How to evaluate a non-technical co-founder
You're a developer, and you've just been pitched a startup idea by a non-technical founder wanting you to join them in building a company. It's the 10th time this month this has happened, and you're getting more and more skeptical.
"Why shouldn't I just start something on my own? After I have a basic product, I can bring a non-technical partner on."
- B2C startup where engagement is a key metric: 30 people using a basic version of the product every day
- B2C startup where user growth is a key metric: 200 people who have given the startup an email address in a month or 50 people who have given them an email address and (on average) recruited one friend to give an email address too. You want to establish that the concept has legs of its own and not just the non-technical person getting their immediate friends and family to use the service.
- B2B startup that charges <$1,000 per month per company: 10 companies that have said they'd pay you money when you have a product (half the number of companies if the startup has letters of intent)
- B2B startup that charges >$1000 per month per company: 2 companies that have said they'd pay you money when you have a product (half the number of companies if the startup has letters of intent)
- "We're going to go viral." Why is the product fundamentally viral in nature? Why is the product more valuable to users who get their friends to join?
- "We're going to get blogs to cover us." Which blogs? Do you have a relationship with them? Have you ever been written about on a blog before?
- "We're going to SEO the hell out of it." Why can't other companies do this? How reliant will the startup be on content? Who will write it? Why can't other companies beat us at this?
- "We're going to A/B test until we find a message that resonates." Do you see A/B testing as a mechanism for finding the vision of the company?
- Is relentlessly focused on making sure you're making the right product for the right market.
-
Has a clear vision of what success for your product looks like and is probably addicted to metrics.
- Knows when to cut features and can prevent you from wasting time on developing irrelevant features early on.
- You can point to any piece of a product and ask "Why?" and they have an answer.
- An MBA: they don't hurt, but don't favor them over anyone else because of it for startups.
- A career in finance or management consulting: unless your startup is in those industries, their big company tendencies could clash with a startup environment. They might not; just use your own judgement.
- Someone who calls themselves a serial entrepreneur. People throw this term around only slightly less than "pivot". Look at their track record for successful exits or otherwise successful companies if they call themselves this; otherwise, disregard it.
14 comments
@Jeremy - Nothing is wrong with NDAs once you're getting deep into the details of the business or starting to actually do work together. However, when you're initially talking with someone about the idea, they're just a barrier that the startup world in general considers rude. Additionally, if someone tells you that you have to sign an NDA to get any deeper in to the idea than "it's a social network for pets", they're probably a bit naive about how much the idea vs execution matters.
@Paul - Congrats if you're in this situation. Are you looking for a partner or more of an employee? If you're looking for a partner, this post is still highly relevant for evaluating that person (if you yourself don't already have these skills).
Code quality is even more important when you have to keep changing tack. And you will probably need to keep changing tack as you discover more about your market. One thing I notice about experienced marketers - they are humble, and learn from the market rather than trying to thrust their own perception upon it.
It would be useful for non-technical partners to have a similar filter set when considering their technical partners.
We don't have the ability to really assess one's ability to actually build what they say they can build, for the cost they say the can build it and in the time frame it's needed. Often times beyond reference checking, which isn't 100% effective, there is little one can do other than use judgement.
Beyond the technical abilities it then comes down to subjective measures like personality fit, trustworthiness, passion, commitment, maturity and ability to "roll with it" as the startup struggles.
Quite a few people who come to me now asking "can you just finish this up" .. are projects that are garbage from the beginning, horrid execution and mind bomb code. And exclusively because the start ups were focused on concept and logos opposed to execution and quality.
Tracking change - tools - process etc, you have to get right from day one as it will protect you from technical debt (as much as you let it).
Also don't fall into the trap of thinking "agile development" is some kind of cure all that will speed you up, it will typically cripple good or exceptional developers (which is the kind you want for a start up right ?) and sacrifices any technical vision (i.e. architecture) for short term feel good feelings for over zealous project manager mind sets.
I wrote a blog post about it the other day:
http://dossyay.tumblr.com/post/4033892039/non-technical-co-founder-you-suck
Great read here BTW. Thanks!
@rodney - Thanks for the comment. It certainly is a tough to balance doing things quickly with maintainability and quality code.
@Mark - Thanks for the kind words. Great idea for a future post!
@Jeremy - The "can you just finish this up" position sounds very tough to deal with. Has it ever worked out well in your experience? Or any ideas on how to make sure it does work as well as possible?
@Christopher - great point. It's hard to find good people to work with whether their technical or not.
One was a projects that had passed though 2-3 development shops and being a LAMP surgeon myself, just looked like a mass of scar tissue. The 5th was hand built strangeness ....... though consistent strangeness so could be dealt with as long as you kept it strange ....... consistency was the key there.
Most development shops don't code or build in a quality way as it takes a longer view (i.e. documented code with test units is WAY cheaper to look after) of things. Though if time is money and you want to bleed a client …..... they do it. Hence why I advise against outsourced software, get a senior tech and give them a % of the equity. Then think long term, short term to market now and then sunk under technical debt is no win.
In *every* case there wasn't a CTO/lead dev/tech person at the top level either making or influencing decisions. It was either outsourced work by UI designers with an idea/product or companies that had gone to Drupal shops and got the quick and dirty (and incomplete) option (which the Drupal people had dropped - as the project came off the rails and the technical debt put the hours though the roof).
The execution of the work 4/5 times was more of an afterthought or see as a linear process of manufacturing – fairly depressing compared with working in the way I usually work.
Typically 3-4 times over time & cost budget though argued “Oh this is always the way software happens, developers just don't understand business” ….... which is typically amateur suits telling junior developers what to do (micro managing) and then blaming them for the outcome of the project.
You need the CTO / lead dev / whatever title …..... to get in the way of that.
--------
My advice is for people on my side of the fence (i.e. senior tech) – if you get no sense of respect or humility from someone who is creating a business (which is essentially a software project) walk away. There are enough companies and choice out there that starving the bad companies of developers will let Darwin take effect.
For the non-technical people trying to hire (or more realistically partner with) people like me – understand that experience technical people will be able to make choices and give input to a project that you likely can't understand. I'm not being condescending – it's just having a depth of understanding in a technical area that others don't – it's what we do - in return they have their skills (art, marketing, finance, sales, etc) and we respect that.
--------
It goes both ways – good business is about good relationships, with the people you work and then the customer. Get that right and the right stuff will follow. It's why I studied counselling and group psychology to complement my tech skills, opposed to an MBA they are fairly worthless.
Start trying to hire good people and then tell them how to do their job ….. you'll get what you deserve - understand it's a partnership of skills and desire bound with respect and once again …... you'll get what you deserve :)
But 95% of technical guys in Silicon Valley are not rock stars. So if you're not and still want to be a technical co-founder, you might actually have to undertake a very substantial risk. If you're not comfortable with that, it may be best that you stay away from entrepreneurship and work instead on attaining rock star skills so you'll be recruited to work on the next Groupon.
@Mike - You are right that what I'm describing is rare. What I'm saying is that developers are so rare now, that they can afford to take a little bit of time to find an extraordinary non-technical partner.
