How to find a technical co-founder

A big challenge for founders is finding someone that can build their idea.?

How do you find someone with the exact skills you need, entrepreneurial mindset, idea buy-in, and the right personal timing? It’s hard, and I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs spinning at this hurdle. There’s no obvious route forward, so it’s easy to end up doing nothing.

Annoyingly, the best way to find a technical co-founder is to be friends with a lot of technical people. But going back in time to change that is suboptimal. Instead, I have two broad pieces of advice:

1/ Increase your luck surface area

2/ Make yourself attractive to technical people

How to increase your luck surface area

There’s no steps to follow to guarantee that you find a good partner. There’s a certain element of luck involved, but you can absolutely change the odds. Some people refer to this as your “luck surface area”.

To paraphrase one definition of this: "The amount of luck in your life, your Luck Surface Area, is doing something you're passionate about combined with the total number of people that you tell about it”.?

Basically, it's nudging the odds in your favour.

You need luck to get a great job. If you never apply for a great job, you’ll never get lucky. If you apply for 10 great jobs, you’ve increased your odds of a good outcome. If you go out and make friends with the hiring managers of great jobs, you’ve increased it further.?

But how do you do that when there’s no job adverts, and your ideal co-founder doesn't have a line on their LinkedIn that says "looking to start something new"? Here’s how to increase your luck surface area:

• Write about what you’re doing, and your thesis on the space. People will read it, and eventually the right people will read it. You’ll maybe resonate with them, and they might get in touch. Keep writing to spread the good word, and you’ll convince more and more folks that your cause is worth joining. For every person that reads your stuff, you get low-security access to their whole network.
• Make friends with connected people. I hate networking, so l think of it making friends instead. Connected people are more likely to know your potential partners. Make friends with them. Make friends with lots of people. Have coffees, and beers, and Zooms, and hang out. You won't meet the right person unless you meet many people.
• Message people that look like your ideal co-founder. Starting a fintech platform for developers? Message Stripe engineers. Starting a music company? Message people at Spotify. Just talk to them, and tell them what you’re doing. You don’t even need to pitch them. Just chat, and ask if there’s anyone they know that you should speak to. This is how to access other people's networks.
• Join communities. Indie London is one of my personal favourites, although I’m more of a lurker. Meet people that are building stuff, get to know them. Find where your people hang out digitally or IRL, and go there.
• Meet other founders. You’re not a founder yet, but you will be soon. Founders have pretty tight communities. Message founders of products you like, and ask to chat. They may know of other folks looking for a co-founder.
• Do people favours. The law of reciprocity is strong, and it’s the easiest way to make friends (again, not networking). Part of my job is finding great early stage products built by exceptional people - if you introduce me to one of them there’s a very high chance that I’ll help you with your thing.

The above does not guarantee success. But not doing any of the above does pretty much guarantee failure.

Although this is called “luck surface area”, I don’t actually think of this as luck. Meeting the right person relies on probability, which is easy to interpret as luck. Luck implies something out of your control. Just as Messi is lucky to score from 30 yards, he’s also put himself in the position where he has the skills to do it. We could both get lucky with the long shot, but his odds of success are much better than mine. Improve your odds.

2/ How to be attractive to technical people

Technical people are mostly like other people. They suffer from FOMO, and they want to back winning horses. So show them that you’re going to be successful, and get them to believe in the value you can bring them. Do this by doing things they may not be able to:

• Become a subject matter expert. Research your area meticulously, and get them to buy into your ability to win the market. Understand competitors, have a thesis for where the market is going.
• Build connections in the area. Be the person that knows customers, investors, and others in the sector. These are pretty much the same activities as increasing your luck surface area.
• Start the thing. Interview potential customers, and understand them well. Build Figma prototypes, and no-code products to test your ideas. This takes a few days of learning how to design and build, but if they're going to go all-in on your idea, they will want to see commitment from your side too.

The above will show engineers that your idea is interesting (to you, and to others), and that you're serious about it. It's common for engineers to be pitched bad ideas, from people that can't execute. The above activities will start to show that this isn't true for your company.

As a happy co-incidence, you might find the above is enough to get you investment, so that you can pay people. Technical co-founders are useful but not strictly necessary. So get cracking as though you don't need one, and it'll just be a happy accident if you find one on the way.

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I’m sure there’s more you can do, but these are the two broad themes that I've found to have the biggest impact. If you have any other suggestions I’d love to hear them.

• Write about your ideas and thesis.?
• Message employees in companies that you are similar to.?
• Build without them - the best way to convince someone you’re worthwhile is to show you don’t rely on them. Build no-code, do research, etc.?
• Consider not having a technical co-founder.?