amp0193
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Equity is the only way to get an extremely talented technical cofounder unless you raise capital upfront and can pay them the salary they need.Rather than paying 50$ per hour or whatever it costs to someone, would it make sense to offer up 10-30% to a stranger we find on LinkedIn who seems talented just so we can have them on board and their advice on retainer? From my understanding these guys are getting 150-300K per year at their day jobs so I am not too sure if the idea of 50-100$ per hour would be appealing to them unless we go offshore to Asia etc.
If no capital, then they aren't getting $50-100 per hour, they are getting $0 per hour until the thing is built (with the hope of a big payoff down the road).
So then it comes down to flexing your sales skills. Can you convince someone of that caliber to leave their golden handcuffs to work on your project? Can you convince them of the upside? Do you believe in it yourself?
If I was in your shoes, my first step would be to hire a consultant on Upwork to just have an hour conversation with you to help you understand how easy/difficult it would be to build what you want to build. You might learn that you could use outsourced contract labor to put together an MVP on X coding language.
In the long-run though, I don't know how you build a successful SAAS company, without someone technical on the team. For that matter... you and your buddy are both sales guys. Do you have complementary skill sets? Are each of you bringing something unique to the business? Before adding the 3rd, make sure it makes sense to have the 2nd as well.