I’ve been on the YC site for months, met 2 cofounders, worked together on 2 different ideas, almost finished 2 MVPs (never more than 20%), but then ditched the whole project due to lack of communication. Like, is communication and constant updates so much to ask for these days? I promise, it was all them, not me. I do my parts perfectly, I’m fun to be around, I listen, I communicate, I give feedback, I lead, I generate ideas, I find customers, I do all the business stuff, I spoke to tons of VCs, I planned the whole year, I literally do 80% of the work… And all I ask of them is to just finish a damn MVP in 2 weeks so we can get customers and find investors quickly! Are all the tech people this unserious or am I just unlucky?
Trust me, if I had enough money I would have just hired an engineer with a contract and a salary instead of all this headache. Sorry if I sound like the bad person here lol. I really am just so fed up of this unseriousness I keep seeing!
Now I’m back on the site to get a 3rd cofounder. Fingers crossed! But my options are really just very limited to begin with. Imagine being a female, and a POC in the startup world? Literally almost all the “good/unscammy” profiles on YC’s site either require you to be in NA/EU, or they all just wanna do fintech and AI, or they all just indirectly want you to have 6+ years of experience. I read every profile to the fullest before writing a message just so that I can write something personal to show that I care, but I still end up getting ignored lol. Since my profile is perfect compared to most, I really can’t help but take this personally. I feel like I am pre-judged the moment they read my name so they don’t even bother reading the message lol
For the sake of it, I will tell you guys what I’m working on and please let me know if anybody still wants to be my CTO after all of this :))
I’ve been studying Gen Z’s behaviour around the world for like a whole year, and I know what kind of tech would go viral. I have this very developed idea for an app that allows Gen Z to connect with others but while (playing a game of) answering interesting questions or debating a certain topic together. I believe this will unconsciously help them develop their interpersonal skills and teach them new things while having fun with other people in the process. I can already imagine this going pretty viral and I already have the marketing strategy ready. I also have a UI outline, and a rough pitch deck that includes all the business stuff. To be honest, I even have a clear quick exit strategy.
If this sound interesting to anybody and you’re not a mean person and feel like you’d love to join in, I’d more than love to have a team. I’m either looking for a CTO to build the MVP QUICKLY and launch it, or looking for an angel investor that will fund me to hire a tech person to build the MVP QUICKLY, while I handle the rest of the business stuff. Honestly, I’d prefer the latter because I don’t know if I can trust a CTO anymore lol.
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Partnership isn’t easy. It’s like dating. Nothing is guaranteed. It takes a lot of efforts but it is worth it at the end
You may need a reality check.
I promise, it was all them, not me. I do my parts perfectly I literally do 80% of the work... all I ask of them is to just finish a damn MVP in 2 weeks so we can get customers and find investors quickly! Since my profile is perfect compared to most, I really can't help but take this personally.Your attitude of blaming others and suggesting you are perfect may be why no one wants to work with you. I recommend reading up on narcissist personality disorder and potentially seeking professional help.
Finding good cofounders is hard. I tried to partner up with 3 different people, all who let me down.
In the end I built a 40 person company with no cofounders. I’ve found it easier to hire great people than find great cofounders.
Happy to chat over DM
thanks, will dm 😭
How complex are the interactions?
You’re expecting a lot in 2 weeks unless you’re asking for a barebones implementation in a no-code platform, and if that’s the case, why not spend the time to learn how to build it yourself?
If the idea is as solid as you say, why not create a very manual version first and test with your audience? i.e., you could pair people up and put them in a Telegram/Whatsapp chat with a bot or yourself doing the moderating/question creation?
Are you expecting people to pay for the experience or how would you monetise it?
It’s basically a video interface. Just authentication, a button to start the chat, and the general settings and all that “etc”.
I can only do the front end using no-code tools, but the backend is where I get stuck. I also struggle with some variables and stuff.
For monetisation, ads that play after each chat and some in-app purchases. And in later stages, we can offer a premium for no ads.
Monetisation via ads would require a lot of use to be viable. I would start with the premium version first and see if people are prepared to pay for it.
Does the video need to be live, or could you start with short async messages in reply to the conversation starters that you create?
I’m wondering if you could use Circle (circle.so) for handling user authentication and signup, then create private channels or group chats to handle the connection between two people and Videoask (videoask.com) to capture video, upload from there to video host of your choice to embed in Circle. It would be a bit messy, a bit clunky, but if you can prove there is a real problem to be solved here and that people will pay to access it, you will significantly increase the opportunity to find a sticky cofounder and/or investors.
If you are struggling to get a tech founder just take a step back and find some ways to make few thousands of dollars. Use that on upwork to hire someone. I started my SaaS that way. Right now you have nothing. Stop depending on others and go make some money (consulting, productised service etc) and hire someone for the MVP.
No offense, but if you’ve had 2, maybe 3 people leave a project with you, might need to ask yourself if you need to make a change.
Are you asking for updates too much? Pushing too hard for features? Too hard headed about the product and design?
Legit thought this was satire. Is this actually not
Most worthwhile products can’t be built in 2 weeks.
Are you offering that much as a cofounder outside of a concept? You’re asking for someone to do something for free that they can get paid six figures for no problem.
Finding a CTO versus finding a free engineer are two different activities.
Does your idea have any IP? Can it not be done easier by an already existing app? Why would anyone give a shit about your idea especially with a marketing budget of “can’t afford to pay an engineer”.
Look, your concept honestly doesn’t matter. It could be great. Maybe with 10M you could build it and it would be amazing with solid retention and become a unicorn. But we will never know because it doesn’t work like that.
Learn how to code. Build something yourself as simple as possible and see if anyone cares.
Otherwise, give up. You’re wasting your time and everyone else’s. You could be building niche knowledge that makes you valuable down the line, which will be far more profitable.
OP is the type of person that thinks they have all their shit together but is the 1000th person trying to make facebook for dogs. OPs wonderful, great and perfect and does everything right but these ungrateful, unpaid and useless CTOs that can’t create an MVP in 2 weeks are the dumb ones. Dont forget to also drop in the lol for added affect every now and then to make the nonsense light hearted.
OP I can tell you just from the way you have crafted your post that you are delusional, probably impossible to deal with and most likely super opinionated to the degree that people run away from you. You show a complete lack of self awareness… why do people cut comms, not finish MVPs and why if you are so wonderful are you not willing to secure funding or take a loan to back up your amazing ideas and off the chart work ethic.
Anyone who was serious about making their ventures work would be questioning these issues more broadly, seeking advice on them and learning and growing. Your post is all about stroking your own ego and pointing fingers at others. There’s a common denominator here and it’s not the co-founders. I would recommend doing some internal reflection and analysis of where things are really going wrong. You might think you’re fun, fair, have the ideas all sorted and all the other things you listed, but in my experience people who describe themselves this way are the complete opposite.
What is your offer?
idk about the idea. TikTok comes to mind when I read your solution
Adding to the chorus that how you framed it have a lot of red flags for a technica co-founder.
Another one that is still not pointed out is that, if I understood correctly, for your project to be successful you need to onboard “a lot” of users. That it’s not a technical problem and you should be good with a contract dev instead of a techinical cofounder.
Agree with all the others; you need a reality check
One thing stood out to me; if you prefer to receive a check instead of finding a CTO why do you think hiring someone will get you better results? Employees will be less committed if anything and without the right technical background you’ll have a very difficult time leading them
If you can’t work with any CTO you should consider what’s wrong (and it might be you)
Do you ask them for their estimate on timeframes and listen to their answer?