TBC: How & Why to Get a Technical Co-founder

Hey there. Welcome to this episode of the backchannel. I want to talk a little bit about getting a technical co-founder. If you're non-technical both why that's important and then how to actually do it. So let's start with why it's so important for VCs to see teams that have both a technical co-founder and non-technical co-founder. One of the things is VCs realize that there are a lot of things that a company needs to do. In order to be successful, especially early on, and a lot of the things that companies need to do. Usually don't. Naturally find themselves in one type of person it's rare but possible that you would have a builder, a technical person in the same shell. of a salesperson, a marketer, a networker, a fundraiser.

I'm not saying that that's not possible, but we don't see that happen very often. And because of that, it's nice to have a two headed beast, a multi-headed beast that has. All the aspects or most of the [00:01:00] aspects of an early stage team that can successfully build. A venture capitalist wants to back a team that they believe can keep going without additional capital.

So if you're a non-technical founder and you need to raise money in order to pay for outsource engineering, then, well, you can only be agile and build and iterate as far as your money will allow you to go. Whereas if you are a. Co-founding team with a non-technical founder and a technical founder who can build. We may invest in you as venture capitalists and you may be running out of money, but this team itself could actually cut head count, cut, burn, and continued to build and continue to iterate on their path towards product market fit and future scaling.

That's a really ideal and attractive team for venture capitalists to back. Okay. So that's why. Technical co-founders are so valuable. What about the, [00:02:00] how?

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[00:03:00] Yes, it can be a little bit. I rolly to hear another person say, Hey, you need to go find a technical co-founder so that you can build, but. A lot of founders who come from business backgrounds and have great ideas and sort of industry expertise are like, yeah, but how do I find and how do I attract these. Amazing technical co-founders. The thing that I always push nontechnical founders to do. Is to keep making progress. It can be too easy and too much of a, an excuse to be like, well, I can't do anything unless I have product bullshit.

You can do so much without a technical product being built. And in today's day and age with the amount of no code tools and AI products that we have that can. Enhance a [00:04:00] non-technical founder's ability to ship. There is no excuse for you not to make progress, not to create traction, not to build momentum on your own before you bring on a technical co-founder.

If you can't find them. And the way to attract great talent is to actually have momentum and actually create value without them. You will not get the best talent just by raising your hand and saying, you need a technical co-founder what will get you the best talent is to go and say, look at all. I've done.

Look at all the validation I've done in the market. Look at this MVP. I built on this no-code tool. Look at this contract that I got signed without having any product built. These are all possible things that a non-technical co-founder should be capable of doing. And so I encourage all of you to make as much progress as you can, before you go out and recruit technical.

Co-founders not only will that help you in your [00:05:00] negotiation. It'll also help you attract way better talent. Okay.

I hope this gave you some of the steps that you'll need to find your next technical co-founder and start you on the path to product market fit and eventually huge success. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the back channel. I'll see you next time.