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4 Tips for Finding a Technical Co-Founder

4 Tips for Finding a Technical Co-Founder
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By John Rampton

Although I now run a payments solution business that leverages next-generation payment processing and security technology, I certainly can't take credit for the technical aspects of the company. After all, my background is purely in online marketing, online advertising and blogging.

Since starting a number of companies that have involved online advertising, web hosting, and now online invoicing and payment solutions, I've spent a lot of time taking coding classes. I added this technical knowledge to my skill set and have learned just enough to better understand the tools I'm using to build these solutions. Having some technical know-how helps me construct the current and future strategy of my business, which essentially runs on technology.

However, in order to get it off the ground, I decided to bring a technical co-founder on board, Chalmers Brown, our current CTO. Here are some tips based on my own experience with finding a technical co-founder:

  • Know where to look. I found Chalmers at a hackathon I was judging. He was one of the finalists. I was impressed with his skills, plus, he had some great ideas and a vision of the future of technology that fit with what I was trying to achieve. However, hackathons aren't the only good place to look for technologically-savvy individuals. I've seen colleagues discover their tech talent at incubators, industry trade shows, college job fairs and networking events. Other places you might look include sites like LinkedIn, Founder2Be, CoFoundersLab and FounderDating.

  • Know what to look for. As I previously noted, I instantly recognized that my technical co-founder had an incredible skill set that I needed to further build out my payment platform and sound business ideas for the online invoicing company products and domain name I had just purchased. Besides his skill set, I liked his personality, his enthusiasm, the professional way he carried himself, and his previous experience in starting his own companies. We hit it off immediately. Getting a sense of what your co-founders are like and how well you might work together is critical to your startup's success. Make sure you feel that connection with the technical co-founder you're considering to keep conflict to a minimum.

  • Know what to ask and offer. Before I approached him, I spent time researching the questions I wanted to ask and exactly what I was offering. One of the most important things to ask is what their own career path has been, where they plan to be in the next few years and where they see themselves now. If you are bringing someone on who is going to be intimately involved in building out all technical aspects of your business, you want to know that they will be around for a while. Additionally, I asked about his background, what happened with his own startups, and how he thought he saw himself within what I was trying to build. I wanted to make sure my offer was attractive to him and was reflective of his talent and the effort he would be putting into creating a technological solution for customers. I wanted to make sure that he understood our target audience. With some negotiation, we reached a common ground where we were both satisfied with what we could get out of working together.

  • Know where they fit. While my technical co-founder had built his own startups, he had never been in business with someone else. As such, we spent a lot of time talking about his role in a co-founded company and where he could see himself within the organization. Chalmers described what he could offer the business and how it benefitted him to take on the additional title and role of chief technology officer. He demonstrated how he could make decisions. For him, the fit was perfect; however, in your own search, you may have a different picture of where and how your technical co-founder will fit in. Make sure you study your business in terms of the technical skill gaps and determine whether your co-founder should fill both roles or if they can oversee the hiring of a CTO or other tech talent.

    • If your business has additional co-founders already in the picture, make sure they are involved. Have in-depth conversations with them and have others in the organization meet the individual you are considering for a technical position, so you know they also feel comfortable working with the candidate. I worked with another co-founder to consult with and include in the decision-making process.

    With more chefs in the kitchen, it's important that each one has a say in who else should come on board, including how you should determine compensation and ownership. Of course, the more co-founders you involve, the more complicated making an actual decision can become. But if you build a team that has a shared vision and set of values for the company, you'll be able to come together to achieve exactly what you set out to do.

    John Rampton is the founder of Palo Alto, California-based Due, a free payments company specializing in helping businesses bill their clients easily online. You can connect with him @johnrampton.

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