Had several problems, can't remember them all. One that I do remember is it being extremely problematic or slow loading Google Maps mashup base stuff where Safari perfectly just worked.
Post it on https://flippa.com/ with specific site details, analytics stats, and actual revenue figures (monthly). The more detail the better. Flippa is a marketplace for people to buy and sell websites, including ones that produce revenues, etc...
Do businesses get bought on Flippa -- most listings I see with non-zero bids aren't covering the development costs over a single day -- $10 bids? Seriously?
You need to be honest with him and tell him things aren't working out and that he was originally brought on as a technical cofounder and he hasn't been working out for that role and he wants to switch to being a business cofounder which is not what you need.
Talk to an attorney about something called the Termination of Service agreement, have him sign this agreement along with the Convention Invention Assignment agreement. You'll need to compensate him some dollar amount for signing the agreement in good faith but it'll be the cleanest way to separate and vitally important moving forward.
I completely agree here. There are limitations with the micro and even running on a small server is insufficient in most cases with memory limitations. For development purposes before launch, AWS is probably not ideal.
On the other hand, after launch, AWS is amazing to scale with. I use AWS in conjunction with Rightscale which I highly recommend. Much easier to deploy.
I'm not a YC alum and I don't intend to be and what I'm about to say is personal opinion so take it as is.
As an entrepreneur, and someone who've successfully sold his own startup, I would gladly help out other entrepreneurs but I wouldn't invest in any. Others have ask if I'd be interested in investing and simply put, I don't enjoy investing nor is it something in my nature. What I love to do and what I'm passionate about is building a company.
I'm not the type that can invest in others and casually give advice on the side lines. I am the type that is very hands on and you can't be an investor and do that unless you plan on doing very limited investing and that's it. My opinion of course. That said, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in helping people, make introductions, and give valid advice freely.
Paying it forward doesn't necessarily mean having to put in money. Everyone is different. Just because they don't want to invest doesn't mean they aren't trying to help. You need to clearly distinguish the two. As a matter of fact, I wish most people who look for investors to invest make better choices on the investors they would accept rather than focus on just the money they would get. Mark suster says it best that taking on an investment is worse than marriage as its a heavy commitment. Get to know the people who are investing in you behind preliminary meetings and understand the value in which they can provide beyond the money. Even YC are selective of who they accept.
That doesn't address his question. It addresses what every "founder" should have, not what determines a technical cofounder...
OP, I think as long as you can build what you're trying to build and it's solid without serious issues, you're good enough. Most founders will end up hiring more technical people on to help with complex algorithms and such down the road. Not every technical founder have say, a PhD in Machine Learning for example, to build a complex semantic search engine (random example). As long as you're confident in your code to an extent to get the company up and running and be able to lead a technical team, you're probably good enough to call yourself a technical cofounder.
Fullsail has a web design and web development program but I don't know if you'd consider them elite. Web development is generally self-taught and not really something most people pursue degrees for.
