What was your experience finding a Technical Co-founder?
I want to know if there are non technical people here, who have successfully found technical co-founders for their idea. And what was the experience like, going through the journey of finding the perfect co-founder. Was it easy or difficult or really really difficult?
Also any tips and suggestions most welcome!
I actually get this question all the time coming from a rather rural, non-tech driven community in Canada. Believe it or not I found my technical co-founder (I'm a designer) @alexsopinka on Indeed. I'm not suggesting that is replicable, but it's 1 data point that might be worth exploring. Try posting an ad being very candid about what you want.. you'd be surprised what you might find on the other side.
The hunt was difficult, though. Before I found @alexsopinka, whom I've been working with now for ~6 years, it was a lot of "pitch nights", co-founder dating and meetings with prospective candidates that just didn't feel right in my gut. It's so important to get that decision right, so don't take it lightly!
Wow, what an uncommon way to stumble upon your co-founder. Thanks for your input, it was very interesting. I will try out indeed.com option.
Uncommon, indeed (pun intended)! Happy to share :)
Hahahah, Thanks again!
Hey! Non-technical founder here, and let me tell you, the journey of finding a technical founder is really tough and takes a long time.
I'm currently in the process of finding a technical co-founder, and I've been able to get a pretty good recruiting pipeline of people interested in my idea, and I do have some options now. Here are a couple of tips...
Go onto reddit/IH relevant threads, and have a quick intro/pitch every time there's a technical founder interested in a project. Remember, not all of them will reply but totally fine if they don't. Make sure to include your website, a one sentence pitch about your idea, your email to contact you. Make it non-salesy and super casual! Also include some relevant metrics.
Start being outbound, and put yourself out there. I connected with a bunch of people on LinekdIn who fit the criteria I've been looking for, and started building relationships with them. Imagine a person you don't know asking you to be a co- founder, that doesn't work.
Join a bunch of developer slack groups in your city. Just search up on google {City} developer slack group, and start talking to some people.
The one key lesson tho, is don't be desperate. You can still build rough prototypes of your ideas with no-code tools like Bubble and Adalo, and devs will be impressed that you have more than just an idea, but something of tangible value when you talk to them.
Hope it helps!
@kaitocunningham some nice insights, thanks. Especially Slack groups idea is cool.
Good luck! Wishing you the best.
I have co-founded startups with complete strangers, friend referrals, college batchmates, school friends, and childhood friends.
Searching for co-founders is extremely difficult. Even if you find one, no guarantee it would work out well- More so if he is a complete stranger.
Best part: There will at least one person in your circle...who might be looking to do something their own. Find her/him.
Next to impossible. I’ll elaborate in due course about my experience being ½ technical.
Would love to hear
Ok, here goes...
My experience, limited to the Indie Hacker community:
I vetted out around 12 or so fullstack developers using a Typeform. Out of those 12:
Out of those 4, within a two week window, 3 had flaked out entirely and 1 hung on long enough for me to help them with some marketing efforts in exchange for some dev tips that never went beyond them taking a look at some wire-framing I had completed. All in all, a complete waste of time, but here's what I ultimately learned in the process: