So now to my questions:
If you succeeded, how long did it take you?
How did you do the „interviews“ or matching process?
What do you think is a realistic timeline? I started on the 12th of Jan and received some feedback and am now thinking how to proceed.
Thank you so much for your inputs and feedback!
In the bootstrap phase the techie is going to make almost all work (as there is usually very little to do for the non-tech ones, unless the venture is fueled by angel capital from the start (i.e. the non-tech founder has money himself or very good connections).
Most of the good programmers are in a point of their life, where either: 1) They have (well-paid) work, and don't need free work to fill up their schedule 2) They desperately need income, due to lavish lifestyle has spend their savings
If the programmer is not case 1) or 2) there, chances are they are not really co-founder material (as they are likely too green to make good choices).
Just a thought...
And no, I am not looking for free work. Did that in my twenties. My worst battle-scar was me spending 3 month full-time on a project and two weeks after the demo was ready, the non-tech co-founder "left" (i.e. killed the project) as he hadn't made proper market analysis upfront and the project was basically worthless...
I am so sick and tired of the rude behavior that I've decided to build all my upcoming projects myself even if it looks janky and barely put together just to prove concept. Once that's done, I'll be looking for tech help overseas. The "tech is God" and therefore we don't have to behave like mere mortals crap has completely ruined the tech people in this country in my eyes.
Of course, other industries have similar problems, but for some reason it seems more magnified, probably because of all the VC cash floating around even crappy ideas/teams.
Dan Martell's Idea to Exit course-if you can find a live link-is built just for this type of
There is rarely a need for you to have a technical co-founder and usually it's when your startup is highly technical. If it's not new operating system, breakthrough in artificial intelligence or self driving washing machine think how can you prove your concept without a co-founder.
First think how can you prove your concept without any technical skills. Can your idea be implemented via spreadsheet? Can you do everything manually? Can you write fake forms and then send email by yourself?
If not then second question comes to mind: Can you hire someone to build a prototype to prove the idea? Are you willing to invest few thousand dollars into a prototype to prove your hypothesis, gather initial data and then approach investors to raise initial capital to hire team of engineer that would build the product?
Again: rarely there is a need for a technical co-founder and if your startup is not progressing only because you can't find one, well I have bad news for you son. You have 99 problems but technical co-founder won't solve more than 1!
But let's say you're going to ignore all of that and still try to find a partner first. Your advertisement gives me zero confidence that you have an actual business here. Your idea is: a personal finance budgeting tool, but "fun and easy to use" and based on how you personally manage your finances. I have so many questions! And as a former Product Manager you should have answers:
• What specifically is wrong with existing personal finance tools on the market? What is the killer feature that makes yours better? Have you tried https://lunchmoney.app/ ?
• Let's see those wireframes! User journeys! Something! Right now I'm left with the assumption that you've sketched out some login dialogs and a transaction list but haven't thought beyond that.
• Where's your user research? If you're looking for a cofounder, that implies that you have a thing that needs to be built. Do you know what that thing is? Have you validated with real people that this is a real problem they have? How many user interviews have you done? Again, my assumption is that you've done none of this.
• What will be your role in the business? How do you propose that you earn your 50% of the equity? Remember that "idea guy" is worth nothing... you need to bring sales chops, key relationships / industry credibility, recruiting ability, investment money, or some combination thereof.
• If you've actually thought through this stuff and don't want to reveal your secrets, why not? No one is going to copy you (probably), and you'll get key insight into your market. Before you can ever sell this to a consumer you need to sell it to your early partners.
Finally, remember that some of the best cofounder partnerships work because the people involved have prior history working together professionally. Which of your former co-workers could you convince to quit their job and join you? If none of them, why not? What would you need to do to strengthen your pitch? Do that.
What's stopping you from learning how to code over the course of 18 months and doing it yourself? No one will champion the building of your idea in the way that you would.
Learn to program. It changed my life. I majored in marketing. After I learned to code, I got a product job in big data genomics on national dna projects. Now I can build my own companies and am on the 2nd version of my prototype.
Otherwise, don't waste your time looking, just pay an outsourced dev shop.
I taught myself software engineering so I could be my own technical founder. To be honest, I think I'd want a 2nd technical founder before a non-technical founder.
Unless the non-technical founder had some solid business knowledge/skills/experience. Barring that, depending on the product/market domain, I would still seek: technology skills/experience, such as software, electronics, science, or engineering related.
And I studied liberal arts in college ;)