Question
Hello everyone,
I would like to bring to your attention the many doubts and questions that we have on our mind concerning the foundation of a new web startup.
Since September 2015 I’ve been working with my business partner on a web product on which we believe a lot. Conscious about the possible success of our idea we decided to launch a new company and make tangible what is for now just a bunch of ideas on our mind and notes on our desks.
We are already facing the reality that neither me nor my partner have the technical competences needed in this field although we have economics and business expertise.
Initially we thought about outsourcing the whole development of the product, by assigning it to a third party. However after a short time we understood that this wasn’t the right path to follow. We then decided to create an in-house team that will fill in for the holes in our knowledge.
This is where the majority of our problems come from.
Since we only have a fledgling of the product, our idea was to set up a company, rent an office and start to hire the professionals that we need to develop the business. Initially the idea was to hire 2 programmers and 1 web designer. We were not conscious about the job market for these kind of positions so we were not interested about the age or the experience of the candidates, especially because we didn’t want to invest too many financial resources in such an uncertain environment. However after researching this particular field we learnt that the development team was very important to reduce the risk of failure in the early stage. We have decided that the best move is to hire a senior programmer with proven expertise on web development and coding languages. We want him to help us select the right candidates to hire for the development of the product.
• Where can we find this kind of expereinced programmer?
• The main concern about the idea of hiring professionals for our entrepreneurial project is the risk of exposing our business model to professional figures who could steal the idea and develop it by themselves. How can we reduce this kind of risk?
We thank you all for your time and really appreciate your help. Feel free to give us your advice on whatever seems wrong or incorrect.
Best regards.
Jacopo
Answer
Building a piece of software (that's unique or not) is one thing. Running a business is a completely different thing. Do not worry about your idea being stolen.
That said, I would always suggest looking at a developer's resume and sample code (GitHub, etc.). They should be active. If you find someone without any online presence, they don't follow news or communities for things...That's a red flag.
For a senior developer, ensure they have 6+ years real-world experience. Ensure they have been exposed to a variety of tools and languages. Ensure they are enthusiastic about what they do and that they are a good problem solver.
Get a developer like that...And you're set.
Also try to find those who have experience with the same kind of tools you'll be using. A developer should be able to tell you the appropriate tools for your project. They shouldn't try to shoehorn it into something that doesn't make sense simply because they don't have experience with those tools. So you may need to have a general sense for your architecture first before hiring a developer. You want a very senior person helping you out with this (pssst, Clarity is a good place to for this...shameless self-promo - come ask me, I'll let ya know what you need).
Programming is NOT about sticking to one language and knowing every little tiny detail. It's not about committing some API to memory. It's about problem solving and organization.
When hiring, I rarely ask programmers to do silly tests or write out code on a whiteboard, etc. That's a meaningless academic way of assessing how well someone has memorized something (that likely does not even relate to your own product!). It has absolutely zero bearing on real-world web application programming. Plus, you won't be able to do that because you wouldn't know if it was good code or not.
So instead, I focus on problem solving. You can too. I throw out challenges and ask how would you do this? What kind of database would you use. Or which language? Would you need multiple languages even? What is the work flow? How would you deploy and make changes to the app? How would you handle a situation where millions of users were online and the app was crashing?
You can learn a lot by having high level conversations like that. Don't forget cultural fit and communication skills also play a huge role here.
