How To Recruit a Technical Co-Founder
Dan Martell
Entrepreneur (3x Exits) | Coach | Bestselling Author of 'Buy Back Your Time' ??| Teaching founders to build an empire without burning out
Steve Jobs (Apple) had Steve Wozniak.
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) had Dustin Moskovitz.
Bill Gates (Microsoft) had Paul Allen.
Even though they could all code themselves, the greatest business leaders of our generation, all had a technical co-founder by their side.
Why?
They knew they’d need help building the actual product as their focus shifted to growing the business.
I had the same experience in my companies.
How did they find these people?
How did they convince them to join them in their vision?
That’s what I want to teach you.
First off, if you want to connect with someone at the level of having them potentially quit their job and join you, then you’ll need to build a deep relationship.
Can you do this remotely? Yep, it’s possible.
Is it fast? Nope.
Where do you go to find these code-cranking unicorns?
That’s what I share in this week’s video.
Now, even if you find them – and you will – you can’t just show up empty handed.
You need to bring “the goods.”
This typically comes down to 3 things that will help you install the Ikea Effect.
- Your Clickable Prototype.
- Some pre-sales of your product to customers.
- Excitement and passion for what you’re building.
The truth is, these programmers have many of their own projects they could be working on.
For you to convince them to invest their talent in building YOUR vision is going to require some serious ammunition.
Bringing these silver bullets to the party will help ignite the conversation.
Asking them to give you advice on your idea will get the process started.
Have you ever recruited someone brilliant?
What approach did you use?
How did you get them to join your team?
Leave a comment with your story, would love to hear them.
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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.
Staff Software Engineer at PagerDuty
7 年Yeah Chris - I'll second this - It's all too frequent that people come to me and expect me use my skills and experience without treating my requests or process with respect - Building a company on the back of engineers takes effort - It takes even more to do it in a way that is humble, respectful and dignified.
Technologist, Veteran evangelist, Founder
7 年I agree with everything here and will add, come with an equitable partnership offer.I sat through at least two meetings with people who only wanted to give employee level shares and control. At least one of them today is exactly where they were then, looking for the right help.