#tech co-founder

Back when I was sourcing funding for MonkeyFind, I had a meeting with an investor and his business partner in London. At the time, inexperienced and slightly naïve, I had been trying to secure funding for MF without a tech team – in fact, much of the funding WAS for a tech team.

Looking back, I don’t think I have ever been so well prepared heading into an investor meeting. We had a detailed plan and analysis for everything; a solid product roadmap, pre-agreed strategic partnerships, a comprehensive revenue model with detailed projections, and a well prepared presentation. I was excited when I sat down in the corner of the investor's open plan office, waiting for him to arrive.

The Meeting

Shortly after being seated, I was told that this (where I was sitting) would be the location for the meeting. There was a couch and two arm chairs, and a fish tank if I recall – but there was nowhere to show my slides. Because the office was open plan, I was so close to other people that I could hold a whispered conversation with several engineers working to my left. It goes to show that in presenting your business, you must be prepared (mentally) to give your pitch anywhere.

The investor then arrives, but shortly after I engage them with the preliminaries, the meeting is cut short. So short, it lasts barely 5 minutes. In a flash, the investor is out of his chair and out of the room. It’s over. Despite all my impenetrable detail, the investor focused on just one thing before exploring any of it: our lack of a technical co-founder. We had partnered with a well-known third party development company, but in his view, that represented poor value for his investment. So out he went.

“A good entrepreneur finds a way"

I remember the business partner stayed around to show me out. I was a little taken aback but asked him why the in-house team (and the technical co-founder) is so important to this investor. After all, I had been told (and you will read in places) that outsourcing your tech is not a massive obstacle to obtaining investment. Given that we had no money, no real connections and no experience of having done this before, I was willing to try anything he might recommend. But the business partner said simply “A good entrepreneur finds a way.” I was then promptly (though politely) shown the door.

I recall this story because now, with Chattoo moving forward in Product Discovery, it is time to bring in a technical co-founder. But he needs to be excellent.

Yeah yeah I know all the stories about how you have to find your tech co-founder in order to get things done. I know all of you guys spending months searching for the one. I've been there myself.

But no more.

I've recently started a new venture called PartnerChase.

Funny fact is it started as a co-founders matching website after I couldn't find a tech guy and wanted someone to create a real matching solution, not just a searching/browsing profiles solution.

So I started writing the plan, created some mock-ups, put up some numbers in excel to see the business potential and focused on market research and validation.

While doing all the above, I had to look for my tech co-founder because HEY, you can't start a startup without a tech guy!

After 3 months, things started slowing down...

I finished creating the mock-ups, the plan was written and re-written ~8 times, the excel plan was ready for the following 5 years (and looked great!) and I pivoted some according to the feedbacks and insights I got from people I met.

What's next? I can't find my tech guy... Is that mean I have to stop?

NO! NO! NO!

I took myself to Google and typed: "freelance developers".

I was shaky doing so since I had no money to spend - I was bootstrapped.

I got a bunch of results but the first two were Elance and oDesk - 2 great platforms for connecting us, the simple non-tech's with the smart almighty guys called "tech guys" :)

                                   I published an ad on each of them and gave a maximum fee of 100$.

I got a few responses and after some thought decided to take the cheapest one - hey, I was bootstrapped!!

So I started messaging with this great guy from India and made sure he understands what I need.

2 days later, my "freelance tech guy" sent me the stuff he developed.

I was shocked to see how quickly he did it and besides some minor tweaks and changes - everything was perfect. At least to the level I expected.

So I gave him another mission and this time it was even cheaper.

And so I'm planning to keep on doing until my tech guy will find me.

I read somewhere the following:

"...You don't find a tech co-founder, you earn one."

In case you didn't get me until now, I totally believe in it.

Just to make clear, I don't own any shares either on Elance or oDesk. I just discovered that these platforms enable us, the non-tech's to take our startup forward despite the fact that we haven't found a tech co-founder yet.