Founder Archetype Combo That Works: The Tech Wiz and the Industry Expert
Putting Together Strong Tech Skills + Someone That Understands a Problem That Matters
What’s up folks. This post is a continuation of the post I made about Why You Should Have Exactly Two Founders if you’re going to start a small tech company.
Now I want to start getting into some archetype combos that work well for founders, how you can identify which one you are and how to capitalize on that by finding the right co-founder for you.
Today we will cover the Tech Wiz & The Industry Expert archetypes. This combination is powerful for a multitude of reasons.
The real world is much more messy than these archetypes. You may not find someone that fits these bills 100%.
The goal is to get you to figure what your lane is, what skills you need to develop to become *more like* one of these two.
And finally, to get your mind focused on finding someone that will complement you in a way that’s conducive to success.
Why the Odd Couple Works
As I’ve discussed in previous posts: almost all the energy you put into your company early on needs to be about making your product excellent and selling that product.
The Tech Wiz + Industry Expert combination is powerful because this duo can accomplish those goals with flying colors.
Traits of the Tech Wiz
Usually the tech wiz is someone who is completely obsessed with technology. Someone that’s been obsessed with technology and considered to be “traditionally smart” in academics.
Many Tech Wizes have their heads in the clouds. They have a large portfolio of projects they’ve built “for fun”. Many if not most of them are pure duds and purely for amusement.
That’s ok!
What matters is the passion, the breadth of knowledge in technology, and the ability to execute and actually get something shipping. The most important thing is their “commitment to the game” - passion for technology, talent for putting things together and intense attention to detail to get things to work right. A little bit of idealism is actually a good thing in this archetype.
The Tech Wiz’s bottom line: he has an unquenchable obsession with making good technology, doing cool things, and solving a problem.
Traits of the Industry Expert
The Industry Expert in the yang to the Tech Wiz’s yin. Usually this is going to be someone who’s professional career or unique life experience has lead them to connect deeply with a community and their problems.
For example:
an insurance broker who has seen first hand the payouts & liabilities from small medical practices
a division 1 athlete who sees first hand the plights of that lifestyle, how to make it better
a single mom who struggles with a specific problem and imagines an innovative way to solve it
The Industry Expert in each case gets slapped in the face with some unpleasant aspect of reality, and tries to find a better way. That obsession with the problem puts them on a path of focus that leads to expertise & ultimately leads to the foundation of a good product and good team.
Putting the Two Together
With the tech competence of the Wiz + the insight and deep focus on a problem brought by the Industry Expert, this team can be lethal.
The life experience of the Industry Expert lays the groundwork for a good product: having a tangible, overwhelming problem to solve. Combined with the Tech Wiz’s ability as a craftsman of technology solutions, you’re looking at shipping something fast that’s actually worth buying.
A Couple Notable Examples
Uber - Garrett Kamp was a very strong software engineer meanwhile Travis Kalanick is incredibly strong in operations and logistics. Combined, they were able to tackle a massive problem through Garrett’s tech wizardry and TK’s dogged persistence and knack for studying a problem deeply and orchestrating the ops, they were able to create one of the most influential companies of the 21st century.
Square - Jack Dorsey was able to use his tech skills and connections to bring to bear a solution needed desperately by co-founder Jim McKelvey and many small business owners: the ability to accept credit cards. After the inability to collect a $2000 sale of a custom glass artwork, Jim sought out a solution and teamed up with a great tech man in Dorsey.
Choose Your Fighter
The point of this post is to use hyperbole to describe the “archetypal” founder types. What if you don’t perfectly fit the bill? That’s ok.
Figure out which one you are *more like* and focus your mind on that lane. Are you a tech professional? Focus on becoming very good in a couple practical areas and tinkering.
Are you an entrepreneurial person working in a niche or with a unique life experience? Look around at common problems in your life or those of your peers, study the problems deeply and start churning on how to capitalize.
Then start looking into how you can find your counterpart.
Finding Your Match: The Tech Wiz
How do you succeed when nerd hunting? Here are some places I’d look:
Find a mixer if you’re in a big city OR go to an online meetup. Pitch your idea/background and be on the lookout for tech nerds that are
Ask around your network. Explain what you’re looking for and the general gist of the technology you’d need to make your idea happen.
If you’re young or still in school, befriend some engineers. Be nice even if they’re not traditionally cool!
Advanced tip: start befriending college professors near you. Usually they will have an eye for talent and could bring you a short list of kids with a ton of potential.
Finding Your Match: The Industry Expert
If you’re a techie this is going to be out of your wheelhouse but…you should try to get out of your comfort zone and meet some people. Industry Experts come in many forms:
Find a mixer if you’re in a big city OR go to an online meetup. Take in the different ideas people throw out there. Step back and look for the most competent serious people there.
Look for people in your Corporate Job and find a sales or marketing person that’s a little off-kilter. Maybe they’re a renegade or known for doing things their own way. That’s where you can find a real entrepreneur.
Network with people that are already small business entrepreneurs or hustlers in some capacity. Finding people that have already been in the trenches and seen what works/doesn’t is going to bring a pragmatic aspect that would balance you out.
Closing Out
Finding someone to help you found a company is a lot like finding a spouse. I love this archetype as a lens because it gets you to focus on being either the problem expert or the solutions expert. Furthermore, it combines two very different personality types in such a way that I think it inoculates your business against some very dangerous pitfalls and groupthink.
There’s a lot to consider. My goal with this post is to make things a little simpler for you by giving you some broad archetypes that can help you frame a notoriously complex issue and hopefully find someone who’s right for you.
Recommended Reading
Check out the full post here.
TLDR:
#1 - Rework by Jason Fried & DHH- Two Tech Startup GOATs & They’ll Teach You Their Minimalist, Practical Methods
#2 - Atomic Habits by James Clear - Learning the Ins and Outs of Human Behavior Formation Is an Incredibly Lucrative Talent
#3 - High Output Management by Andy Grove - Former Intel CEO Shows You How to Use Engineering Principles to Build a Strong Business
#4 - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink - Former Navy Seal Officer Teaches You How to Build a Team of Doers with Initiative
#5 - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Georgetown Professor Shows You How Connectivity is Massively Overrated, Focus is Underrated and How You’re Currently Fucking Up Your Productivity
#6 - Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou - Game Development Expert Teaches You How You Can Play 4D Chess with Incentives & Accelerate Growth on a Massive Scale
#7 - Don’t Just Roll the Dice- Use sound economics & psychology plus the wondrous flexibility of software to come up with a pricing model that actually works