If you’re a non-technical founder like me, think long and hard before seeking a technical cofounder to help you launch your vision. I’ve found that most people (whether they are developers, designers, salespeople, marketers, carpenters, masons, doctors, soldiers, or pugilists) simply aren’t cut out for owning the responsibilities of building a business.
While just about everyone harbors some dreamy notion of launching their own venture, when it comes down to it, few have the disposition to embark upon the entrepreneurial journey, and fewer still have the temperament to run a business. Programmers are no different. Great programmers are talented craftspeople. They have precious skills that they’ve invested years in cultivating. But, rare is the craftsperson who can build a business.
Perhaps just as important, there is essentially negative unemployment* among developers, which means there are huge opportunities for capable developers and lots of pressure for them to leave for greener pastures if/when things aren’t going so great.
Instead of convincing artisans to leave their gig to help you launch the next great thing, consider hiring them to work on it in their spare time. If your scope is too large for you to afford to hire them, then reduce your scope until you can afford to do it.
I hired an agency to build the first iteration of GuildQuality. At $40,000, I way overpaid them to execute an over-scoped vision. We could have come to market with half the functionality (the half that our first users actually valued) for half of that cost in half the time. Even so, $40,000 isn’t all that much. If you have a good idea and you’re compelling, you can raise that much money on good terms (or even better, you can save it up while getting paid by someone else).
Two years after we launched “GQ 1.0” (“GQ 0.1” would have been a better name), I paid $25,000 to a freelancer with a full-time gig to re-build the second iteration of GuildQuality.
Soon after, that freelancer joined our team, and we officially brought all development “in-house.”
Geoffrey Graham 
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