Why is it so hard to find a technical cofounder?

As someone who has made a modest business around helping people find technical cofounders, let me share some things that tend to make it EASY to find one.

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).

Why are you choosing tech stack if you don't have a technical co-founder? That stack looks like a mess (assuming it is AND not OR). Ruby, Rails, FastAPI, Python, React?

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.

I’m gonna be brutally honest here. I’m a very senior software engineer with lots of experience across tech stacks. I tried the YC cofounder matching system but after three bad experiences I won’t be using it again. There were too many instances of people without technical chops trying to take advantage of my skillset. Multiple cases of working on projects for the ideas we had come up with together only to be ghosted. In the final instance - what started out as a supposedly equitable split of work and equity became a written offer of 2% with dilutable shares after I had spent weeks building out the product. I immediately quit the project and the other cofounder had the balls to try to negotiate but by the point I was so insulted I quit and deleted all traces of the code.

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 had a look at your first discute site. The rimbaud site errored out.

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.

I've cofounded a number of startups. I have found that a major rule is that you should NEVER let a non technical person lead a technical startup. They simply don't get it. It is way easier for the tech person to be the CEO/CTO and partner with a CMO/CFO who will get their hands dirty. There is a good reason that accountancy/legal,consulting firms are run by accountant thinkers and the big tech companies run by tech thinkers. I understand that the skill most represented in the fortune 500 CEO is technical.

So if you are looking for a tech cofounder you should look for them to be CEO.

The usual answer to the question is that people who are competent to play CTO meet a lot of people who want to be CEO and are not competent to do so. Various spins on "I've got an idea, please can you implement it for negligible equity".

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.

This is not about cofounder.

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.

It is not - your offer isn't good enough to convince someone to invest in it. Usually, communication skills are very important to find a good co-founder - which seems that you lack. So I will focus on communicating better what you have to offer and what you are looking for. And hope for the former to be really enticing. By the quality of the links you shared, your proposal seems to be quite uninteresting, why would I partner with you in place of just doing it all myself?

I'm presuming you're "technical" yourself. I would give a very different answer if you weren't.

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.

I'd fit the bill, I've talked to a few people about working together and realized I'd be building the product and it was unclear what they would be contributing.

I think most people good at tech just want to focus on the tech and not the whole business thing that being a founder implies.

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.

because technical founders have ideas enough of their own and your idea would have to be crazy good for them to consider it.

I’d guess because startups are hard, rarely lucrative, and only make sense if you’re deeply invested in the idea. I’d guess for most technologists they’d prefer to sink their blood sweat and tears in their own ideas.

Most people who are deeply technical and want to work at a startup either already have ideas they're working on, or want to be founding engineer at after a company raises because of a (perceived) lower risk

I am having the opposite issue. As a technical cofounder that codes[1], I'm interested in a cofounder that is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), a pediatric neurologist (MD) or child psychologist (Ph.D / Psy.D) so we can develop a solution together in a somewhat niche domain.

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

Do you really need a co-founder if you feel very strongly about your idea and the business you're trying to build? You have to sell your idea. You have to know what problem you're solving, and for whom. Ultimately the buck stops with you since it is your idea and you finding a co-founder is only part of the execution. You can most definitely get by without one, as long as you are executing to your maximum capability.

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.

yes it can be difficult to find people to work on others’ ideas for free.

Let’s also think about this in the reverse. As a potential technical (co)founder how would I validate the business potential of my idea. Irrespective, I am already building it and there is enough complete for anybody to play around with, but not enough complete to fully validate the idea.

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.

I am based in Beijing, China now, full-time working on 2 AI projects. We are looking for a great technical co-founder. I believe that I am a great serial entrepreneur who can help deal with all business related stuffs and have a good understanding of technology and users.

Drop me an email if you are interested to have a chat: somarco1002@gmail.com !

I feel your pain. Will drop you an email.

My 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.

Can you code?

why is it so hard to find a business cofounder, someone that has sensible understanding of technology, not just throwing around tech jargons?

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.

As somebody who was once seeking to be a technical cofounder, I feel annoyed by how not being the business specialist will always lead to worse contracts and percents for yourself, regardless of the value you bring. And the tasks you have to take up to step outside your technical role are fairly unpleasant too, Eg, researching legal and tax nonsense with no good resources available despite months of searching (the internet is a pit of misinformation, including government sites which are often incomplete or outdated or misleading)

are you offering 50%?