Question:
We have started a company to solve one of the biggest problems in financial services: providing basic financial services such as money transfer and micro-purchases to unbanked consumers in Latin America (particularly Mexico) and Africa. Our customers are usually getting remittances from family members migrating to other areas - such as Mexicans moving to LA.
The company is based in silicon valley.
Our challenge is that finding programmers with an extreme passion for this space in silicon valley is difficult. Everyone in SV uses mint.com but how many people in SV come from poor families in Latin America or Africa that are dependent upon money transfers from family members in the US?
I'm struggling with how to solve this problem as we start to scale the number of programmers we need to build our business.
We have found a couple of really good programmers in SV but we've experienced some churn via people who have less interest in this space and/or don't really understand the need for what we're doing as they can't "experience it" first hand. This is a big financial opportunity and will help a lot of lives but it's not sexy like consumer internet plays.
Your thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Bill Barhydt
bill@m-via.com
It could be cultural, organizational, technical... if I were you I would look into these areas. The fact that you're asking here suggests that you're aware of the cultural factor.
Great programmers want creative collaboration. Frame it as a hard, worthy problem that you want help with, not as a set of technical tasks ("we just need to build the software"); a partnership, not a hierarchy.
Don't put any effort into improving your rhetoric to attract developers; this will only work on the ones who are not as smart. Instead, be as direct and honest as you can, including about what you don't know. I think that quality in your question is what struck me positively and prompted me to reply.