Failory - How to Find a Technical Co-Founder

Hey — It's Nico.

In June, I'm publishing articles related to Co-Founders. This week, a comprehensive guide on How to Find a Technical Co-Founder.

🙌 Welcome to the 590 founders who joined this week.

This issue is brought to you by Around:

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I've since stuck to Around for two reasons: 1) it frees up my screen, which allows me to easily read and take notes as I have the call; 2) my background image and noise are always messy and Around helps me avoid founders from noticing this.

What is a Technical Co-Founder? It's a founder with certain technical skills, typically related to programming and technological product development.

Why do you need a Technical Co-Founder? If you don’t have the specific technical skills that you need to use in order to build a minimum viable product for your startup, chances are you need a technical co-founder.

When you’re ready to start scaling, a technical co-founder will also take care of finding and hiring other technical employees to build a solid programming team.

When don’t you need a Technical Co-Founder? If you have the skills needed to build a tech product yourself, or if technology isn’t a core part of your startup idea, you may not need to look for a technical co-founder.

Another case in which you might not need a tech co-founder is if you have the budget to contract a developer or hire a team of programmers and you don’t mind managing them yourself.

Note: Even if you are technical enough to build a product yourself, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking for a co-founder of some type. 75.5% of unicorn companies have 2 or more co-founders.

Where to find a Technical Co-Founder? In the article, we dive into each of these 6 strategies:

1. Professional engineering network: If you’ve worked at a startup or a small tech company before, you may already have a network of technical engineers that you can tap into.
2. College network: If you're in college/university, try to meet people in your class studying coding or computer science, or try joining the coding club/some technology-based club.
3. Social networks: You can create a post on LinkedIn explaining you're looking for a tech co-founder and detailing what skills you are looking for. Alternatively, you can join different groups related to startups and network with members.
4. Hackathons, meetups, & conferences: Events related to programming are great places to search for a technical co-founder. If you can’t find any local events, there are lots of online hackathons that are usually free and open to everyone.
5. Matchmaking sites: These sites work a lot like traditional dating sites, except they’re for helping people find their perfect business partners instead of romantic partners. Try YC's Co-Founders Matching Platform, CoFoundersLab, and StartHawk.
6. Incubators & accelerators: They typically provide shared office space in some type of co-working facility, where you will have the opportunity to meet lots of other founders and tech workers who you might be able to work with on your project.

What are Technical Co-Founders looking for?

• Equity: This ensures that, as the company grows and becomes worth more, their stake in the company is also worth more, and they can cash out on it one day.
• Salary: All founders should get salaries, although you may both agree to work for free at the beginning for a set amount of time until your company hits a particular milestone.
• Personal growth: They will probably want to know if they can eventually grow into a bigger role, such as a CTO, managing the whole tech department.

How much equity should you give? Outside of certain cases, the best path is to give your co-founder an even share of equity. This ensures that both you and your co-founder are fully committed to the startup and equally driven to make it a success.

Note: If a potential co-founder wants to make a different deal, such as working for less equity and a higher salary, it may be a warning sign that you should reconsider working with them.

What are the alternatives to getting a Technical Co-Founder? In the article, we analyze these 4:

1. No-code tools: No-code tools allow you to build functioning apps and programs without knowing any code yourself, typically using drag-and-drop technology. They are a good way to build a basic version of your idea as a proof of concept.
2. Learning to code yourself: Online academies like Codecademy and Udemy are good places to start. You could also consider joining an intensive coding boot camp, which usually lasts 12-24 weeks.
3. Outsourcing to freelancers: With the advent of platforms like Upwork that are designed to connect companies and freelancers, it’s easier than ever to find a freelancer with the skills you need.
4. Outsourcing to agencies: Instead of hiring a freelancer, you could contract a development agency. They generally have teams of pre-vetted developers and lots of experience working with founders and startups.

If you think your company could benefit from a co-founder with certain tech skills that you don’t have or aren’t fully confident in yet, read this guide to learn how to find a technical co-founder who will complement your skillset: How to Find a Technical Co-Founder.​

Btw, if you enjoyed today's article, you'll probably also find last week's article useful: How to Find a Co-Founder.

Finally, here are my 3 recommended resources of the week:

• ​How to Come Up With Good Business Ideas: Sahil Lavingia is the founder of Gumroad. In this webinar, he shares various approaches to coming up with great startup ideas.
• ​Igor Lenterman's Story: This is a "permissionless apprenticeship" story: Igor built a product idea tweeted by @Balaji; in a few weeks, the product became a business, and it raised $1M from @Balaji and other investors.
• ​How to Build Technical Teams from Scratch: Related to today's article. This post goes over some of the best paths to get your MVP built and the process of hiring developers, if you decide to follow that path.

I hope you enjoyed this week's newsletter!

Cheers,

Nico