mobile-apps, web-development, programmersI am a 35 year old web developer. I’ve been doing the 9-5 grind for a long time, but I have a penchant to create more in my freetime. I have my ideas, or I would work on another person/group’s ideas. Ideally, I would be getting compensated via an ownership percent or perhaps a percent of a startup’s exit.
Would it be best to focus on meetups centered around startup and startup founders? Is it in a founder’s best interest to offer somebody like myself ownership/exit percentage? Any best practices for filtering out startups to work with? Perhaps a checklist that would make a founder/startup worth working for and/or a checklist that I could check off for myself to offer to founder/startups?
–edit for clarification–
I may have lacked focus in my question, but I’m not looking to bolster any particular idea(s). I’m mostly looking for the proper verbiage or best plan of action when trying to break into the startup “scene”, either with a group of like-minded people looking to do the same thing or an already established startup.
This question is pretty vague because ‘i have an idea’ can vary from something you can do alone (like build an app/game for the phone) to building a full blown enterprise (the next playstation/xbox/iphone).
First, go through this checklist, and make sure your mind is in the game and that you can handle the pressure ((http://smallbiztrends.com/2013/04/startup-checklist.html))
Next, you would want to Categorize your ideas and divide them by the following requirements:
Once this list is complete, try to go through the following checklist, for each idea (http://www.myownbusiness.org/start_a_business_kit.html) Once you have the pro’s and cons all figured out, then you can jump into some meetup groups and throw your top 5 ideas around to test the waters with different age-groups, because what looks good on paper may not always be the new trend.
As far as financials, That’s all up to you, and really depends on the business model and business structure you have created. If it is a big idea, then you will need to find staff, and as a developer, you will be better off finding someone who is better in the field of negotiating to help with other people’s contracts and venture capitalists (if you go that route).
Personally, what helps me sometimes including with inspiration is John Lee Dumas of (www.eofire.com) Podcast. I think he pushes out a new episode with a new entrepreneur daily, so you will have lots of software success stories to hear on there.
Hope that helps and good luck on your venture.
From your question it looks like you are aiming to stay in the 9 to 5, and work on your ideas / startup in free time.
For your own ideas it will be critical you research your target market, and any support requirements (as support might be affected by your 9 to 5 in the early days before its big enough to leave the 9 to 5).
For working with others, you might only get very low equity if you’re only working in spare time (unless the other founders are doing the same). To get larger equity as a technical person you might need to get in early, and as a CTO type position.
Ess Kay’s answer covers a lot of the other points.
To answer the "where", I would suggest you to attend "founders meetups" you can find on sites like meetup.com, or to get in touch with startup incubators.
"Is it in a founder's best interest to offer somebody like myself ownership/exit percentage?"*
It is, but if you still ask these kind of questions it might be tough for you to get a proper deal. Greed is absolutely mind-blowing in the startup world...
I actually get asked this question constantly, usually by friends who are looking to build a website or tech startup for the first time, who have an idea but don’t know how to actually create it. And if you are launching a web startup for the first time, then it’s probably one of the most important questions you’ll have to answer for yourself before you begin, as it can largely determine: A substantial portion of your costs and how much money you raise,the quality of your product,how much maintenance you’ll need down the road and when you rebuild, how much equity you give up, your success or failure
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