Caldwell and Seibel on the important of business people finding a technical Co founder

[jenniferfrank]

Here’s a summary of their chat:

On Embracing the Startup Adventure:
"They don't realise you're offering Adventure, you're offering the unknown. An adventure isn't here's my idea for a social network for dogs, will you build my website? No, let's build a company together. That's adventure."

On the Necessity of Great Engineers in Tech-Enabled Businesses:
"The more that we're exposed to seeing what these companies look like at the earliest stages, even if they don't look like strictly tech businesses... there's no way these things would have gotten off the ground without having a really great person who cared as much as a co-founder cares."

On the Compounding Effect of Hiring:
"When you start with a team of business people assessing engineers... all of your future engineers are... it compounds bad."

On the Value of Recruiting Skills:
"There are a lot of very successful non-technical people in our network that do amazing work, and one of the things... they're great recruiters... they find a way to get that person to work with them."

Here’s the link to the talk

 

[kellyomara]

@jenniferfrank Non-tech founder here. I have done everything so far, including built MVP. Really don't want to keep going without a tech co-founder. After this episode I shot my shot with a great builder who really cares about the problem I'm trying to solve last week. Wish me luck!

 

[jenniferfrank]

@kellyomara Wishing you luck!

Remember if it doesn’t work out with this prospect, there a more potential partners out there.

Considering the importance of having a technical Co founder, the name of the game for you may be networking until you’ve succeeded in recruiting one. Keep shooting your shot

 

[kellyomara]

@jenniferfrank Thanks for the boost.

Yeah, you're right. Now that my idea is validated I've made networking my full-time job.

 

[jenniferfrank]

@kellyomara go go go!

 

[xavier363]

@jenniferfrank What does a technical cofounder usually do?

 

[jenniferfrank]

@xavier363 provides technical expertise and leads the development of the product or technology

 

[xavier363]

@jenniferfrank Interesting! Do they actually write the code? Or lead others with responsibility for design and architecture? Or is it more of a “do whatever it takes” kind of role?

 

[blondebriana]

@xavier363 Tech leads job is to build what the business person identified as a market need. It is up to the tech lead how he decides to deliver

 

[jenniferfrank]

@xavier363 Ideally you want a co-founder who is both designing architecture and writing code. A mistake a lot of startups make is hiring some very senior person who is no longer interested in coding and just wants to manage. Avoid this

 

[nataly87]

@jenniferfrank I think great engineers build an 'engineering culture' for a good engineer to become great. This is a valid expectation while hiring a tech cofounder.

Wrote about this quite recently, read here.

 

[eternallykeptbyjesus]

@jenniferfrank Non-technical founder here and I thought this talk was on point.

Without my technical co-founder, the product doesn’t get built; but we came together on the belief that there are rewards and adventure ahead. It’s like finding a crew to chase a treasure map.

 

[jenniferfrank]

@eternallykeptbyjesus Precisely. Hope your crew finds gold