

3. Build the prototype, and haul ass. Consider talking to an IP attorney but in all seriousness, $250k isn't much. If it's going to cost you a significant amount of money, perhaps hold off on the IP registration. Don't take my word on this though, consult a few different IP attornies for better advice on that.

If neither you nor the person who wants to join the company are developers, then I would pause until you've found one. 250k is not a lot of money to build anything non-trivial, and you'll burn through it unbelievably fast if there's not a founding member who is highly technical and can evaluate how good other technical employees are going to be. If you're paying salaries and other expenses, 250k keeps a team of 5 going for like 6 months. It usually takes 3 months to raise a follow-on round, which gives a team of 5 three months to build something exciting enough to raise follow-on investment. If it's you and one or two technical co-founders, you can run an awful lot longer. If you're just paying spartan living expenses, you can get it as low as 5k per person per month (in the valley).

If you take the money, chances are you'll fail. Are these experienced investors who can afford the loss? Are you okay with losing that money? If they can deal with it and you can deal with it, then I suggest you take it and stay very thrifty for a while while you figure out what's what. Get them to invest in you and the space, not in this particular product idea (since it will likely change and you want their support if that happens).

Personally, I'd take it. Money's great and you can get a lot done in a few months. But only if you're willing to commit. I spent 3 or 4 years working in a space I didn't care that much about because once you have a employees and investors, it's really hard to let go.

As for steps: 1) Figure out what you want 2) Find a badass developer cofounder 3) Take the money 4) Developer starts building product while you start securing first customers/users/partners, adjusting the product as you go based on your learning from talking to people

Also, talk to a lawyer. If you are taking $250k from friends you need to have contracts/agreements in place. Don't take money on a handshake. One or both of you will get burned at some point.

I don't know if these friends are seasoned investors or just people with money but if they aren't familiar with the startup world make sure they know what they are getting into. They could lose all their money by the end of the week and they need to be prepared for that (make sure your agreements are in place before you start spending in case this happens).

With $250, I'd say you got about 4-6 months (assuming 4-6 engineers) of runway. That means you need to have a good prototype in 2-3 months and be ready to start pitching real investors. So I go back to my first point, start building.

HA HA HA based on what? It's an idea.

Now, be ready to do something difficult: if you want somebody to stick around, you'll need to make them an owner. You've done one part, raise the money, but now you need somebody who can implement this. As such, be willing to offer them over 50% of your equity (what they're doing is more valuable than what you've done, honestly) and make them an actual co-founder. Let them make complete technology choices, even if he says the application will be written in Erlang and Haskell. Give them input equal to yours when it comes to product direction, not "I come up with all the ideas, you implement them". Anything less, and they're an employee and not a founder.

That's very important: you will not get a top notch employees unless a) you have technical founders b) you can pay them above market rate and give a significant equity chunk c) challenge them in a way that grows their technical skill.

Take a look at a successful engineer at a top-notch Silicon Valley company: they have a job with brand name recognition, they do something they love (a _very_ important motivating factor for an engineer: they will not stop working on say garbage collection algorithms and start working on "GroupON for X" for a paycheck), they have a technical manager, they're earning above market rate (with performance based bonuses), they have stock which may not be a significant percentage but is 100% certain to be worth something.

The money you have isn't sufficient to pay an engineer a market rate salary. The problem you're solving is likely not very technical. The upside potential is likely unknown and it's almost certain than an employee will see very little in the case of a typical exit. The only kind of employee you can hire in this case is somebody who can't get a stable job elsewhere: you'll be giving him legitimate experience to put on his resume in return for his work. That isn't a bad deal if you can accurately identify potential (and if you are unable to give them more responsibility and a higher salary in a year, ready for them to leave as soon as get find something else) or have enough money to hire and fire many times (with "trial periods" and the like), but this isn't your case. You can't identify potential, you can't afford to try and fail until you luck upon somebody with potential.

What you need is another founder, who can insert the critical technology DNA, re-state your problem as one technology can be (intelligently) applied to and who has the same stake as you in the company. This person can also identify further talent (including the kind of talent you will need: engineers who have great potential, but are green and need _any_ kind of experience; they need experienced hackers to mentor them).

Where do you find this person? Problem is that you can't, unless you already know them. That's why companies like YC are very fuzzy about founders who have known each other and have a strong bond. Is there an engineer you've worked with (in a business role) who the company has pulled all stops (before) to keep, but who secretly yearns to have more of say in the product (and not just do what a product manager tells him)? Is there a classmate from college who absolutely wowed you? Is there an engineer you hear great things from your unknown-quality engineer friends? That's the person you want.

Again, I'd also like to state this isn't just about the money, other than the fact you've been able to raise funding has set you aside from most "idea" guys (to whom my general response would consist of a crude ASCII drawing). Just having money, doesn't mean you can get great talent: you must be ready to offer is challenge, responsibility and product ownership (and that means giving up a large part of your mental and monetary stake in the startup). Expect most people you reach out to to reject you (but I'd imagine you are ready for this and have experienced this plenty in the process of raising funding).

So I got the recommendation to contact:

www.hashrocket.com www.thoughtbot.com

And then attend my local Ruby meetup.

sdruby.org

I have called HR and TB and would be interested in getting additional suggestions.

Thanks