David Hauser

“How do I find a technical co-founder?” I get this question all the time, and quite frankly, there isn’t an easy answer. However, it goes without saying that a technical co-founder is critical to the success of web startup. I went to Babson College, where everyone majors in business, but this environment is very similar to the real world in that many there was a separation between “business” people and “technical” people. While I was very lucky to be very technical and had done programming in high school, this is not common. So, as a marketing and business person with other business building skills, how do you find a technical co-founder?

1. Find a local Ruby on Rails community and be social
   Part of finding a technical co-founder means putting yourself out there; find the meetups, events, groups and gatherings that are targeted to technical people and go. Do not worry about understanding the technical stuff— use the opportunity to meet people that are technical and active in the community. While I picked Ruby on Rails (RoR) for a specific reason, you could do this same sort of networking and outreach in many different technical communities. The reason I picked Ruby on Rails is because it is the community with the most entrepreneurial developers, who understand lean startup, testing, and just get that style of starting a business. Not everyone totally understands this, but the concentration is much higher in the RoR community.
2. Get involved at colleges with very technical people
   Depending on where you live, there are great opportunities to get involved with colleges and universities that have super bright technical people. Boston is teaming with colleges and universities, but many schools in other parts of the country have technical people and organizations, and are looking for the other half of the startup equation. Inquire with schools about events to get people talking and interacting.
3. Founder “dating”
   This is a new trend and has started to appear in communities that have a lot of startups. The concept is really simple and pretty self-explanatory, bring people together that are all looking to start companies, already believe in the co-founder concept, and want to find the right person. Then let them “date” or interact in a number of settings in order to determine if they’re the right fit. What’s great about this is that everyone understands why they’re doing it—to find a co-founder of any sort—and that makes everyone’s expectations more or less realistic.

Just like networking to meet customers, or finding and hiring the best employees, you need to be creative and look for the places that bring together the type of person you are looking for, then get out there and talk.

How did you find your co-founder or what are some creative methods you’ve implemented in order to find that technical co-founder?