I think you answered your question yourself.

The guys who want to do it all are all busy doing it all. Notice the quote in the linked article: "I was actually thinking of starting my own business." That's what those guys are doing.

If you're looking for somebody who's motivated to run every aspect of a business, but would prefer to run every aspect of your business rather than one in which he'd get 100% of everything, then yes, you're going to have a tough time of it.

I'd recommend hiring one of those Australian Walkabout guys on their terms. They're probably just as capable of doing what you want done, and they don't come with any unrealistic expectations of what you'll give them. Pay them money in exchange for work until you either don't need them anymore or the money runs out. Then let them go with no hard feelings on either side.

Well, I'm certainly not looking for somebody to run "every aspect" of my business. I've raised the finance, developed the marketing plan, established contacts with almost a thousand prospective client organisations, defined the product requirements in consultation with the industry, and written the prototype software myself. That's taken years of work and is not something to sneeze at! But ultimately, I'm not a skilled developer, and my cobbled-together prototype is not something that can be taken to market. So a lot of programming will be required to turn this into commercial-quality software.

The reason that I won't hire contractors to do that is that this is a highly specialised application -- not something that fits the mould of a typical web application -- and the developers will be instrumental in developing the core IP. It will take a few months for even the most skilled and experienced developer to get up to get fully up to speed with the internals details of this truly unique platform, and there will need to be many iterations of the platform as the product evolves. While it may be possible to do some of the peripheral work with freelancers (eg., the UI stuff, which will use fairly standard kit wherever possible), the unique core of the platform will only be maintainable if there is a stable team of developers to maintain it.

Imagine if Google had tried to design and implement Pagerank, the Google File System, and its custom server architecture using catch-as-catch-can freelancers. That would have been a catastrophe; you just can't develop truly unique systems that way. I'm in roughly the same boat.

However, if anything about what I've said has given the impression that I want people to "run every aspect of my business", then I am obviously not conveying my message clearly. I welcome suggestions for improvement!

I think you might be overstating the flakiness of independent contractors. I'm pretty much the exemplar of your "catch as catch can" type (though I've never called myself a freelancer), but I've had my share of long-term clients.

I've had recurring stints with individual companies (with the aforemention bugger-off-to-Australia period in between when they didn't need me) spread out over the course of several years, and I've had multi-year contracts working 40 hour weeks building Big Things.

The important bit that you might be missing is that it's generally the project owner who determines the length of the engagement. A pro will stick around as long as you need him. Then he'll take off and enjoy those lifestyle perks. Find some of that guy and you won't have any trouble getting your PagerankFileSystem finished.

It's not really "flakiness" that concerns me -- it's "ownership". I need people who will take genuine ownership of the central pieces of the platform -- who will design and implement the architecture of the platform, carefully follow its performance as the product and the market matures, and make improvements accordingly. That requires being in the same room with myself and the rest of the development team, until the product reaches a stage of stability and self-documentation that others can slip into that role with relative ease.

Based on my prior experience starting software companies (this will be my third), I know that the developers team will need to be working fulltime on this (well, evenings, weekends, and holidays excluded...), in the same room as the rest of the development team. And I estimate this shakedown period will last 2-3 years -- not freelance time, any way you cut it.

Again, this is really not meant to be a slight upon freelancers. They can be excellent at what they do. But I would never ask one to take a critical role in developing unique, cutting-edge IP in what I am certain will be a long-term evolutionary process.

It sounds like you want an employee / contractor who will act like an owner. If you want this level of commitment from someone very good, you usually have to give them part of your company. And I don't mean just options and profit sharing; I mean partners or shareholders.

Even then it is difficult, because you already have invested years in this, so obviously anyone you bring on will be a minority stakeholder. As a minority holder, they will have no real say-so in the business (you can always override them in a disagreement), they have liability they wouldn't have as a contractor / employee, and there probably will not be any profit to share for a long time. And even when there is profit, you get to decide what to do with it - not them. And you get the added burden of not screwing over your new minority holder, at least not too much.

Try putting yourself in their shoes: let's say a programmer has invested 3 years in writing a cool new program and has developed "cutting-edge IP". But they have no marketing or business experience. You do. What would you want from this guy to dedicate 3 years of your life to him and his company in a "critical role", and "take genuine ownership" for developing his business? (The quotes are not there to be snippy, but to use your own words to describe what you are looking for.)

No, I want a CTO, and certainly not a contractor who will act like an owner. (I've said many times in this thread that I am not looking for contractors, and state on the jobs page that I'm seeking full-time permanent employees).

To answer your question: what I'd want is a stake in the equity and governance of the company. These things aren't unusual when joining a new company, and in my prior two ventures (futurescaper.com, imatest.com), I've hired both CTOs and CEOs without difficulty, and successfully integrated them into the governance of the companies.

Somehow, this time around, my recruiting efforts seem to be generating a crazy number of misunderstandings. People assume that I'm looking for contractors (I'm not). People assume that I won't be paying competitive salaries (I will be). People assume that I won't be giving away equity (I will be). People assume that I won't be including officers of the company in its governance (I will be). And people make these assumptions even when my job descriptions explicitly say otherwise. I'm baffled by this, since I haven't encountered these presumptions with my prior startups.

I'm starting to wonder if developers in the web application space have perhaps been so badly burned by prior startup experiences that at this point they basically presume bad faith from any new venture they encounter. If so, that's really unfortunate, and I guess there's nothing I can do about it except either A.) hide the fact that I'm a startup (which would hardly be honest), or B.) Accept that that 90% of prospective candidates will weed themselves out simply by making bad assumptions, and realise that I probably didn't want those people anyway.

Also, I have to say that this experience is also starting to really warm me up to recruiters, who presumably are more skilled than I at dealing with the sort of industry dynamics that lead to these kind of misunderstandings.

> I recently received seed funding for my next startup (http://www.podaris.com/jobs.php), and am finding hiring developers to be extremely difficult.

I'm not surprised. You're trying to hire people with experience and significant skills - for which they're probably already being paid really well. Why would they quit their current projects and come work for you?

Honestly, a lot of start-ups just seem to want to hire incredible valuable people and offer almost nothing in return for that value. Everyone wants experience - most commonly because they don't know enough about the project themselves to design a test that will distinguish those who know what they're doing from those who don't (which is hardly inspiring to begin with.) Why would anyone want a high-commitment, high-risk lifestyle without the probability of commensurably high returns though? You talk about high equity but equity in a failed project's not worth diddly.

It's like... will you go work for this iffy guy in his shed for a couple of years on the basis of this product he's pinky-promised is awesome?

You need to offer people something they can't get elsewhere if you want to hire them. And all you're offering is the chance to interact with customers and the chance to 'shape' the product. Which is just... marketing jargon. You can't trust that to mean anything.

I suspect you'd be best off designing a test so that you can hire people with less experience, or just hiring one of the free lancers and accepting the uncertainty that they're going to stick around (trade on a risk for risk basis, essentially.)

> I'm not surprised. You're trying to hire people with experience and significant skills - for which they're probably already being paid really well. Why would they quit their current projects and come work for you?

Because I'd pay them just as well, and offer them much more exciting and meaningful work, with a potentially huge equity payoff if things go really well?

> Honestly, a lot of start-ups just seem to want to hire incredible valuable people and offer almost nothing in return for that value.

-- Argh, stop right there. I really need to figure out how to combat this conclusion that people jump to. People see "startup" and immediately assume "slave wages". I'm equipped to pay competitive salaries PLUS significant equity. Unfortunately, nobody seems to believe that a startup will really do that, even when I say so in black-and-white. How can I improve my messaging so that people don't jump to this false conclusion?

> It's like... will you go work for this iffy guy in his shed for a couple of years on the basis of this product he's pinky-promised is awesome?

This "iffy guy" is actually widely recognised as the world's top expert in this particular field, who's executed over $100M in projects in the past few years, and who is getting significant backing to set up a development team in a nice office in London's Silicon Roundabout. But when I say that "I have a startup and we're hiring full-time developers", people automatically assume that I'm some dodgy character who will pay you peanuts to work out of a shed.

Obviously I need to improve my message somewhat; possibly just dropping the word "startup", since this seems to cause people to jump to wildly false conclusions.

See my other replies on this thread for why freelancers are not an option for me.

I am currently contracting for a company in London, using more or less the same technologies as you do. They asked me to help build their team as well, so I know both sides of the table.

I would not even think twice offering a job to someone decent with javascript at £45K. The job is 9-to-5, the company is mature, has been around for 2 decades, will probably still be in another 2. They'd be in the comfort of knowing that their salary will be in their account at each and every end of month.

Betting companies are pushing the market upwards. Every person who took another offer over mine went to a betting company. So I have a feeling that I am only pitching for people who are morally against betting.

So are you paying that kind of money? I have a feeling that you'd have to pay at least £10K over for my offer to compensate for the inherent uncertainty and as a premium the find that person quick.

Yes, I'm certainly expecting to pay around £50k for the lower-level developers; significantly more for the lead developer, and meaningful equity to boot. Unfortunately people see "startup" and assume that this means "sweat equity, slave wages". I don't believe in running a business that way -- haven't done it with my last two startups (both of which have been successful), and won't do it with this one either. But apparently stating that I'm offering competitive salaries isn't enough to convince people that I'm really offering, you know, competitive salaries. Is there a better way to drive this message home?

Maybe you can delay revealing the fact that you are a startup. Don't mention the equity till you come to negotiation, drop "Silicon Roundabout" from your job pages.

Most developers have been burnt by startups at least once. I'd try not to remind the bad experiences before I have at least a chance to talk to them in person.

Yes, the word "startup" does seem to cause many developers to jump to wildly false conclusions about how much I intend to pay, what kind of backing I have, what the working conditions will be like, etc. This is a surprise to me!

Anyhow, I think you've given some very good advice, and I'll take it. Will you be at tomorrows's HNLondon meetup? I'd love to pick your brain for more advice on how to build a team here -- if not there, then perhaps over coffee sometime. Email me at nathan@podaris.com if you're interested.

I think this is certainly happending - my own first reaction to your job ad was "meh....equity over salary for a product that yesterday I didn't know existed".....

fwiw and from my perspective perhaps the problem is that you aren't advertising the salary you are offering - you want someone with significant experience - so we aren't talking about a recent graduate here, but someone with significant technical lead experience - experience most often comes with (at least a bit of) age and age comes with other responsibilities like family, kids, mortgage etc. Now they also have to believe in your product - so either they've already thought of it, or they need it sold to them.

maybe you need to go developer courting rather than waiting for them to drop through your door?

I've been actively courting developers for a few weeks now. I've found loads of qualified developers who are willing to freelance for a couple of months -- which unfortunately excludes them from consideration for the kind of roles I need.

You're perhaps right that explicitly stating the salary might be a better way to go. I've been patterning my job listings after those of more established companies, which generally do not state their salaries upfront. But when people see that we're a new company, their immediate assumptions are so negative (and wrong) that perhaps we need to go the extra mile to overcome those...

It's not just about salary. It's about the culture of people.

Your job descriptions talk about what YOU want and the tech, and you claim that we are going to change the world. What about what your prospective team wants? That's who you need to appeal to.

For instance, look at Shopify's career page.

http://www.shopify.com/careers

-Video of the team (Show don't tell, culture, work and play)

-Lists of the benefits (You're a human, that has a life, and we aren't going to abandon you when life events happen. We want you to stay healthy, have current gear, an vestation in the company and the ability to hone your skills and keep learning.)

-Pictures of a great environment and what it's like, testimonials from team members.

Salary HAS to be competitive, because no one in their right mind would say "Now hiring for 20% less than the industry median!" Get real. You need to talk to people about why it's worth it to come in and work their asses off for a super risky company.

Not a very useful comparison, to be honest: Shopify is a well-established company at this point, and I'm a startup. Obviously I have every intention of creating a great environment for and with the team, but in the beginning, it's only possible to say that, not show it. So you're asking to see something (videos, pictures, and testimonials from the team) that no startup -- ever -- can demonstrate. You can't eat a pie before you have it.

Fair enough on the established thing. My point was more to the fact that before you even see a job description, or what they want from you, they lead with why they want to you

as an early startup, I'd be interested in why you don't have a programmer/technical cofounder? That's normally how you'd get that ownership you want. I know I sure wouldn't own a project (YOUR project) on the level you describe without significant equity.

Cause otherwise its a gig that will probably be gone in a year.

> My point was more to the fact that before you even see a job description, or what they want from you, they lead with why they want to you

Fair enough. I'll work on the language to emphasise that more.

> As an early startup, I'd be interested in why you don't have a programmer/technical cofounder?

Because I haven't found one yet -- that's why I'm looking. Most web startups are created by people already working within web-focused industries, so they have constant access and strong social ties to myriads of potential technical co-founders. A good idea starts getting tossed around between mates at the pub, and after a while they decide to give their day jobs a shove and go for it full-time. But I'm coming out of the world of transport planning: there simply aren't any potential technical co-founders within my professional or social circles.

So I've spent the last couple of months making inroads into the London software-development scene, trying to find a technical co-founder. Unfortunately, I've found that "I'm looking for a co-founder" translates, in virtually everyone's mind, as "I have no money nor am I ever likely to, and want you to work long hours for nothing more than sweat equity" -- an assumption which closed off every conversation before it had a chance to begin. So because I already had a committed investor on-board, I switched to saying I was hiring a lead developer instead. Unfortunately, this leads to the following:

> I know I sure wouldn't own a project (YOUR project) on the level you describe without significant equity.

Exactly! Which is why the job posting very clearly states that I'm offering significant equity AS WELL as a competitive salary. And I really mean it!

But this just isn't coming through. If I tell people "I'm looking for a technical co-founder, and can pay a competitive salary", then they say they're not interested, because they can't take a job that doesn't pay a good salary. But if I tell people that I'm hiring at competitive salary for what is essentially a co-founder position -- with all the equity and responsibility that this implies -- then they say that they're not interested, because they wouldn't want to work in a startup that doesn't give them significant equity.

Somehow, developers assume that equity and salary are such binary opposites that the majority of them are literally incapable of parsing a verbal or written offer of BOTH. This is proving to be more than a bit crazy-making -- but I keep telling myself that I wouldn't have wanted to hire such nincompoops in any case. Eventually I'll find a technical person who both has the skills that I need and is sharp enough to parse what I'm saying...

The developer community is (rightly) full of stories in which obnoxious and intellectually-lazy businesspeople just couldn't comprehend what was directly in front of their eyes. I've always gotten a good chuckle out of those stories, because I identify much more strongly as a geek than as an MBA. But now I'm learning that it's possible to tell such stories from both sides of the divide. This is a tough lesson to absorb!

Perhaps you should market more towards a co-founder then just a programmer. Or market as looking for a CTO? It's not really your fault that underfunded CEOs often think that they can lure someone in with the potential of a mega-exit, when that isn't the case.

I'm wondering if equity-only positions actually ever even get filled?

Good luck though, you're probably on the right track by not just hiring the first person in your lap (happened a lot at the last company. Bad move).

well, last opinion from this peanut gallery - you've done a better job selling your startup on this thread than on your job add - the advert you have up there is prosaic and doesn't really express the passion you obviously have. Of course, just my opinion :)

I won't be attending tomorrow's meetup. I'll drop you an email.

Great, I look forward to it!

There is an other category: people who want high-commitment, high-uncertainty, and chance of high reward they get by starting their own startup.

Maybe you're asking people the same sacrifice you're doing, except that they'll be doing it for you rather than for themselves?

That's because your startup is likely to fail. why should people want to design a multi-million dollar system in a "HTML5" - Browserbased - Solution done by a (max) 10 person-team? I just don't get how you'll ever appeal to your target group.

But maybe -- hopefully -- I am wrong.

That's quite a jaded view of freelancers. We've depended upon four at Sococo, who have given their lives, weekends, intellect and experience every bit as much as founders.

I use freelancers quite a bit for one of my other companies (www.futurescaper.com), and I have a huge amount of respect for them. I am happy to use them for many, many tasks. But not for developing the core, unique IP, since this is something that can't be worked on in a relatively plug-and-play fashion.

As I said in another reply, imagine if Google had tried to design and implement Pagerank, the Google File System, and its custom server architecture using catch-as-catch-can freelancers. I'm in roughly the same boat. Freelancers can be stupendously great for working on more or less standard types of technology -- but when it comes to defining and maintaining truly unique pieces of technology, they are not the way to go.

Hm. Our three core pieces of technology were developed by freelancers - our GUI engine, our audio/visual networking modules, and our server-side app model were all done by three different non-employees. They are all employees today, which I admit did change things. Principally, it means they can't/don't work the hours they used to (they work normal hours now). Since their compensation doesn't change with greater hours, they just don't have the same motivation they used to.

Don't think it has to be stock options that made the difference. They got more of that as freelancers too - they exchanged a rate cut for options early on and came out ahead of any employee there too.

Interesting. Did you have detailed specifications and requirements for each of those three components in advance of hiring the freelancers? Or was spec'ing out the architecture of the platform part of their brief? If the latter, then how did you ensure that the architecture they were developing was a good fit to the long-term development strategy for the platform, and how did you ensure coordination and cohesion between them?

These aren't rhetorical questions, by the way -- I'm genuinely curious and would eager to have a chat about this. My experience has very much been that it's only really possible to integrate freelancers into a development process and product that's either fairly conventional or fairly mature. But if you've got a different experience, then I'd be keen to hear about it and learn from it! Contact me at nathan@podaris.com if you feel like talking in more depth at some point.

The founders knew what they wanted functionally. These first three developers became architects out of necessity. Only broad technology had been selected, no code design, not even tool chains.

Two of the freelancers worked out of their office (they were partners in their firm). The third lived in the same town. Both were 2000 miles from the corporate office.

The product was a collaboration tool. In a few months the first features were demo-able. After that the company 'ate its own dog food' i.e. used this tool to meet multiple times a day. Eventually we spend our entire day logged into this tool, available for instant communication, aware of what other communication is occurring in our 'area', sharing documents and status freely.

Plug: this tool is amazing, and enables freelancers and remote workers to behave as if in the same office. We often notice we get LESS done when we travel to other sites, because its harder to stay connected when travelling.

Most interesting. You're the first person I've talked to who's had success with engaging freelancers in this way -- but since it's worked for you, I can't discount it. I'll definitely give more consideration towards taking this route.

And that's quite a good plug for Sococo -- I'll definitely check it out. Thanks again for sharing your experience here!