How to Find a Great Technical Cofounder

How to Find a Great Technical Co-‐Founder
Jennifer Turliuk, CEO of Koru @jenniferturliuk www.getkoru.com

This topic is geCng a liDle out of hand…

It’s easy to think it’s impossible Many big companies
are throwing ﬁsLuls of cash at developers

But it is possible •  Disclaimer: I don’t claim
to be an expert and our developer is fairly new to our team…however: RESULTS OF OUR EXTENSIVE WORLDWIDE SEARCH •  85+ interested developers –  Backgrounds: MIT, Princeton PhD, computer science professors, Google •  ~30 highly qualiﬁed candidates –  Brought on 1 totally amazing technical cofounder

Our Process 1.  Lots of research 2.  Wrote
posifon descripfon and iterated on it based on feedback 3.  Set goals and tracked progress 4.  2 weeks full-‐fme: publicized the opportunity 5.  40 interviews over 2 days 6.  12 people’s code reviewed 7.  Follow-‐up discussions with 5 candidates 8.  Brought on 1

1. Research: Should we look for a Technical Cofounder?
OPTIONS FOR NON-‐TECHNICAL FOUNDERS: •  Hire an employee •  Outsource •  Learn to code •  Start a non-‐technical business •  Technical co-‐founder –  Ability to aDract stronger talent –  Ability to do rapid iterafon –  Aligned incenfves à equity, honesty –  No remote work

1. (Cont’d) More Research •  What does a technical
cofounder mean? •  What languages do we want to use? •  What aDracts a good developer? •  Where do developers ﬁnd out about opportunifes? •  What sort of compensafon package should we give out? •  Etc etc etc

1. Original Posifon Descripfon Koru Labs Inc: Founding CTO
Company Profile: We’re helping people share and learn skills that they are passionate about. Having been selected for the Startup Chile program (which offers equity-‐free seed financing and six months in Chile), we plan to use the next few months to build a new online marketplace. Role: This is an opportunity for a back-‐end developer who is looking to help build a business from the ground floor. You will start by joining us in Sanfago, Chile for the durafon of the Startup Chile program. The role is to assure the execufon of our business mission through the development and deployment of a web-‐presence. Major Responsibili?es: Manage all technical aspects of the business Requirements: Previous experience as a Lead Developer Passionate about company vision Bonus: University degree in the field of computer science, engineering, or another rigorous discipline Compensa?on: Generous equity percentage and salary Roundtrip flight to and from Sanfago, Chile Travel insurance Accommodafons Flexible work environment The Team: We met at Queen’s University while complefng business degrees. Together, we co-‐chaired Canada’s largest undergraduate business plan compeffon (The Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Compeffon). We most recently ran a launchpad program called Founder2Founder in Toronto that brought together some of Canada’s top CEOs and investors with 10 young entrepreneurs selected by applicafon, who have since generated significant press and created 27 jobs for the Canadian economy. Jennifer Turliuk, Founder & CEO: One of the top 6 finalists in compeffon to shadow Dave McClure, spoke on stage with Peter Thiel (founder of Paypal), invited to join MaiTai (exclusive group of kite boarding entrepreneurs and investors run by Bill Tai of Charles Rivers Ventures), DJ’d for Red Bull and one of the top ten black fe events in North America, 2nd in biz plan compeffon in Brazil for MBA students while in undergrad, featured in the New York Times, former marketer on P&G’s biggest brand with $10 million budget, avid salsa dancer. Jeremy Einhorn, Co-‐Founder & COO: Top grossing sales associate at North America's largest private health care clinic (Medcan) for 14 consecufve months, jump-‐started a public relafons pracfce with clients such as: Ashley Madison & Jayde Nicole, orchestrated a publicity stunt that garnered $4 million in media coverage in under 24 hours, assisted in quadrupling daily traffic to ZackTaylor.ca (20 000 unique views per day) in less than 6 months, aDended A-‐list events such as The Oscars & The Grammys and chaired an advisory board at the Safehaven Project for Community Living. Please submit resume and cover leDer to [email protected] by February 1st. TOO LONG & UNSPECIFIC

2. Final posifon descripfon (iterated based on feedback)

3. Set goals •  1000 page views by Feb
1 •  List of sites we wanted to target •  Tracked progress constantly via bit.ly

3. Set goals What fmes of day had
the most visits, and what did we do during those fmes to achieve that? What were the most popular referring sites? What countries were visifng the site most?

3rd result on Google for “Founding CTO”!

4. Publicized the opportunity •  Asked friends to apply
•  Emailed 250+ personal contacts asking “do you know anyone?” •  Direct messages to people found on Linkedin, Github, Facebook groups (emails found through Google, personal websites, etc) •  University job boards •  Startup Chile job board •  Techvibes arfcle •  Personal blog •  Facebook, TwiDer •  Hacker news •  Cofounder finding websites •  Developer job posfng websites •  Relevant groups on FB, Linkedin, Google Groups •  Groups related to our idea and internafonal opportunifes –  Couchsurfing, Burning Man, kiteboarding No specific site a clear winner à candidates came from everywhere

Relevant Sites •  Founder's Hookup •  cofound.org
•  techcofounder.com •  findmycofounder.com •  cofoundr.com •  foundersearch.com •  founder2be.com •  github.com •  hDp://stackoverflow.com/ •  Partner Up •  Techventure •  Foundershookup •  Start Link-‐Up •  Techcofounder •  Foundrs -‐ recruit co-‐founders •  StartupLinkup -‐ recruit co-‐founders •  Google Doc List -‐ secret Google doc for finding a co-‐founder •  CoFounder Network -‐ another by invitafon “you’re not good enough to get in” network •  PartnerUp-‐ small business site to find partners, business opportunifes, real estate, etc. •  Meetup – go to a Meetup! •  hQp://founder2be.com Complete a profile about yourself, select criteria for your co-‐founder, such as locafon, skills, and availability. You can post ideas or browse other “founders to be”. •  hQp://cofoundernetwork.com/ Closed network that links up entrepreneurs with engineers on new projects. You will need to apply to get in •  hQp://cofound.org/ Immediately search for the desired skillset you are looking for and contact •  hQp://www.techcofounder.com/ Technical guys post their skills, non-‐technical contact them or create an ad about your startup so others can contact you •  hQp://startuplinkup.com/ Wiki where people post up ideas, startup jobs, and services •  hQp://www.builditwith.me/ Created to link up designers and developers. Create a profile or contact others with ideas. •  hQp://programmermeetdesigner.com/ Another network created to link up designers and developers. Simply post up ads based on what you’re looking for. •  forrst An invite-‐only community where designers and developers share their work. •  hQp://www.weekendhacker.net/ A place where developers & designers help each other out on small projects. •  hQp://www.mysocialventure.com/ Find co-‐founders, and also any other aspect of creafng the beginning of a start-‐up. •  hQp://matchfounders.com/ -‐ Intended to help match founders with similar interests. •  Enternships •  Other exclusive dev websites •  Systers We didn’t pay for any sites -‐ instead we looked at their ‘featured members’ and found their email addresses on Google

5. Interviews •  From 85, selected 40 people with
relevant languages •  Used Google appointment slots to schedule fme •  Skype (video) – all over the world in 2 days •  Quesfons based on observing other technical interviews –  Two-‐way interview: mix of selling them on us, and having them sell us on them –  Got to know their personalifes –  Some technical quesfons •  Filtered out people who didn’t know English, didn’t ﬁt the skills or personality we were looking for, or couldn’t relocate quickly. –  Narrowed to 12 candidates

•  Thanks for reaching out to us •  We
have about 20 minutes -‐ we’d like to start by asking you quesfons, and then we’ll give you the chance to ask us quesfons •  So first we’ll tell you a bit about us. We met at university and went on to run Canada’s largest business plan compeffon together. Then Jeremy went on and started his own PR firm, worked at IBM, and then was the top sales associate at North America’s largest private health clinic. Myself, I started my own DJing company, worked in markefng for Procter & Gamble’s biggest brand, and then spent the past few months doing a bit of a self-‐educafon program that I created in Silicon Valley, which involved meefng with folks like Dave McClure and Peter Thiel, and shadowing at some startups as well. Jeremy and I got talking and realized that we were both very passionate about fixing the fact that over 80% of the workforce is dissafsfied in their jobs, and helping more people pursue career acfvifes that they are passionate about, for the last few months we’ve been working through various ideas on how to solve that. We thought that the best way would be to create a marketplace where people could easily find others to exchange skills with, applied to the Startup Chile program, and here we are in Sanfago, Chile. •  Now I’ve read a bit about you, but I’d love for you to tell me a bit about yourself and the thing you’ve built that you are most proud of and passionate about •  What are you looking for next in your professional career? Are you looking for a longer term thing, or just 6 months? [talk about how we value those things too] •  Going to name a few concepts to see how familiar you are with them -‐ please try and summarize them in 20secs or less [named a few technical concepts including a fake one, to see how quickly/ accurately they responded] •  How movable are you? •  What kind of compensafon would you be looking for? •  OK, we have ___ minutes le€ -‐ what quesfons do you have for us? •  OK, well it looks like our fme is almost up, so thanks so much for chaCng with us and we will be in touch within a week about next steps Interview Script

6. Code Reviews •  12 code reviews done
•  Done last because we had to have friends help and minimize the fme we asked of them •  Reviewers: people we knew were good coders –  Developers from Quora, Google, etc. •  Filtered in ways we couldn’t have, e.g. said “I’m sure you included these two guys as a joke to see if I was really reading?” about candidates we previously thought were amazing •  Narrowed to 5 top candidates

7. Follow-‐up discussions & decision •  More in-‐depth
•  How do you like to work? •  How fast can you do xyz? •  What are your long-‐term goals? •  Reference checks •  Potenfal addifon for future: – A fme-‐based coding challenge

Key success factors •  Startup Chile: network, reputafon, validafon
•  Cool internafonal opportunity •  Focused on it being an opportunity for a partner/cofounder, not employee/job/hiring •  Demonstrated our track record •  Hard-‐ass work – More leads = more conversions (sales funnel)

Next Steps •  We are now helping 25 of
the remaining candidates to ﬁnd posifons with startups/ corporafons in return for commission from the companies •  So far one of our candidates has already been hired by Amazon •  If you or your company are interested in working with us, please email us at [email protected]

Thanks to everyone who helped us on our
search [email protected] @jenniferturliuk www.getkoru.com Now we are on the lookout for a great UX designer!

How to Find a Great Technical Cofounder

How to Find a Great Technical Cofounder

jenniferturliuk

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