No technical co-founder?Technically not a problem!

Arum KangCOFFEE MEETS BAGEL

coffeemeetsbagel.com

About me

■ Moved to the US for high school

■ Business background (HBS)

■ Always been in the consumer product industry, mostly in the analytics/PM teams

@arumkang #hustlecon

Today’s talk

Story behind Coffee Meets BagelS T A G E 1

How I built my MVP with no technical background

S T A G E 2

How I found my CTOS T A G E 3

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S T A G E 1

Story behind Coffee Meets Bagel

Problems with online dating

■ Optimized for men

■ Women get harassed

■ Online dating is a chore

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Our solution

■ Brings excitement back to dating

■ Focuses on quality, safety and simplicity

Build a simple app that...

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Our solution

Curate one match a day, every day at noon to give people a magical moment to look forward to every day

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S T A G E 2

How I built my MVP with no technical background

Best advice I got

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MVP

■ Simple FB app to get information from FB account

■ Basic functionality to ‘like’ or ‘pass’

■ Basic admin tools for me to manually create matches

■ Ability to chat via anonymous phone number

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@arumkang #hustlecon

@arumkang #hustlecon

@arumkang #hustlecon

@arumkang #hustlecon

@arumkang #hustlecon

Finding my first developer

■ Chose a language, started with a small project

■ I asked three questions○ How long do you need to implement this?○ What questions would you ask me to clarify the project?○ Can you answer my questions in the doc?

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Initial posting

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Test project scope

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Testing the MVP

■ 50 friends signed up and beta tested

■ Curated matches every day for a week

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Testing the MVP

■ Most people used it every day

■ Great qualitative feedbackPeople looked forward to CMB!

Success!

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S T A G E 3

How I found my CTO

The real problem with oDesk

■ Not lack of talent

■ Not lack of developers

■ Time is unpredictableBest to pay on a project basis instead of hourly

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The real problem with oDesk

We needed a local developer

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We searched everywhere

■ I found my first engineer via Craigslist, 2nd via meetup list

■ Took a long time, conversations over months

Meetups, Craigslist, friends, school lists, etc...

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Craigslist posting

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Meetup list

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Hiring a CTO with no money

■ Paid $30 / hour out of pocket

■ If we mutually decided he should be CTO, then I would give him founder-level equityCTOs are generally undervalued- differentiate your company with equitable equity

■ If not, would back pay him over time

@arumkang #hustlecon

More often than not, it doesn’t work out

Take your time before committing to each other!

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Summary

■ You don’t always need an A player to get it going

■ Get a tech advisor

■ There is no shortcut. Be creative.

■ Take your time before committing

@arumkang #hustlecon

coffeemeetsbagel.com

ARUM KANGFOUNDER, CEO

@arumkang #hustlecon

www.hustlecon.com #hustlecon