March 2012

I've recently received several emails from people looking for a technical cofounder for their startup. I promised I would write this post with some thoughts and ideas on the topic. Here's an example of that kind of email.

"I'm looking for a partner / cofounder who can not only head the technical aspects and build a working model of the site, but someone with the connections to put a great development team together when we need it. "

Typically, this requires quite a bit more information for me to be able to respond and provide real help. I've talked about that in lots of other posts, so you can visit some of these to help determine what you specifically need:

Key ingredients in the equation are:

How complex is the system? - Make sure you go through the 32 Questions Developers May Have Forgot to Ask a Startup Founder.
Do you have dollars to pay for development?

Okay, so now you have it narrowed down and have determined that you need:

Part-Time CTO or Technology Advisor to help guide you and close a bit of the Startup Founder Developer Gap, and
Equity-Only Cofounder Developer - the first real developer that will work for equity and produce the bulk of the application.

Of course, you will want to figure out a bit more about the specifics of what this developer needs to know vs. can learn. Your technical advisor can likely help.

Before you go out looking for your Cofounder, you should also be thinking about what will motivate them as I talk about in How to Hunt Programmers for Your Startup - A Field Guide.

The bad news is that Finding Developers is Tough Here in Los Angeles and even people willing to pay have a hard time finding Web Development in Los Angeles. Of course, you are looking for something a little different - a technical Cofounder. The bad news is that they can get a good paying job anytime. The good news is that likely is not what they want.

Where to Search for the Technical Cofounder

So where might you run into the right person? Here are some ideas:

In your company or other companies. Find the developers in your current company and other companies that you can get inside. Get to know the developers. Find out who is good. Ask your friends to do the same. Take lots of them out for free coffee, food, beer. Ask them about your concept.

Tech Events / Meetups - In Los Angeles, There are lots of Networking Events in Los Angeles and Southern California that are techie oriented. You should definitely hit up the Startup Weekend events as well. And look at StartupDigest.com for lots of startup oriented events.

Make sure you meet the people who run these events. They often can help a lot in navigating to expertise and to possible resources.

Student Groups - Go to the local university and find out what student groups there are for programmers. Ask around for ideas on where they hang out.

LinkedIn - This remains one of my primary tools. It's a bit hard to use to find a cofounder, but I would certainly go ask everyone I know to introduce me to programmers they know. And then use them to get to even more.

Twitter - You can run searches for various types of techie terms being used in a given geography. Follow them and reply to introduce yourself.

Befriend Recruiters - Most recruiters will not be happy I say this as they generally don't like talking to people in this situation, but they still often will have lots of ideas for where technical people in your geography hang out.

Sites - There are a bunch of sites out there aimed at this or similar issues. Most of them suffer from lack of activity, but it's worth a shot. Some sites to check out:

CoFounderNetwork.com
PartnerUp.com
Namesake.com - more of a social network, but still a good way to network
TechCofounder.com
Foundrs.com
Startuplinkup.com
Cofoundrs.com

You can try finding folks via

Oh, and often there are forums for particular technologies where you can look.

Here are a few perspectives on the topic of finding technical cofounders:

In Building a sweat equity team, Joel on Software tells us:

You simply need to network. Go to user groups. Go to tech (or other relevant industry) events. Refine your elevator pitch. Eventually you'll catch the ear, the vision, of someone who would like to jump on board, and has something you need in return.

A great post by Elizabeth Knopf , FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder where she breaks down the process much like how you think about a sales process. I'm focusing on the sourcing ("lead gen" on her slide) aspect.

In Please, please, please stop asking how to find a technical co-founder, Jason Freedman tackles this a different way and suggests how you "earn a technical cofounder" along the lines of: