meticulouschris

Wow, that was insanely informative, thank you.

I especially liked how honest she was about the difficulty with finding engineers. Something I didn't think about.

Since I'm hoping to focus on more independent people (freelancers and agencies) as opposed to employees, hopefully I won't need to keep finding new engineers as regularly. But I could definitely see where I say, "you need agency X or y" and both are too busy to take on a project. Definitely wasn't thinking about that potential headache.

My skills sound similar to yours (full-stack w- devops) and I do freelance development on the side. Before the economy crashed, I had 2 clients. One paying $120/hr USD, the other $60/hr USD.

After the crash, I couldn't find anyone who would pay over $40/hr. Now things are slowly getting better; I have 2 clients paying $40/hr and one paying $60/hr.

I've never done any advertisement, basically these are people saying, "please help me". They have reached out through a friend of a friend looking for someone they could trust.

Since this isn't a make-or-break situation for me financially, we tend to agree on a price that they are comfortable with. These days my starting figure is $60/hr and I go down from there.

To be able to do marketing, advertising, and to be able to build it into a business, I'd probably want to be back in the $100-$120/hr range. With that level, I'd feel comfortable because I'd have the perks of my day job: travel to conferences, hire employees, save for retirement, good health insurance, limitless sugary snacks, etc.

I've been researching this a lot lately. So this could be from other posts on HN, other forums, or blog posts... most of this is probably not my original thoughts.

First the right co-founder would be a lot like you. Compatible communication styles and temperament. If one of you likes to "call it like it is" and the other is more gentle, things won't go well. You don't have to be identical, but close enough to not waste time fixing your relationship every day.

Second, the right co-founder will be the opposite of you. In terms of skills, opposites are good. You're good at development? You need them to be great at something entirely different.

If you met your best friend because you worked side-by-side doing the same job and do everything together, probably not a good cofounder. But if you have a former colleague that you worked with, you got along great, but you were in sales and he was a developer -- that might be a match made in heaven.

I like to think of it like a marriage. My wife doesn't mind doing the things I hate (cook, clean, etc) and I love doing the things she hates doing (going to work, doing finances, etc). We communicate well, get along great, and the responsibilities are easy to split.

That explains why I couldn't find anyone doing this is because I was using the wrong terminology!

I think you're right in that what I want to do is very similar to a consultant. But I'd like to do it on the individual level too (a la a recruiter). The one difference from a traditional recruiter is that I'd provide additional value. The folks I'm recommending are vetted by me. And I'm totally open to the possibility that recruiters also vet candidates, just with my limited experience of getting messages on LinkedIn, they usually just want me to interview so the company can decide if I know my stuff.

My end goal is to help the people who say, "I know I need someone to do X, but who?"