HN Explorer

Ask HN: How to find and convince a skilled dev to join a bootstrapped startup?

7 points by YKreator ↗ HN
I created a startup project, and we have a good traction, but now we really need to strengthen our (small) technical team to improve our solution. Where should I look? Github? How can I make him/her want to join the adventure?

25 comments

[ 0.17 ms ] story [ 72.7 ms ] thread
deanmoriarty
Pay fair market rate and decent equity. Or pay below market rate and substantial equity.
bwb
Or give huge life balance over work plus fair salary. Find someone who wants a 4 day a week gig, has exp, etc...
mattmanser
Why any equity at all? It's a job.
seattle_spring
Because if you don't offer fair equity then any engineer worth their salt will just go somewhere that does.
Jeremy1026
Give me real money over potential maybe future money any day.
deanmoriarty
Profit sharing/equity sharing is an excellent way to motivate employees and attract talent, especially if the employment nature is as risky and unstable as an early stage startup.

My friend works as a social worker, completely different field, and her employer created a profit sharing plan. They all love it. This is not limited to tech.

mattmanser
A profit sharing plan is not equity, and probably has a clause they can pull it whenever they want.
deanmoriarty
I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it, HN is always quick to remind me that a tangential point, if casually mentioned as a way to give more context to a conversation, is going to be the focus of any further reply, rather than addressing the core. Truly my bad here, you did what you are supposed to do.

Good luck hiring engineers at a tech startup with no equity, that’s all I’ll say.

mattmanser
I think it's entirely cultural, maybe in the US in SV?

Everywhere else, you're a bit silly giving equity away for free.

visox
AS a dev i contacted someone i think it was on founders nation. In the end we did my idea haha.
YKreator
Thanks for sharing. Some founders want to build companies while developers tend to want to solve problems. So often developer ideas are much better business ideas :-)
lmarcos
Just pay them 20% more of what they are currently making.
YKreator
Do you think money is the only criteria? In this case it seems impossible to compete with US Startups.
deanmoriarty
If you cannot offer liquid money offer above average equity, as mentioned in my previous comment.
auganov
So you're not in the US? Then why would you need to compete with US startups on salary? If you can do even half of that you should be able to get great talent in most places. Competing on the work environment, benefits, equity etc should be much easier too.
lmarcos
Not only, but it's a huge motivator. But if the project idea itself doesn't convince, then it's hard to convince with perks other than compensation.
gkrishna
> Where should I look?

I'd say search on your friends network first. If it is hard to find on your network then I suggest Angel.co, stackoverflow.

internetslave
I’m all ears if you’ve got something interesting and lots of equity? I work at Amazon, lots of experience with the cloud, scale, computer science etc. 6 years experience as a dev.
YKreator
Thank you for the answer. Can you email me to ["favqonak@10mail.org"] ?

PS: Your nickname made me laugh. I hope it's not too difficult on a daily basis :-p

taf2
Check us out calltrackingmetrics- bootstrapped 50+ and growing , we focus on our team, culture and customers.
jonas_kgomo
hey, i would like to talk with you, we are working on something that relies on cloud and scaling. Best way to reach out? email : jonaskgmoo@gmail.com
enonevets
Pay fair salary/equity/benefits.

Have a clear understanding of your identity, mission, direction, goals.

Have a clear understanding of what you're looking for in a hire.

You're looking for someone to be a fit to what you're doing as much as they are looking to be apart of something that is a fit for them. Pay, product, culture, and various mix of expectations and what each side wants is what makes this works.

You'll want to be as clear as you can about what's exciting about what you're doing, where you're going with this, and who you're looking for to join you on this journey.

YKreator
Thank you for your advices. I will clarify this before contacting people
decafninja
If you're willing to keep an open mind, try poaching someone from a non-tech company that wants to jump ship. There are an increasing number of such people.

They likely are getting underpaid compared to their peers at a tech company.

The downside is, a "senior software engineer" at a non-tech company might not be quite the same level as a "senior software engineer" at a tech company. I say this as one of the former myself.

YKreator
Which kind of company do you define as a non-tech company? Do you mean a company where the main focus isn't the tech?