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Are there any networks where Engineers WANT to find non-Engineering Co-Founders? Thinking of building it
I'm many things. Marketer, Builder, no-code hacker, WordPress nerd, Tech Veteran.
One thing I'm not: Engineer.
If you ask me to build something in Bubble, or WordPress, I'm quite adept. I even know how to slap together JS to make things look neat (see my app at littlewinsapp.com).
But I'm not an Engineer. If you ask me to use Shipfa.st and boot up an MVC cloud app (eg: todo list) , I couldn't do it. It hurts my brain. The word "Docker" is a clothing brand, not something Engineers built.
So what does someone like me (a non-Eng) do if they have a startup idea?
The typical answer is one or more of
One thing I'm not: Engineer.
If you ask me to build something in Bubble, or WordPress, I'm quite adept. I even know how to slap together JS to make things look neat (see my app at littlewinsapp.com).
But I'm not an Engineer. If you ask me to use Shipfa.st and boot up an MVC cloud app (eg: todo list) , I couldn't do it. It hurts my brain. The word "Docker" is a clothing brand, not something Engineers built.
So what does someone like me (a non-Eng) do if they have a startup idea?
The typical answer is one or more of
- Make landing page bro - collect $
- Use Bubble (lolz)
- Get VC money - then we code
- Learn how to code
There is one more option nobody has built, as far as I know:
5. Join Community xxxx. Its a community of Engineers that WANT to work with Product Managers, Marketers, and non-Engineering people. Engineers join because they believe startups have a higher chance of success when they have a non-Engineering person on the team. Engineers that join realize they can often get too stuck in the "solution" space and need a counterpart to help them see things differently.
Does this option need to exist?
Is there a latent demand from Engineers for it? (I see many solo-Engs here building)
👋 Join WIP to participate
I can’t speak for everyone but as a solo founder with an engineering background here are my thoughts:
CoFoundersLab and YC Startup School are trying to solve for this. On these types of sites, the ratio is usually 99.99% business people with a GrEaT iDeA tHaT JuST nEeDs SoMe CoDe and 0.01% developers who can actually build those ideas. YC has a strong brand and I think you’re going to have a hard time convincing the very few (relatively speaking) engineers already on that platform to join this other one that you’re proposing to create. Communities are hard.
I’m negative on this idea because I see adding cofounders as a risk. Seen too many cases of “good on paper” cofounder relationships that fail for reasons beyond the usual “make sure you both agree on equity and work styles” and this causes giant changes to the business, employee churn, etc. Not unlike a normal relationship, sometimes the person you end up going into business with isn’t who you thought they were, and that only becomes obvious after working together for a year. Except this cofounder “relationship” is typically legally binding and much more difficult to exit if something goes wrong.
As someone with an engineering background who is willing to do tasks beyond writing code like sales, product vision, marketing, SEO - I just don’t see the need for me to work with a cofounder and needlessly give away equity. I wouldn’t use the site.
That's great feedback. Thank you!
I agree with Ben, there is waaaay more demand fron non engineers to partner with a developer than the opposite.
In my opinion, it's easier to spin a startup with poor marketing, sales, etc, but it's impossible without a real product.
So in the end, developer tend to avoid co-founder for their own ideas unless they really want to focus on coding and want to build this specific idea, otherwise it would make more sense to partner with a business person that have a validated solution or expertise in the specific business domain.
Thanks Hugo. I have known it my entire career (25 years in tech) but somehow thought I could beat the odds I guess. Mentioning supply/demand reality is helpful. Certainly, there are way more people with "ideas" (validated or not) then there are Engineers to build them.
This doesn't change my target goal - build something people want.
But it does change my approach to building "the next thing", should I ever do that.
I generally agree with @ben and @hugopenna. I tried to find the match on YC. All people with skill that I lack has ideas. ALL their ideas are something in crypto (not even mentioning blockchain) or AI. For me I guess it needs to be some kind vetted community, maybe even paid, or matchmaking for engineers with an idea that people willing to help with sales, marketing, SEO etc