SacStarts - Sacramento's Network for Startups and Entrepreneurs

February Dinner at Cafe Bernardo

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:46:09 +0000

Date:

Feb 23 2012 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

SacStarts dinners are informal nights where the best and brightest technologists and entrepreneurs connect. Grab a seat and some food and meet other locals involved in Sacramento’s technology community.

Cost: Just pay for your own dinner and drinks.

Location

Cafe Bernardo R15

1431 R Street

Sacramento, CA, 95814

See map: Google Maps

How to Recruit Initial Beta Users For Your App

Brett Owens — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:48:17 +0000

So you’re building a new app - and you’ve got it working decently enough. Maybe it’s not going to set the world on fire (just yet), but hey, it feels pretty good to have advanced beyond a buggy skeleton of a product that’s held together by chewing gum and duct tape!

You probably know you’ve got to get some real users on this thing in order to get some product validation and feedback, so that you can recalibrate and align your product dev efforts with real user needs. It's time to go above and beyond your cool ideas that have carried you this far.

But how exactly do you go about getting these initial beta users? You know, the early adopters with the keen eyes who can walk you through a day in their lives, share their maddening “pain point” with you, and (of course) patiently deal with a few bugs?

We faced this hurdle in 2008, and I’ve got to admit, it was a big effort to recruit people who would actively and passionately use our app, give us unfiltered feedback, and yeah, put up with their fair share of product bugs too!

That first beta recruitment process is a tough one. Here’s how we did it, as I hope that our lessons learned are helpful to you if you’re going through this process the first time.

What Types of Beta Users Do You Need?

Last week, an early stage entrepreneur asked me if we recruited our friends and family to beta test our app. We did, but in general, unless you’ve got friends and/or family members who specifically fit the profile of your target customer, I’d recommend moving beyond this friendly audience as soon as you can.

While our friends and family members were very kind in walking through the setup process, honestly that’s about where the usefulness of their testing ended. Why? Because they were running our app as a favor – not because they needed it.

And there is a HUGE difference between folks who run your app as a favor, and folks who run it because they desperately need it. You need the latter!

When we connected with folks who really needed our app (in our case, professionals who need to keep very close track of their time, like lawyers), that’s when we started getting very valuable “on the ground” insights from real users.

But what if you can’t readily find anyone in your target market? Better keep looking – because you’ll need to find them eventually if your product is going to succeed anyway!

Two Ways to Recruit Initial Beta Users

To locate these “must have” users to beta test, you can:

Have people contact you, tell you they love your idea/product, and offer to beta test it for you
Reach out to prospective beta users in your target market, and see if they’d like to beta test your app

How to Get People to Come to You

We had a pretty good website up before we had a pretty good product – which is probably the sequence you want to follow as well. At minimum, I’d recommend getting a simple one-page website (or better yet, blog) up as soon as you can.

The big benefit here is that people can now find you. You’re not going to see a ton of traffic, but you may be able to figure out a creative SEO angle to rank high for a long tail keyword or two.

With Google increasingly focused on delivering relevant search results to its users, I’ve noticed they are throwing more love to niche sites that more perfectly fit the users’ search term. And, the trend in search behavior is that people are typing in longer phrases, thanks to their ever-increasing faith in the almighty Google algorithm.

Going back to our case, we were fortunate enough to rank for phrases like “automatic time tracking software” fairly soon after getting our site up. While not many folks search on this (you’d never fill a sales pipeline with search volume from this alone), the people who do use this term very well know what they’re looking for! And we're after quality over quantity anyway (more on that later).

When a prospective user found our site, and saw what our product did (or was supposed to do, at least!), some were interested enough to contact us about beta testing. So make sure you have an obvious contact form and/or contact info!

You could also sponsor search terms via Google AdWords. Common phrases can be quite expensive (especially in the B2B world) - but if you again think “long tail” search terms, you may be able to get a few relevant clicks for not that much dough.

In a perfect world, this step would provide you with more eager beta users than you’d ever dreamed of. But since this may not happen, let’s see what you’ll need to do if (and more likely, when) you need to press the issue and make something happen yourself.

How to Reach Out to Potential Beta Users

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and starting going outbound to potential beta users in your target market. Don’t worry, this doesn’t actually involve cold calling. Cold emailing, yes, but that’s no sweat.

Here’s the playbook I used (and still use, actually) to reach out to people about beta testing:

Hop on LinkedIn and search for fellow alumni who are professionals in our target market
Find the email address of the person I wanted to reach (usually you can either grab this from their LinkedIn profile, or from their company webpage)
Send them a nice intro email like this one:

Dear Mike,

I’m a fellow PCU grad, working on a new software startup. I’d like to ask your advice, if I may, about a new product we’re developing to help attorneys with their timekeeping efforts.

I’d greatly appreciate the opportunity to pick your brain for a few minutes, and get your take on the problem we’re trying to solve. Any advice you have based on your experience and expertise in the legal profession would be most helpful.

Thanks in advance,

Brett Owens ENG '03 (School/Class Year)

When Mike graciously replies to our email, we’ll setup a few minutes to chat and ask him for his advice. People love giving advice, and they rarely turn down an opportunity to share wisdom – especially with regards to their area of expertise (which is exactly what we’re asking for, as a bright and eager entrepreneur!)

Brief aside – most people’s everyday lives are really not that exciting. Perhaps manageable, perhaps passively interesting – but there’s not much in the way of outright excitement. This is important, because being contacted by a fellow alumni working on a startup venture is actually pretty cool!

When you connect with Mike by phone, ask him for his insights about the problem you are trying to solve. In our case, this is where I’d ask if timekeeping was a pain for him.

“Hey Mike – how do you reconcile your time at the end of the week? Would you mind walking me through a day/week in your work life here? Appreciate your take on this - especially anything that you believe could be done to improve the process.”

Then we let Mike talk. And if it turns out this is a problem he struggles with – bingo!

“OK thanks Mike, that’s very helpful. We’re actually working on a product that may help with the headaches you face every Friday evening when you try to track down how you spent your time during the past week. Would you be interested in taking it for a beta test spin when we have something ready?”

More likely than not, Mike’s going to say yes. Which gives us a new star beta tester, and gives Mike hope for his weekly headache!

How Many Initial Beta Users Do You Really Need?

Not that many, really – focus on quality over quantity. You want a wide enough cross section of users who will give you a solid breadth of feedback – but not too many that you get overwhelmed.

In our initial stages, we had a very solid group of 5 beta users. They were great, and we were able to give each person individualized attention and support. As long as you’re getting regular, detailed feedback from your beta testers, a small number like 5 or 10 can be plenty.

If you can get a small number of people to love your app, you can get a large number of people crazy about it too. Take your time initially, get the product fit right, and you can then scale up your beta from there.

Best of luck in recruiting your initial group of lucky beta users!

Excerpt:

How exactly do you go about getting these initial beta users? You know, the early adopters with the keen eyes who can walk you through a day in their lives, share their maddening “pain point” with you, and (of course) patiently deal with a few bugs?

Helping regional startups starts with founders

Adam Kalsey — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:00:05 +0000

A group of local non-profits is launching the Next Economy project to try and boost innovation in the local economy.

The region has embarked on an ambitious regional economic devleopment planning effort intended to define and shape the economic future of the region – the Next Economy. Four non-profits (SARTA, SACTO, the Metro Chamber, and Valley Vision) are guiding the project.

The notion that any organization - especially a group of non-profit economic development boards - thinks they can shape the economic future through central planning is simply flawed. The mechanism they’re using to do this makes it even worse. The Next Economy project is starting with a scorecard - a list of things that a NGO has come up with that are deemed important for a growing regional economy. They held a kickoff event a few weeks ago to get the local business community involved in the scorecard. I happened to miss the event because of some flight delays, so later they sent me a copy of the scorecard for my feedback.

The scorecard includes things like governmental growth advocacy, conference centers, facilities with high speed internet, public transit, and quality of K-12 education. There’s a couple of items on there like access to capital and availability of M&A advisory firms. It’s exactly the sort of list you’d expect an economic development agency to come up with.

The list seems to assume that there’s a group of people sitting around waiting to start a company, but can’t because there’s not enough infrastructure or services here. Has anyone asked local founders what they want? I don’t know any founders who look at the region and say, “gee, I’d love to start a company, but there’s just not enough local government agencies to support my idea.” Or who feel stymied by a lack of real estate or bike trails. Good founders start companies despite these things. If they see capital or access to talent as a barrier, they simply find ways around it.

The people who are participating in the Next Economy research are overwhelmingly from larger (100+ people) companies and government. If you’re trying to understand what early stage companies want, ask early stage companies.

If you want to help startups in the region, you need to help founders. And you need to start with asking them what they need. Most of the founders I speak to don’t need bike trails, or colleges. They need customers. They need mentors. They need peers to bounce ideas off. None of these things are going to come out of a bunch of non-profits who are trying to shape the region’s future.

Other regions are attempting to set up incubators or accelerator funds to try and build or attract startups to their area. This isn’t likely to be a success, either. Luring outside startups with money and infrastructure means that you’re only going to attract founders that need money or infrastructure. This assumes that there’s a whole bunch of fantastic companies and founders out there that are hurting for either. The truth is, the only startups that can’t get money or pay for their own infrastructure are at best second-rate. If they were first-rate, they’d be in TechStars or Y Combinator. Or have a round of seed funding already. Or have paying customers.

The worst thing about local incubators and accelerator funds is they’ll look successful for a while. You’ll be able to point at a bunch of companies who have been part of the program. Some of them will even become viable small businesses and hire people. The people who are part of the program will tout this as evidence of their success, but if you look at the graduating companies 10 years from now, you won’t see rousing successes. There will be lots of activity, and lots of energy expended, but there won’t be any serious impact on the local economy.

It’s easy to mistake activity for progress.

Incubators are like grad schools. There’s a few great ones that turn out great graduates, but for the most part they’re just a way to let people avoid the real world. incubators are designed to give startups a cozy, safe place to live for a while. Startups shouldn’t have a cozy safe place. Startups that suck bad enough they need a safe place should fail.

What can someone do to help the startup community? The more time I spend thinking about the problem, the more that I think the best thing that can happen is simply getting people into a room together on a regular basis. Founders, people interested in being founders, people interested in helping founders, and people who want to join early stage companies. The more time they spend together, the more connections and growth we’ll see. Coworking spaces like The Urban Hive or Capsity are a part of this, as they give founders a place to work where they’ll be surrounded by other founders. Technology meetups and user groups are another key. Various mixers like our weekly Open Coffee give an informal, relaxed place for people to meet. Bigger events like BarCamps and startup showcases can help anchor the community.

Its great that these organizations recognize that startups and innovation are the key to economic growth — they’re just going about it the wrong way. Kicking off an effort to create an innovation economy by focusing on buildings, lifestyle, and money is like starting a company and focusing on office supplies and business cards. Successful companies start with customers. Efforts to build a startup ecosystem in the area should start with founders.

Excerpt:

Helping Sacramento region startups needs to start with helping founders. Why central planning and incubators can't help.

Games maker KlickNation acquired by EA for reported $35 million

Adam Kalsey — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:18:07 +0000

Downtown Sacramento’s social game creator KlickNation has been acquired by Electronic Arts. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Inside Social Games says a source tells them it could be up to $35 million after earnouts and retention bonuses.

KlickNation is joining EA’s BioWare division, makers of games like Mass Effect 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The Sacramento team will become BioWare Sacramento, and KlickNation founder Mark Otero will head the newly-formed BioWare Social studio.

KlickNation is privately held and has not reported taking any outside investment. They have 70 employees making Facebook games like Superhero City and Six Gun Galaxy. When the company started building their first games, they bootstrapped by working out of the second floor of Otero’s other venture, a Mochii Yogurt shop. They compensated early employees in equity, and allowed them to earn cash by working in the yogurt shop.

Excerpt:

Downtown Sacramento's social game creator [KlickNation](http://www.klicknation.com/) has been [acquired by Electronic Arts](http://investors.ea.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=629489).

What is scale?

Adam Kalsey — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:50:23 +0000

As an entrepreneur, you’ll often hear investors and advisors talk about scaling the company. What do they mean by this?

I heard a scientist once talking about those postwar horror movies in which an insect gets irradiated and grows to the size of a house. It begins walking around and terrorizing the city. The scientist pointed out that if a creature did grow significantly larger than its natural state, it would be unable to move. The design of limbs and organs that works at a small size is completely unable to function at a larger size. Similarly, if you were shrunk to ant-size, your capillaries would only be large enough fow simple molecules, and not complex blood cells. You’ld die. Clearly Rick Moranis was no scientist.

The same thing happens with a company. The things that work well when you’re small don’t work at all when you’re big. As the company increases in customer base, you have to get better and faster at sales, support, and on boarding new customers.

In the early days, all these things will be time consuming and costly. You don’t know how to do them well. You may be missing team members. But as you grow, that has to change. Not only will later customers be harder to please, but if your idea is any good, you’ll face mounting competition.

You’ll also find that you can’t grow and do all the work yourself. Your time will need to move into guiding the organization and you’ll need to hire. Expect that future hires won’t be as good as you are. They’ll need processes and training to be effective.

When someone asks how you’re going to scale the business, we want to understand your plans for growing beyond what you and your founding team can do today. How you plan on turning this into something bigger than a small business. How are you going to grow without also having to grow your team at a linear rate? How are you going to ensure that your costs don’t grow at the same rate as your sales? How are you going to take sales, marketing, and new customer on boarding processes and make them work when the team is more than just you?

How can you take the business, grow big fast, and not have expenses and support issues crush you? How do you ensure that you don’t spend all your time as a business solving the same problems, but have the time and money to solve new ones?

Excerpt:

As an entrepreneur, you'll often hear investors and advisors talk about scaling the company. What do they mean by this?

Startup and Tech Small Biz Happy Hour at AlleyKatz

Brett Owens — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:57:22 +0000

Date:

Dec 12 2011 - 5:30pm - 8:00pm

What better way to prepare for heavy family time during the Holidays than with some beer?

Come join fellow Sacramento startup and technology people for a pint or four from the finest selection of microbrews in town at AlleyKatz in midtown (20th & O St).

Yes, there is a lot of great tech activity here in Sacramento, and it will be a blast to get a lot of us together for some banter and brews.

http://alleykatz.net/

The first few rounds of beer will be sponsored by Chrometa and Tropo.

Location

Alley Katz

2019 O St

Sacramento, CA, 95811

See map: Google Maps

The Power and Responsibility of Platforms

aaronklein — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:09:50 +0000

One of the most powerful things you can do in the technology business is to build a platform. If your product becomes foundational to other products, an entire ecosystem can take root, and the “network effects” can drive incredible adoption and loyalty to your own product.

Let’s take a look at a few of the great platform builders in technology right now.

Microsoft is one of the greatest platform architects of all time – first turning a contract gig with IBM into building a platform of their own with MS-DOS, and then gradually replacing it with Windows, which today runs on 90% of PCs and generates about $18 billion a year in revenue.
Apple failed in their efforts to build a dominant platform on PCs – Mac OS X is beautiful but commands tiny market share. So in a brilliant competitive move, Apple started from scratch and built an entirely new platform for “post-PC devices” like iPhone and iPad. And as they start to merge technology from iOS into their Mac products, you can catch a glimpse of where they are headed.
Google has been building a “cloud” platform for some time – from their web-based Chrome OS (designed to compete with Windows) to Android OS for phones and tablets (designed to compete with iPhone) and AppEngine (designed as a new cloud-based platform for web apps).
Platforms aren’t just limited to operating systems, either. Facebook built a core service for social connections and photo sharing, and in the process, created a social apps platform that has already spawned a $7 billion dollar company (Zynga for social gaming).
Twitter built an information and communications network, and much of their progress has been enabled by an ecosystem of app developers coming up with ideas for features (the @ mention and the retweet), and building clients, analytics and social CRM tools.

In fact, platforms are so powerful, that I think you can argue that there really aren’t any important and immensely valuable technology companies that haven’t built one.

At my new startup Riskalyze, we’re hard at work on our building our product and platform. Whether the platform becomes a big part of our value to the world remains to be seen, but I have a feeling that it will. So I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the principles of building a great platform.

Here’s where I’m at right now in my thinking.

Great platforms tightly control and deliver an incredible initial user experience.
Great platforms respect user freedom by allowing the user to then customize that experience and run whatever they want on the platform.
Great platforms find a way to deliver security and quality without eliminating user freedom.
Great platforms are upfront and clear with the developer community about the difference between “features” and “apps”, which goes a long way to avoid unexpected competition with their ecosystem.

In other words, with this great power comes great responsibility. The interesting thing is that the technology companies I mentioned above have each dealt with that responsibility very differently.

Microsoft, maligned for much of the 1990s as an anti-competitive behemoth intent on smothering competitors, turns out to have run their platform pretty darned responsibly. They consistently controlled the initial user experience, provided complete user freedom to run whatever you wanted on their platform, and they seem to compete fairly when building apps for their own platform (i.e. they won with Microsoft Office, but lost to competitors like Adobe when it comes to Photoshop).
Apple is building the ultimate closed platform. They tightly control not just the initial user experience, but the entire user experience forever and ever (carriers can’t even get their logo on the phone, much less load “crapware” onto it). They have great security and quality in their app store, but there is zero user freedom to run what you want on the platform. They are using the “walled garden” to give their own apps (such as iBooks) features that competitors simply can’t profitably provide (a 30% platform tax wipes out the entire profit margin on e-books, for example).
Google has gone with the “excessively open” strategy with Android. They have a very fragmented initial user experience as a result – no two Android phones from different makers or carriers look the same when you boot them up – and I think that really hurts them. They also don’t provide any kind of security or quality filters in their app store, resulting in widespread problems like this one.

What’s interesting is that the “user freedom” principle shifts a bit with web platforms like Facebook or Twitter (although not completely). Restrictive rules for what can run on a web platform seem more acceptable than the same rules on an OS platform, and I think that’s for two reasons.

First, I don’t pay anything to use the typical web platform. (Conversely, if you buy an iPhone, you’ll pay $200 plus at least another $1,680 over two years. A total of $600 goes to Apple. Once I buy a computing device, it’s mine and the platform can’t tell me what I can and can’t do with it.)

Second, I haven’t wasted my money if I stop using a platform, and I can switch with the click of a mouse if a good competitor arises. Losing users – either to a competitor or to nothing – is a great balancing force that promotes good behavior by a web platform. (And conversely, it’s not like you can install a different OS on your iPhone…you don’t get a refund if an OS platform changes the rules.)

Facebook has done a pretty decent job of managing their platform. They provide real benefits to developers, and their rules are both simple and stable as of right now. They require the use of their payments system for social gaming apps, but given the incredible revenues they drive to that industry, that seems reasonable.

Twitter, on the other hand, has been incredibly unpredictable. Chris Dixon famously referred to them as “a drunk guy with an Uzi.” They did a poor job of communicating what they saw as a core feature vs. what they saw as an app. As a result, they’ve continually built or acquired what used to be apps and turned them into core features. And now they’re trying to put third party Twitter clients out of business. Not a smart move, in my opinion.

So as we start building our platform at Riskalyze, these are the pitfalls we’re trying to avoid and the principles we seek to embrace.

We want our developers to know on Day One what we see as core to our platform, and what we see as great apps for them to build. We will tightly control the initial user experience so that it’s great, but then we’ll give users the freedom to run whatever apps they want, and our developers will be free to create whatever experience they see fit. And we think we can allow that freedom while still delivering security and quality to our users.

It won’t be easy, but that’s the price you pay for having the power of a platform behind you.

If I’m missing something key to building a great platform, I hope you’ll help me shape my thinking in the comments. Thanks in advance.

Aaron Klein is the co-founder and CEO of Riskalyze, a Sacramento-area technology startup working to revolutionize how people make risk/reward decisions.

Excerpt:

One of the most powerful things you can do in the technology business is to build a platform. If your product becomes foundational to other products, an entire ecosystem can take root...

Open Coffee Coworking

Adam Kalsey — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:03:11 +0000

Date:

May 11 2010 - 9:00am - 12:00pm

Join Sacramento technology entrepreneurs at Tupelo Coffee for some casual co-working.

We’re here every Tuesday morning, so feel free to drop in. You’ll generally find people here between 9am and noon. Sometimes there’s only a couple of people, sometimes a big crowd. We’re all here with laptops out, working on our individual projects.

It’s a great time to bounce ideas off each other, get advice, and just meet local entrepreneurs.

Location

Tupelo Coffee

5700 Elvas Ave

Sacramento, CA, 95819

See map: Google Maps

Advice for the new entrepreneur

Adam Kalsey — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:08:32 +0000

Matt Mireles from SpeakerText writes a bullet-point list chock full of advice for the first-time entrepreneur.

No one is interested in the company you’re going to start in the future. Starting is a declarative act. Just go for it.

I talk to a great many erstwhile entrepreneurs that tell me all about their ideas and all the things that they’re going to do when they start their company. Or people who have started but aren’t really getting anything done because they can’t find the right co-founder or they need to design every last detail first, or they don’t have the marketing copy for their web site quite right yet.

Entrepreneurs do. We take an idea and a market and drive to make it happen. Figure out what’s standing in the way of you getting stuff done and just go through it. Once you’re actually building your company, a lot of those things that looked insurmountable turn out to be no problem at all.

Lots of business-y, idea-type people who say they’re looking for a co-founder are, in reality, looking for what is best described as an “engineering bitch.” Here’s how the pitch sounds from the engineer’s perspective: ‘For ten whole percent of equity, you will slave away to build a prototype out of my shitty idea, not have any say in the decision-making process…and oh yeah, you could be fired at any point.’

I don’t think a lot of business people get this point. Engineers aren’t just sitting around awaiting input so they can build something. They aren’t machines into which you feed an idea and a finished product pops out the other end. They have ideas, too. So why would they want to build yours for no compensation when they could spend their time building their own?

Want to have a good technical co-founder? Make your idea theirs.

Over the last 15 months, I have pitched nearly every sentient being I have met. This includes a guy I met at 4am after doing CPR on his mom (I’m a paramedic). The dude turned out to be a senior partner at a major international corporate law firm, and 6 weeks later he offered to take me on as a pro bono client.

As a startup, obscurity is your biggest problem. Constantly pitching your ideas helps solve that. How’s the great tech co-founder, the lawyer, the perfect first customer ever going to find you if they don’t know about you?

Pitching constantly also means you’ll get a constant stream of advice. Most people you talk about your company with will offer up thoughts about it. Free consumer research? Free marketing advice? Yes, please.

Every lawyer will give you an hour of their time for free. Remember that. Need 10 hours of legal counsel? Talk to 10 lawyers. … when you need to actually hire a lawyer, you’ll know what a good one sounds like––and have a fat rolodex of people you’ve already talked with to draw from.

The world is full of free and cheap advice. There’s all sorts of resources out there like this. For $100 I spent an hour with a CPA over coffee and picked her brain on how to set up the books and ensure I was filing taxes properly. I sent my exec summary to a half dozen angel investors and asked them for a critique. A couple of patent attorneys bought me lunch and spent two hours explaining to me exactly what’s involved in getting a patent and why I probably don’t want one.

Excerpt:

Matt Mireles from SpeakerText has a bullet-point list chock full of advice for the first-time entrepreneur.

Get a co-founder

Adam Kalsey — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:27:47 +0000

Got an idea for a technology product but don’t have the technical chops to build it yourself? You’ll need to find yourself a cofounder. You’re building a technology company, but have no technology people on the founding team. This leaves you with three options. Hire, outsource, or find a technical co-founder.

It’s nearly impossible for a technology company to succeed by outsourcing their early product. Don’t even think of going that route. Freelancers or outside firms can’t possibly deliver what you want because they don’t actually care about the product or the outcome.

To hire someone full time, you’ll need to pay them a reasonable wage. For someone that’s capable of taking the business ideas you have and translating them to a real working product that won’t fall over as soon as people start using it, you’re looking at at least $80k/year in Sacramento. Don’t think you’ll go get funding and then hire someone. You’re going to need a product before you can get any funding. Gather together whatever funding you have now and hire a developer. It’s going to be important to hire the right person the first time, so if you don’t have anyone who has hired technical people for small teams before, get help screening candidates.

Your third option is to gain a technical co-founder who’s willing to build this for a cut of the company. Expect to give them 25-30% of the company, but make sure you have a vesting arrangement so some crook doesn’t sign on, take 30% and quit the next day. Again, get some help screening them from someone who can tell if they know what they’re talking about.

Here’s the thing… You can’t just go out and “find a co-founder” any more than you can go out and “find a wife.” Your co-founder relationship is just that, a relationship. You’ll have a significant relationship with this person, and they with you. Likewise, they’ll have a serious relationship with the business. You need someone to fall in love with you and your idea and to love it enough they’re willing to take tremendous risks in order to be involved. People grow into relationships, they aren’t recruited into them.

So how do you find your co-founder? Same way you found your wife. You meet lots of people. Put yourself out there. Make sure people know you’re available. Date.

Talk about your ideas with everyone you meet. Most people won’t want to hear about it. But some will have feedback. This feedback will shape your ideas and change your business. Along the way, you’ll meet someone with a technical mind that gets just as excited about your idea as you do. You’ll find that the two of you can’t seem to spend enough time talking about the idea and the business. You’ll know that this person is the one.