This is the second part of a two part series of posts. The first post was entitled What To Look For In A Business Co-Founder. It seems that potential technical cofounders are approached by business cofounders a lot more than business cofounders are approached by technical cofounders. I thought about why that was after writing the post. In essence, I think it comes down to the fact that it’s a lot easier to identify the tangible skills of a technical cofounder from a high level perspective. Do they code? Yes. Okay, they could be a technical cofounder. At the end of the day “being able to code” is a small piece of the technical cofounder puzzle. Here are the qualities that make sense to look for in a technical co-founder.

A past record of building things

Potential technical cofounders should have a past record of building things. They may be very large projects with hundreds of people or they may just be very simple applications that never went anywhere. Learning how to code often happens best through practice exercises. The same can be said for building an entire company or large product as a technical cofounder. The more your potential technical cofounder has built things, the more pattern recognition they will have.

This is the first part of a two part series. The second part will obviously be: what to look for in technical cofounders. This post is something that I’ve been meaning to write for a while, but after reading two nonsense articles on Hacker News this evening I was immediately prompted to write this. A startup is a lot of work and no one skillset can handle it all. When you’re bootstrapped, with little funding, and working against the clock, each individual needs to be laser focused on what they are best at. A well trained technical cofounders should be handling the engineering side of things and a well trained business cofounder should be handling the business side of things. So if you’re a technical cofounder and you need a business cofounder or have been approached by a potential business cofounder, here are the things that I would look at.

1. A good level of technical understanding

Too many business co-founder types have no technical understanding at all. If you’re in the software business you should understand the technical end of things, just as if you’re in the biotech business, you should have a good understanding of science. They should have an idea of how products are built, not be afraid of code speak, specifications, and architectural decisions. Startups are like cyborgs, where the technology is so interwoven with the business side of things, that separating the two out would just kill it. Make sure your business cofounder has a strong grasp on technology. They will not be able to make the proper business decisions without this.

And while an internship program might be appealing to a startup as a way to recruit a cheap but enthusiastic labor force, Babbit and Bottner argue that there are both practical and legal guidelines to consider when creating an internship position.

1. Create a Work Plan for the Intern

Although interns do expect to do a certain amount of menial work, Babbitt argues that Gen-Y is predisposed to creative projects and as such, interns want to contribute, not simply make coffee. Students choose internships because they want experiential education, and so it's important to devise a work plan for an intern ahead of time, with clear tasks and expectations.

Calacanis writes, "As CEO, I was faced with a conundrum: Should I fire a hard-working and loyal team member for making a huge error? In this case, it was the first serious error made by an otherwise 'good kid.' Why did he make the mistake? He doesn't even know; perhaps a lack of focus or just a bad day. That's the problem with mistakes: their cause can be difficult to pin down."

Calacanis goes on to examine the three categories of that mistakes and employees can fall into and discusses his thoughts on who and when to fire:

1. A great team member who makes a big mistake

Verdict: Don't fire them. Talk about the mistake, and brainstorm ways to fix it and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

2. An average team member who makes a big mistake

Verdict: Fire them. In fact, Calacanis makes the argument that you shouldn't hire average employees at your startup in the first place. "Your advantage at a startup is that you can demand employees who crush it and who are above-average, and compensate them with stock options. Average people should work at average (by which I mean big) companies. Big companies actually run better with average folks, because those people don't rock the boat."

3. A great team member who makes multiple mistakes

Verdict: It's complicated, and unfortunately, it's all too common. Calacanis says that when faced with this, he does try to work through the person's problems. And while he notes that founders might not have the time or the training to do this, he stresses its importance. "When you try to save a flawed, yet at other times effective, team member, you send the other members of your team a positive message: loyalty."

VC Ben Horowitz recently wrote a blog post entitled "Why Startups Should Train Their People," in which he makes a case for ongoing functional training in startups, so that employees and management have the right skills to do their job.

Because at the end of the day, it probably takes more time to hire and fire someone than it does to train them.

Every member of the team should be subject to vesting. Unless you are planning to go it alone, in which case who cares, every member of the team should be subject to some form of appropriate vesting.  Consider the divorce rate among practicing Catholics, and they are expecting to suffer eternal damnation if they break up.  Breaking up may be hard to do, but people do it a lot.  Like the Boy Scouts, Be Prepared, in case it happens to you.  If Sally had followed this policy, no matter how sure she thought she was about Harry, she would have been OK when he bolted.

Consider this, if Harry leaves with a big chunk of equity and won’t give all (or some) back, you are going to have to figure out how to dilute his position.  This means getting more stock into the hands of the remaining productive team members.  This topic is beyond the scope of this post, but you probably can’t just give everyone (other than Harry) a pile of new shares.  If you did, then everyone is likely to have phantom income equal to the value of the new pile of shares.  So, you have to consider options (which have other drawbacks).  You also have to consider the impact on your investors, if any, and what rights they have in connection with your issuance of shares and options.  Fixing the capitalization once the shares are issued and vested is hard to do.