If you want to find and attract someone with coding skills to join your venture, here are the tips I usually give people:
1. Find Where We Hang Out.
Note that this isn't just founder dating events and places where you're "supposed" to find us. There are other communities where programmers congregate that you could join if you do a bit of research.
Find a few technologies that might be relevant to the product and find some local meetups for those. Engage with us in online communities as well. I've made many strong friends over the internet, some of whom I've never met in-person before, one of whom I even started a (now failed) business with a year ago, without us ever having been in the same city.
2. Realize What You're Asking For.
The most frequent mistake I see "idea" people make is grossly underestimating what they're asking for. Don't explain your entire concept and then ask how many days or weekends we could build it in.
Starting a new project from nothing takes a long time, even if the developer is experienced. You're not looking for a "quick favor", you're looking for a cofounder and some serious commitment.
3. Don't Be Possessive.
If the relationship works out and we come on board to start building, it won't be "your" idea anymore. The concept *will* morph and change as it runs into the real-world constraints of technology, resources and time. You have to be willing to trust our judgement on some of those decisions.
4. Demonstrate Your Value.
If we're deciding whether or not to join your project and add our valuable skill set to the venture, we need to know that you're generating value as well. And no, "having an idea" does not constitute adding value.
What will you be doing while we're sitting in front of our keyboard for hours and days and months? You should be out interviewing potential customers, analyzing the market and competitors, setting up some branding and a basic landing page, growing an email list of interested users, working on the company's pitch and marketing/sales copy, and setting up an industry blog with regular content about your industry.
Ideally, you'll have started doing all of these things before you started looking for a technical cofounder. If you can show that your idea already has demonstrable traction and potential, you'll have a much easier time finding someone to help you.
5. Be Cool.
This should go without saying, but don't be snobbish. Don't tell us how your idea is the next Facebook or Google and we better get on board before we miss out. No one responds well to those kinds of things.
The conversations I get most excited about are the ones where someone comes to me genuinely just asking for feedback on their product or idea, with no sales pitch of "you HAVE to build it for me."
Despite common social stereotypes, coders are people with feelings and opinions just like you. Think of it like a date, if there's no initial chemistry, the relationship (and potentially, the product) are doomed to fail. Just be cool.
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I've written about this a bit more extensively on my blog: http://blog.hartleybrody.com/find-a-coder/ Feel free to give me a call if you'd like some feedback on a product concept!
