I’m a non-technical founder with a business idea and guess what, NO ONE CARES -especially developers! If you’re a non-technical entrepreneur and you expect developers to give up lucrative opportunities to be a part of your idea, you’ve got some work to do! So how does a non-technical founder find and build a team? It’s not easy…
Step 1: Do you have a really good idea? Marinate on your idea over night, how do you feel the next day? How about the next week? If you’re still in love with it, proceed to Step 2.
Step 2: If your idea made it past Step 1, congrats I’d guess that 50%+ don’t make it this far. Now it’s time to breathe some life into your idea. Write an executive summary, draw a few sketches of your vision and talk to people in the industry. Go an extra step and answer the questions top incubators ask on applications. (Ex. What real problem are you solving? Market size? Revenue model, so on... )
Step 3: But wait, how does this help me find a technical co-founder? It doesn’t, but you need a damn good understanding of your business idea to be taken seriously by anyone. Now you have a fighting chance.
If you’re like most entrepreneurs you don’t have a ton of money to spend on a development team, so how do you get a technical co-founder on board? Developers like to solve problems. Again, developers like to solve problems. Sell them on the problem. For Snapclass the idea was to give teachers the ability to host live classes via web cam or phone. But the problem was designing a system that allows teachers to charge for his or her knowledge. Pitch the problem not the idea.
Finding a technical co-founder is difficult, but it’s not impossible. Do the legwork if you want to be taken seriously and be prepared for rejection. If you have a great idea and the determination, you’ll find your co-founder.
