Dan Martell - September 18, 2017


How To Recruit a Technical Co-Founder


Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

197.61958

Word count

1,760

Sentence count

95


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about how to recruit a technical co-founder, the elusive technical person, the one that can take your startup to the next level. It s like owning a restaurant and not having a chef - you can start off and build the recipes yourself and test them in the kitchen, but at some point, it probably makes sense to bring in somebody that s been trained and knows what they re doing and ideally passionate about it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.560 Hey man, we gotta keep them on their toes.
00:00:03.160 So we gotta ask, are they on their heels?
00:00:07.280 Is this how they're gonna shift?
00:00:08.680 They gotta shift, get on your toes.
00:00:10.880 Get on your toes.
00:00:19.880 How to recruit a technical co-founder, the elusive.
00:00:24.160 Technical side of the business.
00:00:26.360 I mean, this is funny how people can get super far,
00:00:30.800 like build the product, get some early traction customer,
00:00:34.300 and really not have a technical team built out.
00:00:37.800 It's kind of like owning a restaurant and not having a chef.
00:00:41.100 Like, of course, you can start off and build the recipes
00:00:44.980 yourself and test them in the kitchen and even get your
00:00:47.340 friends and family to come eat at your restaurant.
00:00:49.580 But at some point, it probably makes sense to bring in
00:00:52.560 somebody that's been trained and knows what they're doing
00:00:55.660 and ideally passionate about it.
00:00:57.700 And what I wanna share in this video is these three areas
00:01:00.900 that you gotta go to physically, one not,
00:01:04.900 to find some of the best talent
00:01:07.400 that you can bring on to your team.
00:01:09.900 So this is all about technical.
00:01:12.640 Pretty much all my companies, from Flowtown to Clarity,
00:01:15.420 you know, I've been involved in investing
00:01:16.680 in 30 plus other companies.
00:01:18.340 As an angel investor, I've built my own companies.
00:01:21.120 There's always been the technical side of it.
00:01:23.820 Even though I taught myself how to program when I was 17,
00:01:27.060 a long time ago I learned it is not the best use of my time
00:01:30.020 and I always introduce way more bugs and it's worth it.
00:01:32.920 So finding that partner, you know,
00:01:34.700 Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak.
00:01:36.940 You know, Zuckerberg had Dustin Moshevich.
00:01:39.840 Even though, you know, Mark is a good programmer,
00:01:42.800 he had somebody else that could kind of lead
00:01:44.640 and think about that.
00:01:45.880 And what I want to share with you guys today
00:01:47.780 is the strategy that at the very end
00:01:49.340 I'm going to talk to you about the IKEA effect.
00:01:51.120 You don't want to miss that
00:01:52.280 because it brings everything together,
00:01:53.940 because you actually got to bring the goods.
00:01:56.520 So first place you got to go look is at events.
00:02:00.620 I think some of the best minds, technical minds,
00:02:03.560 go to other user groups, meetups, conferences,
00:02:07.660 around their industry and their topic.
00:02:09.800 And this is true for me on so many levels.
00:02:12.740 I remember I was actually working at a co-working space.
00:02:15.200 One of my favorite things to do is deputize other people
00:02:17.780 to like, if you see this great kind of this type of person,
00:02:21.840 let me know and I was working at a co-working space
00:02:24.240 and the owner, Sasha, came up to me and was like,
00:02:26.520 do you know Otavio?
00:02:27.520 And I'm like, no, who's Otavio?
00:02:29.740 She's like, oh, you gotta meet him.
00:02:30.880 He's not here today but tomorrow,
00:02:31.980 let me make sure I introduce you guys.
00:02:33.360 And I was like, oh, that's awesome.
00:02:34.880 So the next day I come in, I start working,
00:02:37.520 all of a sudden she's like, hey,
00:02:38.960 I want to introduce you to Otavio.
00:02:40.900 And not only does she introduce me to probably to this day
00:02:44.360 one of the smartest minds I've ever met,
00:02:46.340 one of my mentors told me when I moved to San Francisco,
00:02:49.400 he said, the only thing I would suggest you do
00:02:51.840 find the smartest people you can and just try to spend as much
00:02:54.080 time as they'll allow you to.
00:02:55.980 And here I am watching a demo of an iPhone translate in real time
00:03:03.880 English words to Spanish and then Spanish words to English.
00:03:07.280 It was called Quest Visual.
00:03:09.100 Three years later it was bought by Google.
00:03:11.400 And Otavio to this day, I just saw a Facebook post where he was
00:03:14.560 sharing like a game he built that essentially maps the
00:03:17.400 environment in real time for fun.
00:03:19.440 I mean, the guy is literally a brilliant person.
00:03:22.000 And the way I met him was going to a location,
00:03:26.880 a physical location, and letting people know
00:03:29.180 that if you run into a certain type of person, let me know.
00:03:31.420 I think most people just don't put out to the world
00:03:33.820 who they're looking for.
00:03:34.660 So one is go to events.
00:03:36.060 Go to other user groups, technical user groups,
00:03:38.700 programming, meetups, go to meetup.com.
00:03:41.260 There's events happening all around you in your city,
00:03:45.260 big events in North America that you can go to
00:03:47.940 that would have really brilliant people
00:03:50.680 that you could interact with
00:03:52.280 to try to find those key hires.
00:03:53.920 Second thing is go to the schools.
00:03:55.880 I mean, there's so many schools
00:03:57.920 that have programming classes, colleges,
00:04:01.120 that if you just showed up as a person
00:04:03.420 that wants to build a company,
00:04:04.780 like they're trying to have their students get jobs.
00:04:08.460 So if you say, look, I'm starting a new venture
00:04:10.700 and I wanna hire your students,
00:04:12.340 trust me, they will work with you
00:04:14.500 to figure out how to have that happen.
00:04:16.560 And my favorite trick is just to ask everybody.
00:04:18.660 I mean, it's like, who's the smartest person in your class?
00:04:20.160 Ask the teacher, who's the smartest student you have?
00:04:22.260 And that name, that person,
00:04:23.940 they're the ones you connect with.
00:04:25.060 Those are the ones you kind of meet up afterwards for coffee.
00:04:27.880 They're the ones you ping for advice.
00:04:30.540 But you want to make that list.
00:04:31.640 You want to start interacting with those people
00:04:33.380 to bring them into your world.
00:04:34.740 The third area is online, okay?
00:04:36.640 There's online communities
00:04:38.320 of really incredible technical talent.
00:04:41.080 One of them is GitHub.
00:04:42.320 If you just go on GitHub, you can actually,
00:04:45.280 I don't know if you can search by location,
00:04:46.620 but you can find really competent programmers
00:04:50.720 that are building and contributing to the world
00:04:52.720 for free on their own time.
00:04:53.760 They're essentially so passionate about solving problems
00:04:57.820 that they're writing the code in an open source manner.
00:05:00.460 They're giving back.
00:05:01.600 And maybe those folks that you find in those communities
00:05:04.800 are not the ones that are looking for jobs
00:05:06.640 or maybe they're doing their own thing,
00:05:08.880 but they're the ones that know all the top talent.
00:05:10.940 And if you could do something to create value for their lives,
00:05:13.240 if you can build a relationship with them,
00:05:14.980 That has incredible value to you as a business
00:05:18.520 and for your ability to hire other technical co-founders.
00:05:21.180 Now, first tip that I wanna give is,
00:05:24.120 and I'm gonna talk about the IKEA effect,
00:05:26.160 is bring the goods.
00:05:27.160 There's three key P's that you need to bring
00:05:30.560 if you wanna attract a technical co-founder.
00:05:33.160 First is a prototype.
00:05:34.400 I really believe that if you paid somebody to build an MVP,
00:05:36.860 that's one thing.
00:05:37.840 I don't even believe you should actually do that.
00:05:39.440 I think you should build a clickable prototype,
00:05:41.280 which is a simulation of your software.
00:05:43.440 Have something to show them.
00:05:45.040 Show them you're serious, so bring the prototype.
00:05:47.320 The second thing you wanna bring is pre-sell.
00:05:49.940 Go find ideal customers, show them your prototype,
00:05:53.040 and get them to pre-commit to using the product
00:05:56.060 or buying into the vision of the product,
00:05:57.780 and if you don't spend the money, give it back.
00:05:59.520 And people are like, well, I can't find anybody to do this.
00:06:01.560 You know what, it's a $10 billion industry
00:06:03.860 called crowdfunding around rewards and equity.
00:06:07.360 The overall industry's about 40 billion,
00:06:09.240 but just the crowdfunding, the equity
00:06:12.160 and the rewards component is 10 billion.
00:06:14.460 Everyday people on Indiegogo and Kickstarter
00:06:18.140 fund their projects and there's no difference
00:06:20.800 for you to get pre-sales from customers.
00:06:22.440 And the third area is you gotta bring some passion.
00:06:24.940 I mean, if you think just because you have an idea
00:06:27.600 and it's kind of a good idea that I'm gonna get somebody
00:06:29.640 to be my technical co-founder and you don't bring
00:06:31.980 a level of energy, excitement, passion, knowledge,
00:06:35.380 understanding, market research, then good luck
00:06:39.220 because anybody that's that good that could be one of your
00:06:43.360 co-founders probably have their own ideas,
00:06:45.320 probably could build their own thing,
00:06:46.460 probably don't need to work with you,
00:06:47.860 could probably work at Facebook or Google.
00:06:49.800 So you need to bring that extra magic.
00:06:51.960 Now finally, I want to share with you guys the IKEA effect
00:06:55.940 because it's kind of in the vein of what I suggest of hiring
00:06:59.600 people, you know, Pitbull said it best in one of his songs.
00:07:02.080 He said, ask for money, get advice.
00:07:03.840 Ask for advice, get money twice.
00:07:05.940 Yes, I am quoting Pitbull.
00:07:08.120 And the reason why is Ikea,
00:07:10.560 you've probably bought their furniture,
00:07:11.900 every startup has, has this thing they learned
00:07:15.020 where they are able to sell you furniture cheaper
00:07:17.620 because they offload the labor costs to you.
00:07:21.200 If you've never realized that,
00:07:22.360 like all the costs it would've took them
00:07:23.660 to assemble or preassemble the furniture,
00:07:26.080 they say, nope, we're just gonna include
00:07:27.540 a little Allen key and this little dinky screwdriver
00:07:30.680 and now you are responsible for putting together.
00:07:33.140 And what happens is when you buy, let's say, a desk
00:07:36.180 and you put it together.
00:07:38.380 After you've created, you actually have a higher sense
00:07:40.860 of value because you contributed in the creation.
00:07:43.760 It's called the IKEA effect.
00:07:44.980 It's actually a psychological or kind of a study
00:07:48.300 in psychology that anything that you participate in creating
00:07:52.360 has a higher value than if you just bought it
00:07:54.500 for its utility and this is true for software
00:07:58.240 when you're building it.
00:07:59.240 If you bring a technical co-founder in just to ask
00:08:01.840 for advice, help them guide the development,
00:08:04.880 Guide the product, guide the decisions
00:08:07.080 on what platforms to use.
00:08:08.920 Over time, they're gonna start kind of thinking
00:08:12.520 or valuing your idea maybe more than their own,
00:08:14.960 especially if you start getting customers pre-orders.
00:08:17.160 That is the magic and that is the process
00:08:20.600 and there's no way to fast track it,
00:08:22.400 but if you do it, you will find somebody incredible.
00:08:24.760 You'll be able to work with them before you work with them
00:08:27.060 and really make a solution come to life.
00:08:30.300 And that is my wish for you.
00:08:31.600 As per usual, I wanna challenge you to live a bigger life
00:08:34.280 and a bigger business, and I'll see you next Monday.
00:08:36.720 If you like this video, and you must if you're still watching,
00:08:39.580 be sure to subscribe to my channel.
00:08:41.220 Every Monday I put out new content.
00:08:43.060 I'd also invite you to join my newsletter
00:08:44.920 where I share exclusive invites to events,
00:08:47.860 free training videos, and community contests.
00:08:50.360 And if you're ready, keep going.
00:08:51.200 I got two videos queued up for you.
00:08:52.860 See you next week.