soneill

Shoot me an email (check out my bio), I may have some front-end work.

Is it really that shocking though? RIM made its nest in the business community, not exactly a demographic you would anticipate would care a huge deal about apps. When the market shifted in the way it ultimately did, RIM proved unable to cope because it required a fundamental shift in their platform, which is not an easy pivot for a company of that scope.

It's easy to say you're passionate about a product, but how are you expressing that? Do you know the ins and outs of their product? Their market? Have you researched their competitors? The point I'm trying to make is that passion is great, but showing that you've turned that passion onto the needs of the position you're seeking is better. If you're looking for a technical position, get as deep into the technical nature and differentiators between their product and competitors. If it's marketing, talk about key demographics, key markets, etc. At the end of the day, you want to show them that while that college grad may come in and give them X level of production versus your (0.5)X on day 1, by day 50 you'll be at 2X while that grad is still at X. That's all you can do.

This is also the case with many professional fields. There are plenty of lawyers, accountants, marketers, etc. who start a small firm and then run it the rest of their life without expanding much, if at all. There's nothing wrong with a lifestyle business, it's just not a "startup".

The expectation would be that our revenues will grow to the point that retaining talent won't be a problem. We only just started the market entry process at the start of the month, so it's too early to say, but if I'm losing talent in a couple years because I can't afford to retain it, then our problems go way beyond our talent growing too expensive.

Not yet, but that's probably because we just started our market entry process about two weeks ago. That said, our operating costs are tiny (all combined they're currently less than my rent) so we'll hopefully get to that level in the near future.

As a non-developer solo founder, this article resonates with me more to the point of "as a founder, you can't expect to devote all your energies to any one thing". My responsibilities with my startup have varied pretty much by month.

First it was working with potential customers to figure out what kind of product they wanted. Then it was time to find the technologies that would allow me to create that product. Then it was finding a technical staff that could build our product using those technologies. Then it was preparing our sales strategy, materials, and sales staff to sell the product. Now it's primarily marketing, pitching to writers, blogs, and doing what I can to get the word out to consumers. If I had to forecast the next month or two, I'd say that preparing investor pitches and materials will start to absorb an increasing amount of my time, and I will probably end up finding a marketer to take over my marketing responsibilities so I can focus on the funding side.

Each of those stages basically involved devoting myself overwhelmingly to that particular issue that was most crucial to the business at that time (product development, sales, marketing, etc) then finding someone to delegate that work to once I needed to move on to the next step. Frankly, I'd never want to do it any other way, because it means I know every aspect of my business, my product, and my customers, and I know exactly what I need to delegate to make sure things get done right.

Moreover, by knowing every aspect of my business, no one is indispensable to me. When my original programmer decided he had to take a full time/weekly paycheck job for financial reasons, I knew my product and technologies well enough that I was able to seamlessly bring in a replacement to finish the work because even though it wasn't my code, it was my product so I could specify exactly what had to be finished, and what he'd be working on after it was done.

Last point, because it seems to be a widespread misconception here: Programming is only a part of the technical side. My startup uses multiple pieces of technology that my programmers weren't aware existed until I showed the APIs to them. Now, I couldn't have used those technologies without those programmers, because I lack the ability to actually take the APIs and plug them into our code, but I can find the technology that does what I need done, and then have them integrate it. If on the other hand I'd brought one of those developers on as a "technical co-founder", and relied on them to handle the technical side, we would have been dead in the water or would have ended up with an inferior product.

None of this is intended to be antagonistic, or to diminish the importance of programming to a tech startup. I simply state it to show there is more than one way to bake a pie, and that a non-programmer can still handle all the technical aspects of a company needed to create a successful startup. Food for thought!

No, you don't. I can't code my ass from my elbow, but I know how the technology works, I know where to find the kind of technology I want in my product, and I can find the people who can put it together.

I guess the distinction I'm trying to put is that there's a distinction between "non-technical" and "non-programmer". I can't program, but I know all the technically pertinent details of my product that any VC or customer is going to care about. To some extent, I think it frankly works better that way than if I was doing the coding, because I know what's really important in the product, and won't miss the forest for the trees.

You don't need to know how to code to be able to handle the technical responsibilities of actually running a tech startup. You just need to know the technology itself.

No, you put in the time to find a good programmer who will work for a reasonable price. Typically that means finding someone who graduated fairly recently and is looking for additional work, or someone that doesn't have a lengthy track record/portfolio. It's not easy (I've probably talked to a hundred some odd programmers in the last year, and maybe three would fit the bill), but you can find the right people if you put in the work.

It's no different than finding a good salesman, or a good PR person, or a good anything. You can find great talent at a reasonable price if you're willing to dig. Rockstars don't always come at rockstar prices, because a lot of the time they don't even know they're a rockstar.

Feel free to shoot me an email (address in my profile); depending upon the languages you know, I may have some work for you.

I posted this above, but to reiterate: Be very careful about hiring interns. You cannot just hire someone to be free labor. According to Federal regulations, you must receive "no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded".

Trust me, I'd love to hire some marketing interns to free work for my startup's launch, but that's just not legal.

Be careful of this route. Make sure any internship you offer fits into the legal guidelines of the US Department of Labor: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm#.UL1vs4Yt...

This is basically the path I've followed (I guess I'm at your stage 2?), and I can't recommend it enough. I've worked with 3 developers now, and talked to God knows how many more, and while I think my current developer may end up being a fit as a true partner/co-founder, I'm really thankful I didn't jump into bed with either of the original two I was working with for various reasons (limited technical skills, lack of dedication, etc).

It's very easy to say "get a cofounder". Finding a worthwhile partner is much harder.

This is really not impressive if you know the POS sphere. Starbucks' POS is a Micros-based system. Micros is the only major POS provider that is currently working with 3rd party vendors (such as Square) to allow direct integration between those vendors and Micros' clients. If this pays off for Micros, maybe we'll see more of it, but for now, others like Aloha are making so much revenue off their own products that they've shown no indication of adopting Micros' strategy.

Long story short: Don't expect many non-Micros clients to start getting added to Square, or anyone else, any day soon.

Email sent!

This is not legal advice.

Go here: http://www.probono.net/

Find your state and see if you can find a pro bono attorney or two. Give them a call. See if one can refer you to someone who does pro bono patent work. Gather whatever materials you can that prove your business was created prior to the filing of the patent, and have it ready to give to a lawyer. Do not reply to their lawyer again until you speak to a lawyer yourself.

Email sent!

Well, that's kind of the point, isn't it? As a non-technical business founder myself, I just can't understand what that guy possibly would have been thinking. I'd never give up that much of my company unless the other party was coming on board as full partner, meaning they're also going to be sharing all the financial and legal risks (and yes, that means contributing money as well as time). If you value your company at all, 40% is a massive sum to pay someone unless they're sharing all the risks with you, not just spending some of their time. Just giving yourself a $1 million dollar valuation, that means paying someone $400,000 to handle just one element of your business...and you could probably get it done a lot cheaper if you just took the time to go through your options.

As for finding technically skilled people who are available and want to work, it's not easy, but nothing in business is easy. It's no harder than any other part of a business, it just requires persistence and knowing where to look (I should know, I've hired a bunch of them in the last 6 months). Taking a shortcut and throwing a bunch of equity at the problem just shows the kind of lack of foresight that should make you question whether you really want to work with that kind of person.

Yeah, New Orleans is our test market. Plan is to show proof of concept with some traction there, then get some funding to expand regionally.

I'm working on http://www.couchster.com

Currently working on resolving some CSS issues and a few other code problems.

I would think that the moment you're offered 40% of a company, your first thought would be "this guy clearly doesn't believe in this company himself, or else he'd never offer me that much of his company". There are so many options available, be it leaving no stone unturned to find some additional cash (bank loans, borrowing from family, cashing investments, etc), or offering a non-equity profit sharing arrangement, that there's really no excuse for giving up large chunks of equity until you're receiving serious capital in return. This just sounds like a stupid deal to offer, and a worse one to take.

It'd help to have a little more info on what stage you were at with your company. Do you have a defined business model? Have you developed a MVP yet? Whether to fold or push the stakes higher really depends on exactly where you stand with your company.

Overall the site looks good (I've bookmarked it for possible personal use). That said, your use of the word "term" when actually planning a meeting (i.e. "choose possible terms for meeting") threw me a bit. You may be better served just switching "term" to "time" in most instances.

Error: Problem has occured and has been reported! We'll fix it soon!

Minor nitpick of your error page: occurred, not occured.

I've encountered a couple VCs that are forbidden to invest in any S-corp, regardless of how attractive an investment candidate they may be.

Shoot me an email, my contact info is in my profile. I'm in the market for a freelancer, and I'm always happy to talk to someone from HN.

As a more general response to the question, I find that freelance developers I've worked with who don't have portfolios they can show typically have some code examples that they'll give instead. So that's one possible starting point for you.

Anonymity and impunity are the bane of empathy. This is not a new thought (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Gyges ), but in an electronic world where we cannot even see the damage our words may wreak, the restraints are loosened even more.

As far as solutions are concerned, having identified the problem I would posit that you're most of the way to the solution already. Just keep it in mind and exercise self control.

It's a good idea, and it looks pretty good. My two cents in terms of organization would be to allow users to choose which apps they want. In other words, a user should be able to select "Budgets", "Calendar", and "Goals", and hide the rest of those options if they don't want to use them.

All in all though, I like it!

My feeling on the matter is that you don't go there until you have, at minimum, a well developed concept that you're ready to start moving on, and it's probably preferable to have gotten started on a MVP. The other question you should ask yourself is whether you need to be located in Silicon Valley at all. As you note, there are both personal barriers to entry (i.e. expense) as well professional barriers to entry (i.e. it may be easier to gain initial traction in another market that isn't as inundated as Silicon Valley is with other startups), and every case is different.

Like most other decisions, it really should just come down to a cost-benefit decision. Are the additional costs of moving to Silicon Valley offset by the benefits (better networks, available talent pool, availability of VC funds), or are you better served somewhere else? Only you can make that decision.

A good VC brings more than money; they bring expertise and experience. They have networks and connections that you probably don't. If you really want to grow, VCs can give you the kind of resources and expertise to actually do that...a bank can only give you money.