Having a strong co-founding team is an important success component for startups. Having the wrong team is amongst the top reasons why startups face failure, in particular at the earliest stages of developing a startup. Without a strong team, the concept will simply stay as that, a concept. However, finding the best co-founder can seem like a long and complex procedure. There are numerous things that business owners require to think about when making the decision of who to begin a company with. Based upon our experience, there are 5 important elements that make a strong co-founding group. However, before you begin searching for someone, you require to ask yourself some crucial questions.
Do you require a co-founder?
There is no right or incorrect answer here. Lots of unicorns have succeeded with only one founder however in general, a team of 2 or 3 individuals has the very best characteristics essential to run a company. Think how great it is to have someone on your team to share your wins with and have a shoulder to cry on, someone that can match your strengths and balance out your weak points. Founding a company is not a stable journey, it can be a real fight where you need some friendly power that you’re not going to get from your employees.
Where do I begin
Before proceeding to you start the headhunt for the best co-founder, you should start with yourself. First of all, discover your superpowers – things you are proficient at and keen on doing. Then, be brutally truthful with yourself and face your weaknesses. When you identify your strengths and powerlessness, try to find a person who completes you. The ideal co-founder will have the abilities you lack. Having the right state of mind is definitely key when trying to find a co-founder. Discovering a perfect co-founder is all about increasing your luck area. Invest as much time as possible with people talking about your concepts. This is when you see whether the individual has an interest in the same field, whether they can include value to your concept and whether you have the chemistry. If you meet someone with whom you see yourself working, that’s great! However don’t worry, it’s alright to tell them that before you begin working together, you want to fulfill other people and have more thorough conversations relating your ideas. Keep in mind to be open and transparent in your communication. It’s clear that you want to exploit all the chances. Just keep in mind that the heads-up for your potential co-founder is important to have a strong and truthful foundation of your relationship.
What Is a Tech CoFounder Responsible For?
A tech co-founder is not just a developer or a worker with some coding skills. First of all, a tech cofounder is a cofounder – a partner who puts a substantial amount of time and effort into the startup. You need a person with a mix of tech & business background, not a regular coder.
A tech cofounder can be responsible for:
- Managing a development team
- Shaping the development strategy
- The project’s MVP
- The concepts’ tech stack
- Dealing with other business-related tasks
Cofounders put a lot into the project and generally request a reasonable amount of equity. If you’re starting out and require much support, be ready to part with a substantial amount of equity (as much as 50%). Still, the amount of equity a cofounder gets depends upon the individual you’re working with.
Here’s who can be a tech cofounder:
Senior developer. A person with 5+ years of programming experience (consisting of managing a dev team), numerous completed projects, and understands of the industry.
CTO. A much-evolved variation of a senior designer. CTOs are more proficient at seeing the full picture, have both company & tech backgrounds. And they used to be great programmers, too. Worth employing if you can manage a tech salary and ready to share a reasonable amount of equity.
Already a tech cofounder. The next level after a CTO: they have the same great programs and management skills but are more inverse in the company. Cofounders have a voice in the business and are compensated with equity.
Or may you likewise need to compensate your cofounder’s time and skills with salary? According to Glassdoor, it’ll cost you ~$102,055/ year typically if you reside in the US. In a perfect world, a tech cofounder is an individual you already understand and can trust. Perhaps a school or college pal or a coworker from your previous workplace. But if you have no tech & business-savvy people amongst your youth buddies, that does not suggest you won’t find a partner.
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When to Start Looking for a Tech CoFounder?
Let’s see the most popular cases when you might need a tech cofounder.
You need a Tech Strategy
To back your concept up with some real tech method (and even an MVP), you need to be into tech elements. Or find an individual who is. As we’ve said, a technical cofounder shouldn’t be a one-sided programmer. It’s rather a partner who comprehends business requirements and can assist construct a tech technique for your startup.
Need a Reliable Co-founder
The most affordable way to discover a person with a tech background is to cooperate with freelancers. But there’s a catch. Though freelancers might be terrific designers, usually, they’re more concerned about ending up the task and getting the income than about the item’s success. Or they may even quit your job and go quiet forever. A cofounder isn’t the guy who does all the tech-related jobs for you. Yep, tech people might do not have marketing or sales skills (that’s where you can be beneficial for your partner), however, they should not focus exclusively on tech tasks.
Have a Great Concept idea
The idea matters a lot. But the concept won’t assist your cofounder to pay for rent and groceries, so individuals will not work on a blurred concept that does not inspire them. Or has no genuine background. Tech co-founders have their preferences and won’t deal with a project that doesn’t match their interests. Specifically when they can have a great wage somewhere in Google or Facebook. If you have trouble with attracting a tech cofounder and no one responds to your idea, start without them. You can work with a CTO or a software dev business for a start: write documentation, create an MVP – something to get individuals thinking about your project. In this case, you must have a basic budget to cover software application development expenses.
Have a great idea but don’t know where to start?
Want to be next on the list of extraordinary ideas but are afraid to pick the correct tech pattern? Or are you afraid to fall with your vision and end it like that? Put your sorrowful worries away and book a free Product Development Strategy Session! We are an experienced and professional digital firm that supports and assists different start-ups. We guide them through the development procedure from point A to point B breaking down every step. Our specialist discusses the development priorities and supports their innovative idea. So what’s holding you back? Leave a short description of your distinct idea or a task on our very first and free advancement action: Product Development Method Session. And we’ll contact you in no time!
Get Prepared to Deal with the paperwork
Founding a company with cofounders indicates more paperwork and higher risks. Specifically if you’re starting a company with a few cofounders and splitting equity becomes a problem. If your startup has a lot of cofounders, you may end up being a victim of jagged partners. A couple of colleagues may unite to topple your position. After the initial financial investment round, your sponsors may take their put on the board of directors, leaving you with even less equity. Anything can happen, so you have to select both tech-founders and investors wisely. Simply to avoid being eliminated from your own task. That’s why some individuals prefer to work with CTOs who are regular workers of the company. They don’t make life-changing decisions concerning your business, and they’re less headache to fire.
Where to Look for a Tech CoFounder?
Looking for a tech cofounder could take months. Obviously, if you do not have a bunch of tech-savvy good friends with a company background who are ready to action in. There’s a bunch of things to check, consisting of cofounders portfolio, know-how in service, and interaction abilities. So to find the ideal individual, you need to spend lots of time and effort. Here are some popular methods to do that.
Networking
Start with individuals you already understand. It might be your colleagues, school or university friends, and even member of the family. There’s an opportunity to discover the ideal person among the people you already understand, and social media networks are excellent for calling them. If you have a large network of individuals on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, perhaps it’s time to look through your contacts. If you do not have a vast network, it’s time to fix this – you’re going to require social presence quickly enough.
How do I know if this is the best fit?
When you finally have a certain person in mind, ask yourself “is this person an energy gainer or energy drainer to me?”. Can you see yourself delight in being around this person nearly every day for the next 5 years or more? Do they make you feel stimulated and encouraged or indifferent and slow? Nothing is more important than your chemistry. A lot of teams learn more about each other for many weeks or even months. But you can make things easier by talking through the challenging concerns early on. Are we gonna work weekends for the very first year? Are we gonna take wages? How do we employ individuals? How do we pay them? Are you going to hang out with your kids/partner? What’s your motivation to develop a company? Talk through your individual values and your long-lasting vision for your business. The earlier you have the answers to these questions, the better for the future of your company. Besides that, if whatever looks perfect in theory, however, you are still in doubt, listen to your suspicion. It is frequently the very best indicator.
We help our founders build strong co-founding teams and validate their business idea
As we’ve been on the digital market for more than 10 years with lots of startups, we felt their anxiety and doubts during the development cycle. For that reason, we have developed a technological flow that can potentially cast all of your worries away, and it starts from the Product Development Strategy Session. It is a free business consultation where your team and ours will create a general plan covering the future product cycle and an action plan with high-level features for your first steps. Got interested already? Leave your short project description, and we’ll be in contact with you within 24 hours.
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