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Comment by Codhisattva | Hacker News Reader

Flat out hire a technical advisor. Don't bother dangling equity, just pay their rate like you would an attorney - retainer + hourly. Ask them to create a technical roadmap and architecture. With that in hand you can then find a first employee to implement it.

In this way, you can leverage the expensive expertise of a very senior level person where it's most needed and then hire a less experienced and less expensive individual to perform the daily work.

It's like building a house, hire an architect first, but then a general contractor to make it happen.

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Excellent advice - thank you. This has changed my approach from zero-sum technical co-founder/no technical co-founder!

My brother in law has successfully exited a small UK based tech start-up but I hadn't wanted to involve him in a new high risk start up due to family commitments etc. BUT he would be an excellent guy to take on an advisory role and to PM the development.

This is GREAT, rarely followed, advice. A good technical advisor can not only break the job into smaller, manageable pieces but can also help you vet potential candidates.

I would recommend this as well. but i see no reason why this person cannot be your cofounder. If you are building a software based company it would help to have a technical cofounder with a vested interest.

You don't sound like a traditional start-up, so most of the advice form startup school may not apply to you. You probably don't need someone who actually writes code day to day. I would get someone with high level expertise in building and running technical teams who can start from one developer and scale up. That person will lay out your technical infrastructure while you focus on the business side of things. This is definitely not an easy find, and is harder than finding some smart student who wants to play with latest technology x that does not fit well with your business plan.

I'm @shaded2 on twitter if you want to chat more

Co-founder usually means "compensated with more equity than cash". And there's also the implicit massive time commitment.

Part of the point is that an advisor is typically someone so experienced you can't afford all of their time. But they can turn enough of the problem into routine bits and pieces that it becomes easier for a person with less experience to implement correctly.

I believe all too many startups suffer from inexperienced developers throwing up the first thing that comes to mind. A little guidance goes a long way to taming youthful exuberance.

> i see no reason why this person cannot be your cofounder.

There's no real reason why anyone you find that can provide you with that service can't be your co-founder, but realistically speaking most of the people you meet won't be terribly interested in becoming a founder. It's a hell of a lot of hard work and it's very risky.

If you can convince him to take an equity stake, by all means hammer out an agreement, but you can get from zero to one even if he doesn't, simply by paying him for a clear set of deliverables.

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