My partner and I recently started a technical staffing agency. Is the staffing agency industry oversaturated or is it still a lucrative business?

First, congratulations on your recent funding/recruitment successes! This is an excellent question, and a transaction I have been directly or indirectly involved with numerous times before. Each circumstance can be unique, the two most important considerations to look at as a starting point would be 1) what is the current status of the technical product and 2) what is the current funding or capitalization status of the organization. Generally speaking though, the type of range you could be considering here could be in the mid to high single digits all the way to a nearly equal share in the venture as what you (the original founder) have. My gut reaction, based on your brief description, if that you are looking somewhere on the higher side of the range here (given the candidate, venture status and other data points you offered.) Getting to a firm and real number though will require some more analysis. So our challenge now, in order to answer this correctly, is to dive deeper into a few other details we need to uncover. To name a few: - Are they participating in an initial capital outlay/investment? - Are there any expenses of them joining the venture (moving etc) that they will incur? Who absorbs those costs? - How much familiarity do you have with this person prior to joining your venture? Have you worked with them directly? Have you spoken to anyone who has? - How critical is the tech stack they are supporting to your overall ecosystem now? - Is this CTO going to spearhead and participate in day-to-day development, or just own the roadmap/vision? o Are they a full stack developer? - What is the near and long-term vision for participation from your other employees? Are they going to be moving to FT status at any point in the near future? - What participation, if any, will this person have in the fundraising or sales process? - Beyond the current $40k investment and upcoming cash flow, what other capital inflow and outflow are expecting in the next 12 months? - What are your alternatives if this candidate didn’t work out for delivering the application? Would you pause this priority altogether or need to aggressively explore a new option in order to meet client demand etc? Once you establish these and other pieces of data, you can start looking at comparable plans out there and piece together what your starting/ending point is as far as comp terms you’d like to offer. It’s as important to remember that in addition to extending a number here, these are in fact negotiations and it is in your best interest to know what your strategy is with this candidate so you know how aggressive or passive to be in terms of making adjustments along the way after your initial offer. I would also highly encourage you to research alternative solutions and even engage other candidates right now in the process so that you can have a better sense of what is available in the market to you and also have an advantaged negotiating position since you’ll know to what extent this person isn’t the only game in town to consider. As I said before, there are several details which may dictate or alter precisely how you approach the offer and negotiation process with this new hire. I'd be happy to hop on a quick call to discuss further so we can dive into detail on 1) how important this particular candidate is to your overall scope so that we may 2) identify the appropriate starting point and end point for negotiation purposes and 3) consider alternatives to this plan as your backup plan in case the conversations with the candidate do not go as anticipated (or inversely, so you can have a clearer understanding of how advantaged or disadvantaged of a negotiating posture you need to take.) Reach out and request an appointment so we can connect and discuss further.

Try linkedin.

If you're looking for Ruby folks, go where they go - local meetups. Second would be online but you will need to mine Stackoverflow, Github and similar sites and realize that they get approached regularly so start engaging early (at least 3 months before projected start date.)

since most get paid upon a candidates permanent offer most of the hastle comes from finding the right person. knowing how t filter helps a recruiter incrementally over time leading to repeat customers. feel free to call one of us to help you get going or guiding you through hurdles. :)

I have advised a number of Clarity members on this question exactly. LinkedIn can be a great place to find your technical cofounder. I would look for someone who has been at their current company longer than 18 months and has relevant experience or interest in the problem you're looking to solve. Reaching-out "cold" can work, if you keep your message short and relevant. Here's what a technical cofounder will need to see in order to feel comfortable joining you: 1) That you can fund and/or have raised sufficient money to cover the expenses up to and past launching the first version of your product. 2) That - in their assessment - you have what it takes to raise multiple rounds of funding (if the business is reliant on VC) or that you have what it takes to successfully bootstrap the business. 3) That you are realistic or at least credible in your assessment of the opportunity and have done sufficient customer development to ensure there is a viable market for your product or service. 4) That you and the technical cofounder have sufficient personal chemistry so as to want to and be able to survive an incredibly stressful and emotionally intensive journey together. Happy to talk you through any of this in detail in a call and go into the specifics related to your location, background, and type of product or service you're looking to recruit a cofounder to.