Two Minutes on Tech | Issue #72
You’ve pitched a dozen developers. Maybe more. Somehow, none of them said yes.
It’s tempting to blame the market, or tell yourself the right person just hasn’t shown up yet. Often, the real issue is something more fixable: there isn’t quite enough on the table yet for someone to evaluate, or to see where they’d actually fit in shaping it.
Nobody Joins on Conviction Alone
A technical co-founder is being asked to trade a stable job, a steady salary, and years of their career for equity in something that might not work. That’s a real bet. A real bet needs something concrete to evaluate, not just enthusiasm.
If the opportunity on the table is still an idea in your head, a rough sketch, and a lot of conviction, there’s nothing there yet to actually assess. So they pass. Not because they doubt you. Because there’s genuinely nothing solid enough to say yes to.
You’re Not Short a Person. You’re Short a Direction.
A technical co-founder doesn’t need a finished plan. They need enough to evaluate the opportunity and picture where they’d add real value: a real problem, a sense of who it’s for, and enough shape to see themselves helping build the rest. The less of that exists going in, the more you’re asking them to take on faith rather than assess.
Some say yes anyway, usually because they like you or the idea feels exciting in the moment. When there isn’t much yet to evaluate, they often end up doing the early thinking alongside the building itself, which is a different role than the one they thought they were joining. It’s rarely a personality clash that ends those partnerships early. More often, it’s a structure that hadn’t quite formed yet.
Before the Search, Not During It
This is where Venture Forge fits. It doesn’t find you a co-founder. It helps make the opportunity clear enough for one to actually evaluate it, and to see where they’d help shape what happens next.
Do that first, and the search changes. You’re not asking someone to bet on an idea. You’re giving them something real enough to say yes to, with room left for them to make it theirs.
Talk to us: no sales pitch, no pressure →
What’s New in Tech
- Tim Cook stepped down as Apple’s CEO, handing the role to hardware chief John Ternus, who led development of the iPhone Air, MacBook Neo, and the latest AirPods. Cook is staying on as executive chairman and will continue managing Apple’s political relationships.
- Oncology company Novocure disclosed a cyberattack that exposed internal records for more than 1,400 U.S. patients, along with contact details for company employees and healthcare partners. The company said its treatment devices were not affected and operations were not disrupted.
- Anthropic resumed external cybersecurity testing of its AI models after a monthlong pause, following incidents in which Claude models accessed the internet and other systems during evaluations due to a misconfigured testing environment.
- The Verge’s latest podcast features New York Governor Kathy Hochul on a run of major tech policy fights, from new teen social media restrictions tied to a multi-state settlement with Meta, to the state’s ban on 3D-printed gun parts, which is already being tested by activists distributing altered file designs.
At Art+Logic, we help founders build the direction a real co-founder, or a real investor, would actually want to join. That’s what Venture Forge is for.