Is it just me or it is kind of hard to find people to build something with? | Hacker News Reader

Is it just me or it is kind of hard to find people to build something with?

3 pointsklondono10 comments

Hey,

I’ve been a software engineer (backend) for over nine years and have been wanting to build something on my own for a while now. I have ideas, good planning skills, and the discipline to execute, but unfortunately, I lack the experience as an entrepreneur, which I believe is an important aspect. This has led me to consider finding partners to help me bring my ideas to life or collaborate on new projects. However, it’s been challenging to find people who are committed, structured, have a long-term mindset, and maintain positive energy.

Many people get excited about a project initially, but then they disappear or lose interest when results don’t come quickly. And unfortunately, I’m not in a position to hire people at the moment.

Has anyone else been through this? How have you found people who are truly committed to the long haul?

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I've gone with people I've known (friends, basically) rather than finding partners at meetups etc. I know I'm lucky in my choice of friends. This worked really well one time and not so well another.

Case 1: I started Fiat Lux with my friend Nick, who I met in college. We worked together on it for eight years. He was fully committed and put in just as much work as I did. Even when things were tough and not working well, I knew I could count on him, and he stayed to the end.

Case 2: For a superresolution radio app I recruited a small team of friends who I had worked alongside before for years. I knew they were all great people and very competent. For the first year or so it went well, but when we didn't get any momentum going, life got in the way and most of the team found other things more important. In the end I was the only one still working on it and we dissolved the partnership.

The differences between those cases, as I understand them:

1) Younger vs middle aged - family responsibilities get in the way

2) Prior interest - I think Nick would have worked on fusion if any opportunity had come his way, while my later team wasn't nearly as interested in superresolution as I was

3) Unequal previous time investment - when I brought Nick in, it was still pretty early in the project, so it was a journey together. But when I recruited the team, I already had a patent, basic code and years of work done, and I think this left them with less of a feeling of shared ownership.

4) Team dynamic - with the team, when one person was excited, it got everyone excited, but when one person was discouraged, it made everyone else discouraged. Managing this dynamic was difficult and distracted from the work. With just me and Nick things were simpler.

I've tried this. Unfortunately, I don't know if the problem has been that they are the wrong people or probably I'm not that good at selling my idea.

Also, I relate that young people are more willing to help but also to quit. I have a younger brother who is a graphic designer; he supports me a lot, he is very disciplined, but I don't see where he can fit in my early software development cycle. I usually ask him for support when I need graphic pieces, but that is not that common, so in an ideal world, he would be my partner :)

I recently found some people to collaborate with

One was through GitHub where I started talking to a developer after contributing some fixes to his project which got the ball rolling on another endeavor that we're both very interested in creating

The other was through a forum where some users are creative technical types, so giving feedback opened the doors for collaboration

The idea that attracts others is the idea that is well-communicated. So start talking about specifics in the open. You may be surprised at the responses

I truly appreciate this advice. I haven’t really been one to give feedback or participate, but believe me, I will, it might be very valuable.

https://www.meetup.com/ Search for people in your area with a group who are doing what you are looking for help with.

great advice, thanks!

a way to find people is to pursue your natural interests and let “the project” become its own thing organically

Welcome to the club, I suppose.

I am eternal optimist, but pragmatic as well. I have tried many avenues and have varying amounts of hits and misses over the decades.

I realize it is geography, luck, happenstance (and other factors) for most part in finding a co-founder.

I also realize a shared experience or pain is pivotal in finding and keeping a co-founder.

MeetUps and CoFounder Dating and other sites are good, but hard to find the ying for your yang (for lack of a better term) by just talking to some random person at a random meetup. It is not impossible, of course.

So no answers here and I haven’t found any myself - yet!

Haha, thanks for the welcoming. I relate to the whole message. Someone told me today that I can focus on building simple, small things, release them, and then people will reach out based on whether they are interested or not in what I publish. That will probably attract the people who are truly worth having involved in what you’re creating. What do you think?

Build what and for whom? Building / coding is not the gating factor or important thing here. We can pretty much build anything, right? For me finding customers and problems to solve for those customers is the most important first step. I can build something, but unless I have paying customers what good would it do other than for learning / doing sake?

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