How to find a developer in a garage startup: from personal experience

    Are you an enthusiastic entrepreneur and do you have an idea that will change the world? Congratulations! And now here is your first challenge, which will quickly lower you from heaven to earth. Unless you are a lone genius, you will need a development team. And if you really want to realize your idea, they must be professionals. Or at least one of them, the most important one, again, if you yourself are not a professional service station since 1978. And now the question is: how to attract a seasoned developer into the garage startup without investments, which weekly multimillion corporations, each of which is ready to pay him n thousand dollars, are trying to lure him?


    Initially, our project team consisted of three people - a project manager, journalist and financier. Everything is fine, but there was no one to code. Therefore, we had to search.

    Money


    It is believed that the main goal of a startup is to raise investments, to form a well-functioning (albeit on a lot of crutches) version of the product and to “sell to Google” for a lot of money. Based on this, it can be assumed that for the startup team members the financial component - read the salary - should be very important. And immediately and preferably more.
    But the garage startup is a non-cash creature by default, since there is no product yet, investments have not been raised, and all the money goes to pay for the services necessary for the work. And a startup can often not compete for employees with a large developer company, where salaries start at $ 2 thousand.
    At one time, we solved this problem simply: we went to the regions. We found a wonderful developer-downshifter, who escaped from the capital to a neighboring region, and invited him to his place. He liked our idea and agreed to work for a minimum rate. In his sleepy town, it was still boring and nothing to do.
    However, as soon as he began work on the project, the town suddenly ceased to be sleepy. When two weeks later it turned out that out of the tasks assigned to him, he was able to complete only one fifth, we had to seriously talk. He explained that he was invited to teach Java courses and was embarrassed to refuse. In addition, he received an extremely interesting offer, which he simply could not refuse, and he only had about two hours a day on our project. The problem was that for about two or three weeks he worked in this mode, while we believed that he wrote our service all day and night. His recognition and report on the work performed was an unpleasant surprise for us. We parted.

    So we realized that money cannot buy motivation, because there is always someone who will give more money, especially if you are in the garage.

    Share in the company


    Two days after parting with the first developer, we found a new one. This new one was most reminiscent of an electric broom. To begin with, he proposed to organize a four-day hackathon, during which we had to fully implement the basic functionality of the service. The hackathon did not succeed, but we still agreed.
    This developer did not need money. He wanted fame and share in the company. And a considerable one-third. For this, he had to write the engine for our web service alone and take on almost all of his support at first. We gritted our teeth, but agreed. The deadlines were running out - by the end of the month we planned to go out with a presentation to the largest gathering of psychologists. Where we, of course, did not have time.
    It turned out that we actually ran into the same rake. The last place of our developer’s work was an IT company with foggy Ukrainian owners in gold chains and managers who formulated their desires something like “well, this is so here, that means the button was there, so that the screen blinked, and something else on top stick it. ” As a result, a huge team of developers actively created chaos every day from ten to six. And this, obviously, has become a habit of our developer.
    Taking on the role of the future service station, he immediately brought a mass of rustle. He could call in the middle of the night asking how best to implement this or that feature. Or to convene the very hackathons, on which, however, the matter stopped soon enough. 
    But three weeks before the planned exit to the conference, friends from his hometown came to visit him, and for a week he turned off the process.
    And right after the departure of friends, he fell ill. He was ill for a week and a half. At the same time, it turned out that in the past, in spite of actively demonstrating actions and dozens of tasks instituted in the tasktracker, almost nothing had been done. We called him to account, but he announced that he was dying of a sore throat. After his recovery, we met, he was really pale, but at the end of the conversation let slip that the cause of pallor is not a disease, but a hangover. The next day, he was supposed to begin work on a new section of the service. But did not start. He didn’t answer our calls anymore, although in certain places he was constantly seen by someone.

    So we realized that pretended enthusiasm does not mean real interest. Our developer perceived the project as a hobby, a passing hobby, because he was old and wise, and had certain concepts of how to work: not to get a result, but to satisfy (or imitate the satisfaction) of his superiors. This was definitely not what we needed.

    In addition, obviously, financial and personal interest, which made him demand a share of 30%, was in the too distant future to motivate a sufficiently practical person on a daily basis.

    Experience


    After all that happened, we decided to go the other way. We did it:

    image

    Yes, this is a paper announcement. And yes, this is a paper announcement, with the help of which an Internet startup, developing a web service using the latest technologies, decided to find developers.
    And you know what? It worked.
    We posted an ad in the hostel of the country's largest technical university.
    After several rejected candidates, one of which stated: “I don’t know anything, but you will probably teach me. True, I want a normal salary and a share in the company, ”we found our current developer. Meet Denis:

    image

    He claims to have come to us for a long time. Let's try to figure out why.
    Denis is not a seasoned IT specialist. He graduates from the university and codes for part-time at a small Kiev company. However, he still perceives his work as something new, interesting and surprising, unlike most experienced developers who have long lost track of former employers. And of course, he is interested in the experience of creating solutions that real people will use, since this is exactly what he lacks.
    Another important feature of a startup developer is his willingness to learn quickly and flexibility in decisions. In the IT field, in principle, there are no people who are not ready to learn, but for some this is easier, and for some it is harder. And of course, since the startup’s life rhythm is several times faster than the rhythm of established companies, all decisions need to be made quickly.

    Another well-known truth that has been confirmed: the main engine of a startup is people who are ready to devote all their time to it. People for whom there is no concept of “overtime” or the phrase “I’ve already worked for five hours today, tired of it.” And, no matter how corny, but the main motivation here is faith in that unique idea, which underlies the startup.

    So, the answer to the question asked at the end of the first paragraph is extremely simple: no way. If you are in the garage and you yourself are not a top class developer, do not try to lure the best to yourself. If they were willing to risk leaving a large corporation in a startup, they would have already set up their own. So they still will not behave. At least right away. Find a novice programmer who has not had time to give up on a profession who is interested in gaining new experience, and go for it.

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