Day 0
The two questions nobody asks on day one
How many hours will you really work, and what split do you need. They feel too blunt for a first meeting, so they usually wait until they are too expensive for any meeting.
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Finding the engineer he could not be
Four constraints most people never write down until the argument, written down on day one instead of month nine.
A worked example, not a customer story. Every figure below describes what the product does today.
4constraints written on day zero
2names in the morning
0score when no split satisfies both
Night 1
Similarity is punished, not rewarded
Everyone who is also a product person scores badly, not neutrally. Everyone on nights and weekends while he is full-time scores badly. Anyone whose minimum split, added to his, comes to more than a hundred percent scores zero.
Day 1
Two names
Both engineers, both full-time, both in the region he named. One of them has written, in their own words, what they need the other person to bring, and it is what he brings.
Week 3
They talk
The hard questions had answers before the first coffee, because the system refused to match on anything else.
What he wrote on day zero
I am a product person, I need engineering, full-time from January, I need 40 to 50 percent, and I will only build with someone I can sit next to.
In the same week
What it did not do.
Two names, and the hard questions answered before the first coffee.
- Rewarded overlap. Co-founder fit is the only signal in the engine that punishes it.
- Let rapport override arithmetic. No split satisfies two minimums that sum past a hundred.
- Made the decision for him. Two names is not a shortlist he is obliged to like.
The thinking behind it
Read the argument.
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