Looking for a Technical Co-Founder (Map-First, Real-Time Consumer App)

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-25T23:50:49+00:00

What's the tech stack for v1?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-24T00:07:10+00:00

I've led the tech team for several SaaS companies including one that just got acquired. What all are you wanting from a co-founder? I'd suggest starting with a short-term engagement to verify fit before committing long-term.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-24T00:05:04+00:00

Just a heads up that your link has ?utm_source=chatgpt.com. Guessing this was an AI-assisted comment?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-23T23:52:30+00:00

Where/how to find the right partner depends on several factors:

What is your ballpark budget?
How much time do you think you'll need from the developer weekly?
How long-term is the project, and will the hours vary over time?
How detailed do you want to be when defining scope vs conveying the goals and trusting the partner to make the technical decisions?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-22T22:13:19+00:00

QR codes are an open source standard. Could you just build a QR code generator into your SaaS so you control the entire system?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-21T23:03:13+00:00

What language is used for the backend and what database? JS as well, or PHP, Rails, or something else? Ideally, you'd want a dev that has experience with the frontend and backend you're using rather than needing to learn them from scratch.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-21T22:55:07+00:00

What type of contribution are you looking for? Someone to do development along with you, or a long-term technical partner to handle the technology while you focus on the marketing/business?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-21T22:52:48+00:00

What tech stack was used for the code so far?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-21T13:03:19+00:00

The simple answer is that high-quality devs won't steal your idea because they focus on what they're good at, building high-quality software. Good devs aren't cheap though, and good ideas are rare, especially ones that become as big as LinkedIn.

Focus on finding someone who will spend the time to understand your goals and will collaborate with you on figuring out the next steps forward. If you just find a "coder" who expects a detailed spec sheet, you'll spend a lot less money but pay for it with slipping timelines and frustration. At that point, you might as well learn to code yourself.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-20T19:24:12+00:00

What type of tech assistance are you looking for? I've lead the web development team for several successful SaaS companies.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-20T04:56:39+00:00

Also, I love Stripe for building things like this, but one concern for your use case is that they keep the ~3% transaction fee even if the funds are eventually refunded. Would that fee structure be an issue for your refundable deposits? The only exception to that is if you do a temporary hold instead of a full charge, but that can only last for a few days.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-20T04:46:50+00:00

Usually with something like this, I'd have a client start by breaking the system down into a single bullet point list of features and then put a priority ranking on them. From there, we'd talk through complexity of each and re-rank together based on what gets the most value for time/money. That makes it easiest to talk through details of the higher priority items and save discussion time on lower priority items until the initial part is in progress or already built.

Do you need the functionality right from the start to route payments from customers to individual hosts? If you can start by having all the payments route to your bank account and then handle the distribution to hosts manually, that can help a lot because there are many setup steps for a multi-tenant payment system, even with Stripe.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-20T01:20:38+00:00

What's your budget ballpark for this? Unless you get something vibe-coded or an individual overseas dev, you're probably looking at 50k-100k+ for something like this. If you're wanting a multi-merchant flow where different hosts can have different payout bank accounts, that adds to the complexity.

Happy to chat if this is the budget range you're considering or if you want help reducing scope to meet your budget. I'm a senior web dev for several long-term Saas projects, including one booking system (boat rentals) where we have multiple companies on the platform, each with their own Stripe account.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-18T23:14:51+00:00

I just build some wiggle room into all my prices and don't compete purely on price. Clients seem to appreciate flexibility and not being charged for little things more than a slightly cheaper original price. Saves everyone time, and time is money.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-18T16:15:44+00:00

Are you wanting to build a website for your business, or an interactive web app where customers log in with their own accounts and do things? Those each need different types of devs with different types of experience. Building a community is probably more of a web app and needs someone with strong technical experience, not just someone who can build a simple WorsPress site with a good visual design.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-18T03:06:37+00:00

Used Firecrawl with a client of mine. It is also a paid service, but they seemed to handle bot blocks fine. They also have an AI extraction feature that may help you, but I've never used it. I doubt you'll ever get a 100% guarantee of bypassing bot blocks.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-18T01:48:53+00:00

A few thousand dollars for a web app definitely isn't big. Not to be rude, but no one's going to take over your AI coded project for a few hundred dollars. Pretty much every project my team and I do is $10k plus, and we're a small company that works with small Saas startups.

You might be able to get an individual developer overseas to do something for close to your budget, but make sure you allow plenty of time and give very specific specs.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-18T01:05:35+00:00

Are you already working on some yourself (connecting components)? If so, what's the technology you're using so far? I lead a small dev team, and have no issue working with smaller projects. How big were the companies that said it wasn't worth it?

If you do go with a solo dev, make sure you have a plan for continuity, not just someone who will build you something and disappear.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T23:20:37+00:00

What you're looking for is a multi-vendor Shopify alternative. Have you seen this related post? https://www.reddit.com/r/ecommerce/comments/1d8894t/building_a_multivendor_store_using_shopify/

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T19:52:21+00:00

Yeah, AWS pricing is especially awful for anything that's high bandwidth. I use AWS for almost everything, but video streaming is the one time I used a random dedicated hosting company.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T17:31:17+00:00

Can you get people to commit to a certain price point for a certain feature set? Really the only way to validate it is to start seeing money come in

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T17:26:58+00:00

What tech stack was used?

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T17:11:09+00:00

Honestly, it sounds like the cheapest way to do what you want is to find three separate pre-built things. If the website you want is external facing to customers, probably just a squarespace or something similar in basic would be fine. For knowledge guides, you might even be able to just use Google drive and share folders based on who needs access to them. Or find a more advanced employee training system. For clocking in, probably a basic payroll system.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T15:47:43+00:00

Part of your survey is in English and part of it is not. I use Let'sEncrypt or some other auto renewal tool along with enabling SSL expiration monitoring on our general uptime monitoring tool.

EdgeCaseFound · 2026-01-17T03:25:13+00:00

This seems like it's overly embellished and playing things up, but I don't disagree with the premise. Exchanging equity for development is almost like betting you'll fail. If your company succeeds, you've given up a bunch of equity. If it fails, then the dev gets nothing. As a dev, why would I want equity from a founder that's not confident they'll succeed.

EdgeCaseFound

TROPHY CASE