Finding a Technical Co-Founder: Show Your Idea Has Legs
In our last post on finding a technical co-founder we talked about getting out there and talking about your idea. But what do you talk about? How do you convince them it’s a good idea? How do you get them on board? By showing (not just telling) them your idea has legs.
To review, here are some ideas:
- Join the startup community
- Talk about your idea
- Show your idea has legs (this post!)
- Talk to people
- Try before you buy
- Be respectful of people’s time
- Learn a technical thing
Let’s talk about how to show people your idea has legs.
Show Your Idea Has Legs
It’s going to be difficult to convince someone to latch on to your idea if it’s only an idea.
If you can show that it has legs, that there is value in your idea, people (and not only potential co-founders and employees, but customers, investors, and partners) will be able to understand it better and be more willing to put some of their own skin in the game.
If you can show that your customers value your idea and will pay real money for your solution, you have an idea with legs. Start by building your community of people who will give you feedback. Find customers who want to use your solution by getting signups and pre-orders before building.
When you do start building, build out wireframes or a non-functional prototype to further prove out AND refine your idea. When using the wireframes or a prototype to talk about your idea, you’ll be able to get your point across more easily and show what you can do. You’ll also be able to gather important feedback to roll into the next iteration of those wireframes or prototype.
You can do all of this without a technical co-founder or even a technical someone.
With Google Forms, Typeform, or SurveyMonkey, you can start getting feedback on your idea while generating interest and collecting emails.
For free or relatively cheap, you can create a website with Wordpress, Squarespace, Wix, or a simple landing page and start collecting emails. Or money. You can set up some of these tools to collect money for products and services using Stripe.com.
Wireframes can be created with tools like paper and pencil or the slightly more expensive Balsalmiq. Prototypes can be created with any number of tools. Invision, Balsalmiq, even Google Slides can be used for making an interactive, non-functional prototype. Get creative!
By doing all of this, you’ll be able to do more than just talk about your idea. You’ll be able to show more people the solution to the problem, get more feedback, iterate, and show that you’re generating interest and that people value your idea. You’ll be able to show your idea has legs.
In the next post, we’ll cover the oh so scary concept of talking to people!