Ask HN: Why is it so hard to find a technical cofounder?
why is it so hard to find a technical cofounder, someone who can actually code ? I have tried YC cofounder matching and it is awful. People ghost you for no reason. People pretend to be technical but once you discuss with them you realise they can't code and just want someone to build their projects for them. I am Looking for someone to work with on interesting projects around open source LLMs, AI in EdTech or AI in Finance. Tech stack: ruby, rails, python, fastapi, javascript/React, PostgreSQL, heroku.
Here are some projects I did alone:
http://discute.co
https://www.rimbaud.ai
If you are in the same situation or would like to have a fellow coder to work with, drop me an email: ndzomgafs@gmail.com
49 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadMy stack is ruby, rails, js/Vue with quasar, PostresSQL and I deploy to my own VPS with dokku. My main focus in on real estate ideas.
Would be good if others join in to make this a matchmaking thread of sorts.
It’s a general problem.
It’s always hard to find a decent X, no matter what X is.
Match making just a square of the original problem, because you both have to be good in the eyes of each other.
Same way being a decent doctor means you have more opportunities to live in a wealthier places, to work in a better hospitals, so you need to find someone who is willing to take some pay cuts and fully believes in a mission of making healthcare available to everyone.
If you for example are looking for a good doctor living in some god forgotten place.
"why would I partner with you in place of just doing it all myself?" I don't know maybe because "if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together?"
What you offer isn't clear (or good enough?). Sorry to be blunt but your work seems to be junior level so I wouldn't expect you to have a lot of experience. Which is ok! But that's not enticing to potential cofounders.
In a deal, most people want to get the most benefit from it while contributing what they can. So what you offer is just work, you are looking someone to partner with you to work on generic areas.
Now if one of your projects have some $5k MRR and you were willing to give part of it to bring a cofounder, then you would have plenty of people interested.
> I don't know maybe because "if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together?"
I can't go faster carrying someone. I guess most can't too.
1. You're an expert in the domain.
2. You've done significant work to prove out the idea already. This can be a variety of things. You've already made mock ups or a prototype. You've interviewed a bunch of potential customers and organized your thoughts. Best possible thing is you've already acquired customers ready to pay.
3. You have a clear, grounded vision of what the product needs to be now and a grand, compelling vision of what the product could be in the future.
4. You can articulate what type of project this is clearly (venture backed biz? lifestyle biz? funky idea that has no intention of making money?) and what sort of working relationship or culture you'd like as it grows.
As someone who has founded before and spent time on YC cofounder matching, most people have vague ideas in domains they don't understand with no prospective customers and put no effort into validating the idea. So they try to offload the cost of validating the idea onto some engineer by building it (building, btw, being the most inefficient method of validating).
Brilliant summary!
BTW what would you consider to be the best method of validating ideas?
- there is no clear vision of how the app addresses a real world, widely experienced problem.
- “how are we going to make money” should be a really easy-to-answer question for a founder, but not in my experience.
- there is a weird obsession with a tech stack that they obviously know nothing about. More vaguely, requirements they describe are at the wrong level of abstraction for an “ideas person”
- they are way more likely to vomit more and more “potential” user experiences than to have a solid understanding of the core experience, like a PM from the pits of hell itself.
- As an engineer I can smell a salesman from a mile away. My brain works in logical steps and bottom-up, so grand-design sales pitches fall flat on their face. The people who pitch apps tend to be salesmen to the bone. Don’t sell it to me, motivate me to work with you—you want me to make it, not to use it.
I’m not against the idea of helping someone make an app, but I’ve never found someone with a compelling idea. My normal constructive critcism is that they should get their pitch clear enough that they could convince a bank to give them a loan. These types of people somehow think they can wrangle an engineer, but most aren’t delusional enough to think they can cheat the bank.
If I had the skills in your chosen tech stack (which I don't) my first question would be "show me your business plan".
As a rational person, I would be looking at "my" probable return on "my" investment in time and effort into "your" idea. In other words, an evaluation of opportunity cost. Most competent technical potential cofounders are either earning a good income or working on some idea that will produce a considerable multiple on their recent income.
In either case, your proposal would need to be more attractive than the alternatives available to them.
Your post is ambiguous though. "Fellow coder" in particular. Are you looking for a second technical person as a co-founder, when you yourself want to build the product? That seems to have different failure modes to the "build me a better facebook" crowd.
The CEO+CTO stereotype makes more sense to me than two technical people. Better chance of complementary skills. So I'm curious what I'm missing here. Thanks!
There's way too much going on there. If you are targeting AI you might as well just use Python (with a front end framework if you really need it). What is the rest for? If you have the ability, consider Render over Heroku. It's similar, might have a brighter future, and is likely less expensive.
Also consider your dream technical cofounder has to be a master of a lot based on that list. It will be hard to find someone willing to oversee that. First thing I'd be trying to do is cut it in half before even considering it.
As some who might be interested in being a technical co-founder in the future, I'll tell you what I'd want. 100% of tech stack control, and confidence you are the right person for the other job with a vision I believe in that I trust.
It might be your pitch, or it might just be hard. I'm not sure I or anyone else has enough context to give you a definitive answer.
I do want to conclude by saying that I think you asking at all is a positive learning experience. The above is just an initial opinion based on some assumptions - good luck.
Because they hired some low cost contractors in a 2nd or 3rd world country to build a shitty version of the app in Django with Bootstrap. Now you get to inherit that at your starting place - oftentimes this is largely technical baggage.
I certainly wouldn't. Nor would I care to risk my money investing, I just want a salary and work on the nuts and bolts. I hate wearing a suit and meeting with businessmen. I have a feeling this may be why.
I think it's pretty rare to find people with skills and affinity to do both. Because the jobs require pretty radically different personalities.
So if you are looking for a tech cofounder you should look for them to be CEO.
I'm also on YC cofounder but they do not provide the ability to search profiles by education / degree. Any suggestions on finding cofounders with such a specific background is appreciated.
[1] https://github.com/hbcondo
Sickening. I won’t be working with anyone from there again. Too few people I cannot trust and frankly too many product-types that have no idea what software building entails.
I think the problem is looking for a "technical cofounder" without letting them be a "technical professional acquaintance," first. You've got to ease into the relationship. Maybe participate in a few hackathons, do some pair-programming, engage in an unrelated hobby that's also rife with nerds, such as bouldering or parenting. If you have a reliable technical friendship, they may become available when you happen upon a real domain expert. "Technical cofounder" is all-too-often a thankless task, so trust arrives on foot.
What do you mean by "reached out?" Did you attend? Insinuate yourself into the community? Perhaps you are hunting with neither enough commitment nor subtlety.
So, how would I determine if this thing has business value? This is ah honest question for myself but I suspect if you can answer it you would be a step closer to finding a technical cofounder.
Not arguing against OP, just asking curiously. I have tried YC cofounder matching and so far every one is so passionate about "AI", but often the idea is ambiguous or impossible.
Don't feel like you have to give up valuable equity to someone who isn't a good fit, or someone who doesn't share the same passion as you about the BUSINESS. That's what is important. Are they going to be there with you 2/3/5+ years?
Anyone can code or be a product manager or throw some designs together. Can they actually contribute to the entire business though? Are they going to help you sell? Will they help you putting out fires on another domain area?
If all you need is someone who can code or some other piece of work, you can just hire a contractor to build your system. You can hire them as an employee later, if all they are is excellent in one area of operations.
Maybe I'm wrong here, but in 2023 with all the tools and technology and access to experts, I don't think you need to worry or get so hung up about not having a co-founder. It is more than just a checkbox because XYZ said I need to have a co-founder. A good co-founder is always rare to find, rather be the best founder for the problem you're trying to solve and things will fall into place naturally.
Drop me an email if you are interested to have a chat: somarco1002@gmail.com !