Finding Developers and Women
I've been stewing over this post for a while. It gets a little bit closer to being written every time I meet with an "idea guy" who is looking to find a hacker to build his or her (but typically his) dream site. Interestingly, a lot of these guys spend a decent amount of their spare time at an analogous task: picking up women. I've always wondered why they don't see the natural parallels. For some reason, the principles that apply to meeting women are a lot easier for people to intuitively grasp than the same principles applied to meeting developers. Unfortunately, most of these guys happen to live in NYC, where there are way more available women than available technical cofounders. But the same ideas apply:
Go into their world. If you're looking for single women, you probably need to venture outside of sports bars. Go to a more female-friendly club or volunteer for a cause. Go anywhere single women congregate. Similarly, I meet way too many "business guys" who only hang out with people like themselves -- other business guys -- and stick around events and meetups that are dominated by folks who think pointers are the handheld lasers you use to give Powerpoint presentations. If you want to meet the technical co-founder of your dreams, you need to find the places they hang out -- technology-specific meetups and user groups, Hackers and Founders, et cetera.
Understand their motivations. Or alternatively, "Don't assume their motivations are the same as yours." In the dating scene, this is obvious -- not everyone wants the same thing from the evening's encounter. And as many of us know, variations in motivation and interests can lead to some pretty awkward situations. Similarly, developers often have very different motivations than non-technical entrepreneurs. First of all, many (most) developers aren't entrepreneurs. Given that entrepreneurship can be a bizarre and irrational pathology, this can make for a pretty big delta in motivations, perspectives and interests. Money, for instance, may or may not be a big motivator to an engineer -- in fact, I'd say a plurality of engineers I've met would say that making a lot of money would be "nice, but definitely not necessary."
This is a generalization, and above everything it's important to understand the motivations and interests of the individuals you're talking to, not the generalized category "developer".
Show your value. Unemployed, balding 40-somethings have a much harder time picking up women than rich, balding 40-somethings. Truly smart, well-connected business co-founders aren't easy to find. Be that person and demonstrate it early and often.
Speak their language. The number of "idea guys" who don't even attempt to understand the basics of web development is hugely frustrating, both to me and most startup developers. Even if you can't code, take some time and learn the basics. But don't take learning the basics to mean that you actually know anything about making high-level development decisions -- it just shows that you care. And like women in bars, technical co-founders appreciate it when you care.
Don't try to fuck on the first date. Pretty self-explanatory. Get to know someone first, then seek a deeper relationship.
We need more hackers building startups and fewer writing black boxes for hedge funds, so I'm being honest when I say I hope more non-technical folks can use the skills they have to recruit talented developers into the startup world.