trendpreneur

As someone who can speak to computers, it can be hilarious — yet frustrating — fending off the badly-aimed approaches of ‘business guys’ who want to make the next Twitter or eBay clone, and believe it’s their $deity-given right to attract a flock of programmers to do the hard work. Now, I’ve come to realise that the tech side of a startup is clearly not the only hard work, but it’s certainly not trivial, and in many cases it’s crucial to the venture’s success; brand new businesses whose development model involves outsourcing the whole thing to Estonia scare me on a fundamental level.

Anyway, that leads me nicely on to this article on recruiting programmers by a Hacker News contributor. (HN readers are largely the technical kind. This article is “how to speak to people like us”. It’s very good.)

In summary, although you should read the whole thing if you’re a business type looking for a technical collaborator or two: be aware that you don’t really know the technical difficulties, so don’t “just” need a “quick” or “easy” implementation of…; embrace the techie’s ability to help you find the solution, rather than dictate it; try to code or prototype up some stuff yourself, not only to get a clearer idea of the specification, but to earn respect; make it clear what you bring to the table; get a techie to read your posting over and remove any buzzwords; and remember that engineers are just human beings.

The important thing to remember if you’re an idea looking for an implementation is that you are just that — an idea. Ideas change, and coalesce, and take shape differently than you originally planned. If you’ve no code, no customers and no market validation, writing a 50-page detailed product specification and throwing it at a programmer, while expecting not to pay him or her, just won’t work. Plenty of engineers have a healthy interest in the business case too, and it’s their time they’re investing, so it’s important to be clear on why that gamble will pay off.

Depending on whether you’re looking for a project implementation (the techie walks away once their code is written) or a long-term collaborator (far better IMO), you can also test drive and do some brainstorming and a MVP, prototype or similar to see if you could work together in the long run. Some of the startups I’ve seen have basically rewritten their entire codebase every time a new techie takes on the lead role, which is just plain inefficient, although unavoidable in some circumstances.

The key lesson from all this, however, is learn how to talk to engineers. Learn what they value, what gets them excited, and how to earn their respect; learn how to motivate them and what their long-term ideas may be. An engineer that’s drifted into five, ten Open Source projects probably has a fairly free-flow model of collaboration and participation, and your own expectations may not match up to the way in which they usually operate. Even if the techies you become familiar with don’t end up helping you out, it isn’t wasted time at all, as it helps you find someone who you’ll ultimately work with far more efficiently — and happily.

(A side note, none of this really touches on how to find engineers when you’re a business guy in a Soho office without any nerdy friends. Hacker News is a good place online, and check for local meetups or technical events; join the mailing lists of projects you’re interested in, and just listen for a while; drop into IRC channels, attend lectures and talks, or take part in technical workshops. Failing that, become an online gamer!)