As a supporting anecdote, I'd like to share the story of how my non-technical cofounder found/"grew" me (or rather, grew the relationship), and why I think it worked.
Last year I was in my final year of university. The school I graduated from, BYU, has a strong business program and a culture of entrepreneurship. A number of my friends and acquaintances contacted me with ideas for tech-empowered businesses they wanted to form, but I had the sense to stay away from anything that sounded like "I had this great idea for a business last week, why don't you build it for me and we'll see what happens."
When my now-cofounder Sam approached me, it was a very different experience. It was obvious that he had put months of work into developing his idea on his own time, with mockups and tons of user testing of various ideas, and literally had gone as far as he could without actually building the product. Even after we decided to start working together, we spent several months contracting together for a 3rd party, before we finally decided to strike out on our own. When we eventually did form a startup, we split the equity 50-50 and we've both been working 110% since day 1.
In retrospect, I didn't end up joining with Sam because the idea was much better than the other ones I'd heard about, or because he had access to connections or capital that I couldn't easily find myself. It was because he demonstrated clearly that he didn't consider the idea alone to be 80% of the value, respected what I brought to the table, and worked hard enough to bring his half to the table too.
I guess my best advice to the non-technical looking for a cofounder (beyond learning as much as you can about the tech side of the business on your own) would be to try to find ways to demonstrate, through your actions, that you have what it takes to push a new company forward. The actions Sam took on his own, and when we first started working together, demonstrated that to my satisfaction, which is why I was more than happy to sign on as a cofounder.
I'd add that calling Sam "non-technical" stretches the definition a bit. Sure, he wasn't cutting code, but the sort of design work he did to prove and evolve his idea is also the sort of work a lot of us "technical" people do at various times.
Sounds like he had a bucket-full of clues, including the equity distribution, which doesn't sound like it was hard to negotiate.
Comments
As a supporting anecdote, I'd like to share the story of how my non-technical cofounder found/"grew" me (or rather, grew the relationship), and why I think it worked.
Last year I was in my final year of university. The school I graduated from, BYU, has a strong business program and a culture of entrepreneurship. A number of my friends and acquaintances contacted me with ideas for tech-empowered businesses they wanted to form, but I had the sense to stay away from anything that sounded like "I had this great idea for a business last week, why don't you build it for me and we'll see what happens."
When my now-cofounder Sam approached me, it was a very different experience. It was obvious that he had put months of work into developing his idea on his own time, with mockups and tons of user testing of various ideas, and literally had gone as far as he could without actually building the product. Even after we decided to start working together, we spent several months contracting together for a 3rd party, before we finally decided to strike out on our own. When we eventually did form a startup, we split the equity 50-50 and we've both been working 110% since day 1.
In retrospect, I didn't end up joining with Sam because the idea was much better than the other ones I'd heard about, or because he had access to connections or capital that I couldn't easily find myself. It was because he demonstrated clearly that he didn't consider the idea alone to be 80% of the value, respected what I brought to the table, and worked hard enough to bring his half to the table too.
I guess my best advice to the non-technical looking for a cofounder (beyond learning as much as you can about the tech side of the business on your own) would be to try to find ways to demonstrate, through your actions, that you have what it takes to push a new company forward. The actions Sam took on his own, and when we first started working together, demonstrated that to my satisfaction, which is why I was more than happy to sign on as a cofounder.
I'd add that calling Sam "non-technical" stretches the definition a bit. Sure, he wasn't cutting code, but the sort of design work he did to prove and evolve his idea is also the sort of work a lot of us "technical" people do at various times.
Sounds like he had a bucket-full of clues, including the equity distribution, which doesn't sound like it was hard to negotiate.