How to recruit a programmer? A really good one
No technological start-up can function without having developers. We all know that. We also know, that hiring developer is not the easiest thing in the world. Especially, when you are not a programmer yourself and you have a little to no idea, how to even begin thinking about this. The easiest solution is to look for outsourcing and ask professional HR company to do it for you. But it’s really not cheap, and money is of the essence.
The worst thing that can happened is that you will hire someone bad. That means lost time and money until you or someone that you know and trust (and actually knows something about code) spot, that your brand-new employee is a crook. Actually it’s not the end of the world. The worst case scenario is you hiring someone really bad and with bad intentions. That could mean a lot of troubles, sometimes even legal ones. So what to do to avoid this?
First of all, during recruitment talks always have someone with you who actually have technical knowledge. I cannot even tell you how important it is. Ideally that person should be someone whom opinions you trust. That way you can look through candidate answers and have someone to talk tech details with.
Second most important thing is that you never ever, hire any developer without conducting test project. It’s because sometimes first impressions could be misleading. Someone who was looking really great on the talk might not have abilities, that you are looking for. Good idea is to assign candidate with some few days long task. During which he has to use various skills, both social and programming. Other option is to include such a person to your team as a consultant. That way you can warm him up with the company politics and office life along with having benefit of checking what that person can actually do.
Don’t do anything alone
When we answered question how to recruit a programmer, we can focus on other important issues, when launching a start-up. Never do anything alone. We can extrapolate the example with hiring programmer without prior tech knowledge to almost any aspect of running a company. As my boss used to say, nobody knows anything. When you are alone you just can't handle everything that will be needed of you. You’ll start forgetting about things or just don’t have enough time to complete all your tasks and duties.
Running start-up alone is not good for your company PR as well. For many potential investors this is signal, that you can even convince your closest friends and family to do it with you. People who know you the most. Subconsciously it’s alarm about narrow-minded thinking of founder.
Location, location, location
Basic one. When starting company in the middle of the big city it’s much easier to find sponsors and people to work with. All start-ups are oriented to fast grow and even faster scaling. It would be much harder for you to convince developers, project managers and others to move to the village.
Also, some places are more associated with IT business than others. In the most cases, especially in Europe, there are capitals. Berlin or London are hubs of sparkling ideas of new apps and technologies. With thousands of young and creative people living in, looking for new opportunities to grow and expand. But it’s not always a rule. The most known exception is of course Silicon Valley with its legacy. Remember, Apple and Microsoft back in the day was a start-up too.
Don’t be a copy of copy.
Facebook already existed. The fact, that you will create another social media like Facebook but with green designs is still an imitation. It won’t attract any user attention. Don’t try to invent wheel and focus on answering people’s needs. Think what problem you have and look for applicable solution. Contrary to the popular opinion, your client is human just like you. Having similar problems and acting the way you are acting. Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn’t create Google to become a global corporation. They did this, because they couldn’t find stuff online.
