- How to find a technical cofounder.
I'm gonna share with you guys a three-step process
for finding world class development support,
and essentially somebody that could maybe
even be your cofounder.
I really think the opportunity is amazing
to have somebody help you unlock your dream
and build that for you,
and bring these ideas that you have into reality.
How cool is that?
Now most entrepreneurs make the mistake
of thinking that oh, it's as easy as hiring a college kid.
I'm just gonna go out there and find somebody
and it's gonna be super cheap
and they're just gonna build this thing.
Or even better yet,
this one's my favorite,
learn to code themselves.
Like as a developer,
I taught myself how to code when I was 17.
And I've built five technology businesses.
And even though I know how to write code,
three businesses ago,
I realized it made way more sense
to bring somebody in to help me with that.
And I mean the last company, Clarity,
in the early days, there was this kid, Justin.
And I just kept going,
and I'm gonna share with you guys those three strategies,
but Justin helped me build the first part of Clarity.
And then Justin had other things he wanted to go pursue,
so no biggie, I had another guy, Scott.
And Scott really became my technical cofounder
in that business.
And what's great about working with people like Scott,
is that they can really bring whatever crazy idea you have,
or whatever customer request comes into your business,
they can bring it to life.
And the reason why a lot of investors like technical teams
or cofounders is because no matter what happens
in your business, you really can't fail
because as long as you're able to move forward
as a businessperson, maybe that's you,
you're always kind of talking to customers,
or working on marketing strategies,
operational ideas.
And the technical person's building the product,
and taking that feedback back from customers
and continuing to build it.
So that's why I want to share this three-step process
of how to find that killer technical cofounder.
Number one is prove your idea.
Before you even go out and talk to potential candidates,
you want to make sure that you actually have enough
to show them.
It has to be more than just an idea.
It has to be potentially a clickable prototype,
something that you can show them,
or even customer orders.
But whatever you do,
before you go and start talking
to potential technical talent,
you want to make sure that you prove your idea.
That's number one.
Number two is you want to go and engage in the community.
Or what I call, go to target-rich audiences,
and that, where you can be a bunch of different things
depending on where you live in the world.
It can be one, going to developer meetups.
You know, there's actually,
if you go online and you look at some
of the top programming languages out there,
there's meetups where they all get together
and the passionate ones amongst the group,
they talk about strategies to build better code
and more efficient programming languages.
And they have competitions
on who can write the best algorithms.
And these are real things.
Like the nerds out there nerd out.
And I love them because I'm one of them.
So for you, as a business type person
or maybe a marketing mind,
going to these events and talking to individuals
that potentially could be, maybe a cofounder,
is the right way to do it versus, again,
hiring somebody for five bucks an hour online.
I wouldn't do it.
It's not the way you build multi-million dollar businesses.
And that's my world.
So engage with the community
or go to a target-rich audience, that was number two.
Number three is really prove your value.
More than just the idea,
who you are as a person.
Maybe it's the way you collaborate.
Maybe it's your track record.
Not knowing how to tell your story
in a way that doesn't feel braggy or boastful,
but just subtly in a conversation,
you might mention that you worked at Google,
or that you've got 17 years experience
in a certain industry,
or that one of your advisers is somebody very notable.
Thinking about ways to prove your value
to the technical person is a key place
'cause here's the deal.
Bose engineers, the biggest fear they have,
developers, coders,
the biggest fear, the number one,
which is essentially the filter they're using
when they're listening to you talk,
is, "I don't want to build something
"that nobody ever uses."
Alright, think about this.
The whole time that you're talking,
hopefully you're showing them a prototype,
you're talking about early customer orders,
because those are the things that show to them
that you're valuable, you've proven your value to them,
and that you're collaborative,
and that you want their feedback and ideas.
And that will decrease the risk
that nobody's gonna ever use this thing.
Because it's easy for you to convince them
to spend the next three to six months
in their basement, coding out the software,
but at the end of the day,
they want to know that real people in the world
are gonna use it.
That is like the most exciting thing for a technical person.
So those are the three strategies.
Real quick, prove your value,
prove that you actually can create and build something,
and get customer orders.
Go to the community,
engage with the community of really talented individuals.
And then third, show them that you're somebody
the want to spend more time with
and collaborate with in their business.
Because again, a cofounder is kind of like a marriage.
So you want to start slowly and build up over time
and see how they work.
Now bonus tip I want to give you guys,
it's a philosophy I call,
I can't work with you until I work with you.
So before you go from like,
"Man, this guy's smart.
"You want to be my cofounder?"
Don't do that.
What you want to do is just define a simple 10 hour project
that you guys can work together.
That's why programs like Startup Weekend are just so great
because you can actually, maybe, find your cofounder there
by interacting and working on a project together.
So that is my strategy.
I want to ask you guys to share this video
with people you know need to see it.
Subscribe to my channel.
I want to as usual, challenge you to live a bigger life,
or bigger business.
And I'll see you next Monday.