Welcome to the Dreamit Dose.
My name is Caya, and I'm the CEO of a company called Slidebean.
In the next 5 minutes, let's talk about the quintessential duo or trio
of founders and co-founders that a tech company should aim for.
I have this theory that the founders should have the capacity to generate
the first $100Kof revenue for the company without hiring any external talent.
If there's a skill you're missing to get the company to revenue
that person should be your co-founder, not your employee.
Let's dive in.
Usually, the person who starts a company is the business type guy or girl.
Perhaps they studied entrepreneurship, or business, finance, marketing
but they're definitely hustlers, extroverts who enjoy the thrill
of pitching companies and selling.
They have a million-dollar idea for an app or a web site and
all they need is a tech person to develop.
On the other hand, most technical people are introverts.
They prefer the comfort of a stable job
and they're not necessarily willing to quit that job
to pursue a crazy idea that somebody else came up with.
The demand for developers has grown so much that
the job market is pretty competitive.
A full-stack developer can easily make $150K
if they work for a tech company in New York or in the Bay Area.
That's the challenge right there.
You can't outbid funded tech companies for talent, not with money.
There's always someone with a bigger pocket.
So the reason why your tech co-founder joins you
and stays with the company is not the salary.
They need to join you because they're excited about the chance of creating something new,
to build something from scratch, and in the long term make more money
because you sell the company for a bazillion dollars.
Finding that person is really hard. Do not underestimate this.
It's probably the first test that the CEO type hustler persona will need to go through.
Convincing somebody else that has a great job, that this idea makes sense.
Now on the other side of the aisle, product people also start companies.
They usually have it easier.
They can build a product on their own, they can get it to market,
and they can begin promoting it.
Where they typically struggle is achieving large distribution.
Without a marketing or salesperson on the team,
they sometimes struggle to connect with the customer
and understand their true pain points.
When you're a developer, you can build almost anything
without needing a co-founder.
You just have to ensure that this something you're building
is something people care about.
With a product-focused founder, that distribution persona becomes essential.
They're potentially easier to find for sure, but
the wrong person leading the marketing or the growth efforts for the company
can still make or break the business.
What good is a product with no customers?
And that's the whole point of this.
For most tech companies you need, at the very least,
a product person and the marketing slash salesperson.
Both are essential to the company, and both should have the knowhow
to scale the business until they can afford
to hire people smarter than them.
And, well can't you hire that talent at the very beginning?
Well yeah, you can, but you'll be paying market salaries for it.
The market salary for a CTO is $150K.
If you hire a dev agency or a marketing agency,
they'll be paying market salaries for their employees
and they'll be charging a profit margin on top of that.
Furthermore, an outside agency probably wouldn't move as fast
as you need to in the early stages.
In this stage, all-nighters are pretty common and nobody who is
an external agent will be happy and willing to pull an all-nighter for you.
Co-founders are willing to do it because they're fully invested in this.
Everything is on the line for them.
Investors don't want to pay market costs for developing
or marketing a startup.
That's why having these skills on the team is absolutely necessary.
Now, can a single person be a product person and a marketing salesperson?
Well yes, but they're truly rare specimens.
Maybe you think you're one of them.
But the next challenge is gonna be managing time.
You probably won't have time to build a product, market it,
and manage the fundraising.
You need talented people at the helm.
It's just impossible to split yourself in 3.
And this is one of the reasons why many accelerators and
investors don't fund solo founders.
So, here are a few tips for recruiting and building
that early team.
Whether you're a hustler or a hacker,
approach this recruitment as you would approach dating.
Go for a few drinks and flirt before you commit.
Don't approach these conversations like you're looking for somebody to build
your app idea and to sell your product.
You want to start with a problem statement and find out
if they agree that there's a business opportunity there.
Then move to your proposed solutions.
But be open to the fact that this proposed solution
is going to be evolving or it could change completely.
Show that you're ready to take feedback,
even if it's cynical, about the current proposed solution.
This cynical feedback cycle is going to happen countless times
as you build your company. You need to show that you can take it.
The best-case scenario is you'll be working alongside your co-founders
for the next 7 to 10 years.
That's more than the average length of a marriage in the US.
So building a company is like marriage, without the fun stuff.
And don't expect your investors to fund your dating.
Take your time to make the right call. Remember, ask yourself critically.
If this person joins as a co-founder, do we have the right team
where the 2 or 3 of us can get this to our first $100K of revenue?
Thanks Steve for letting me be a guest today on the Dreamit Dose.
If you like this content, make sure to subscribe
to the Dreamit channel and to our own Slidebean channel.
We both release new startup content every week.
Looking forward to answering your questions in the comments section.
I will be hanging out there after this video goes live.
See you next time.