#NonTechStruggles #FindingEngineers #Freelancers #UnityGameEngine
Hey fellow non-tech founders! 👋 Have you been struggling to find reliable engineers to help bring your tech ideas to life?
I’ve got product, UX, and UI design experience, and even worked on 9-figure casual mobile titles before. But now that I’m venturing out on my own, I need an engineer to help me execute on a clickable prototype for a game in the Unity game engine.
I’ve tried hiring engineers on Upwork, but the results have been less than ideal. Many seem to lack technical expertise and just go through the motions without providing valuable insights or solutions.
So, my question to you is: should I keep kissing frogs until I find the perfect contractor, or should I explore alternative tactics to find a reliable engineer?
Here are some possible solutions that could help all of us in this situation:
– Consider networking within tech communities or attending virtual tech events to connect with potential engineers
– Reach out to your professional network for recommendations or referrals
– Utilize platforms specifically tailored for hiring tech professionals, such as Toptal or AngelList
Let’s share our experiences and strategies to overcome this common challenge! 🚀 #TechCollaboration #NetworkingSuccess #BuildingTechTeams
You need a technical co-founder
Yes, kiss many frogs and give requirements that are impossible to f*ck up. I don’t think any freelancer is going to help you avoid pitfalls and my guess is that only 1 of 5 employees would. It just doesn’t seem to work that way.
I found my dev on Fiverr. He speaks great English, strong communication and can build to my approximate vision, but it will sometimes take a few tries to get there.
The place I’ve landed, I sought out based on previous experience building the platform that is now my leading competitor. During the first set of fundraising through kickstarter, the founders of both companies used a figma mockup displayed on an iPhone.
Is your prototype strictly clickable or does it need to actually render 3d objects / allow user control?
I guess what I’m trying to ask is do you need an MVP to put into money peoples’ hands or a visual demo for fundraising a la kickstarter?
If the latter, a figma preview with some creative video editing might be enough.
Why do you need an engineer for a clickable prototype?
I think if it’s a game, you might as well hire a young recent grad team. That’ll give you the best mileage and dedication to build your project.
Direct hire with a competitive salary. You should have a few more veteran CVs that way.
Alternatively, learn Unity yourself and then hire. This way you can give better instructions to contractors who can’t be bothered to think for you and just do what they are told (from you).
But just to jump ahead in case you think “UX and UI design” experience is enough to instruct contractors. From my experience, most UX and UI designers don’t know how to speak tech. For example, I was in one of the UI/UX conference where the speakers are supposed to be “top of their game” in the UX/UI space (10-20 years of experience, with PhDs, etc. etc. etc.). When I asked them how prominent is PWA these days as compared to native apps. Their response were “what’s PWA? is it personalised web page?” Needless to say my jaw dropped.
Now this may not be you. You may be very experienced. But I don’t know. However, if you are repeatedly hitting roadblocks with hires. You may want to do some self assessment.
Unity devs are a dime a dozen. Studios are constantly laying off entire teams. Scoop up some people you’ve worked with
I can tell you from a technical founder point of view (maybe wrong, but that’s how I’ve always felt)
when I used to get approached by non technical founders, I always asked myself, why would I build this with you when I can build it on my own, especially if you are not contributing to other things I cannot do myself
I’m currently cofounding a highly technical product, but i have a non tech cofounder who’s a kick ass salesman/marketer and just knows how to get us in front of potential users/customers
I’m the one who approached him about this product I had been building on my own, and he literally sold me on my own product, he sold me on my own vision, that’s how I knew I had found gold.
I think the right approach for non tech cofounders should be bringing to the table something that us technical founders would find very hard to do and would not enjoy doing
everyone is different, so obviously you might find others who think differently
it’s also important to note that tech and non-tech is a gradual measurement, there are tech founders who enjoy the business side and viceversa, it’s not just black and white
good luck on your journey my friend, and keep us updated on your product
Hired a bunch, fired a bunch, learned lessons, hired better.
One major lesson was, when interviewing I give a lot of consideration for accolades and achievements but really try to understand if an employee has, and it sounds cheesy, but grit, determination, extreme ownership and the ability to communicate. Still make mistakes.
*leader at a late stage startup
How can you say you have a product when you are also needing an engineer to build a clickable prototype? You mean you have an idea? Idea isn’t a product.
This is not a typical startup, but you don’t need an engineer to sell your game. Build the hype, get some players to wishlist it and find a programmer co-founder who will be down with your vision.
Everything I’m going to say here is for a startup in general, not your specific situation.
I find that founders won’t listen in a startup. I’ve got a ton of startup experience and I will give talks about it. The general path is that when a founder asks what to do, I give them some instructions
* I’m gonna tell you something based on my experience, the teachings of Steve Blank, and general startup best practices.
* the founder chooses to do something else, and typically, it is 180 degrees different than the suggestion.
* founder fails and asks me why.
So, here is some advice.
* find people based on recommendations. Find people that you can trust, which is typically personal recommendations. After all, these people have to work based on their names and word of mouth. If they develop a bad reputation, it is going to kill them.
* Don’t go search on fiverrrrr, or whatever the current search platform for cheap is.
* prioritize properly. That means working and value over cheap. That means face to face working, which brings accountability.
I’m an engineering manager with startup experience.
You need at least one “missionary” in this sense: https://www.svpg.com/missionaries-vs-mercenaries/
You need to keep kissing frogs in different formats until you find the first one. The formats are already discussed in other comments:
– find a technical co-founder. You will be more attractive if the idea is validated and you have customers or close to be customers. Most capable engineers are frequently approached by people “who have a great idea for an app” and sceptical/tired of unvalidated illusions.
– find an almost missionary mercenary on Upwork or Fiverr
– hire a few newgrads. There is a chance to find talented and engaged newgrads, but most of them will move on if they get a better offer. The risk here is to end up with an unmaintainable messy codebase that would be expensive to clean up via mercenaries.
This is the classical story of “my app is 80% finished”, just need a bit of help to add authentication, payment and usage stats everywhere in the spaghetti code written by 6 people.
If it was my money, I would focus on getting a technical co-founder. Too many things can go wrong if you don’t have in-house technical competence.
Once you have a missionary with competence, they could hire more mercenaries for you for speed.