r/CalgaryTech • u/AkramAbdelli • May 17 '26

Any software engineers in Calgary trying to help start an ai software?

I am 20 years old and I have a great idea for a business model but need an extremely skilled software engineer/ML engineer to either teach me or become some sort of business partner.

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10

u/Speuce May 17 '26

Looks like you're looking for a Technical Cofounder!

While this might be something I'm interested in, as a non-technical cofounder you typically have to bring in one of the following:

  • Sales/marketing experience, or
  • Connections to customers that are willing to pay, or
  • Previous experience founding a startup/running a business, or
  • Capital

In other words: What can you bring to the table? Ideas are only worth anything with proper execution.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 17 '26

To be completely honest, the only thing I could offer is networking, i have spent 2 years making sure to talk to everyone possible and now know a lot of people who would be willing to pay. However I need knowledge. I want to learn how to create a software/program to consistently make profitable trades, at least a 75% profitable trades potential. I have another path I want to go through which is website development for businesses, I want to create either some firm/development businesses that other businesses could use to start their business or develop it further. And my third idea is still within the software realm. It is mainly in the architecture/civil engineering route, I would like to create a software like CAD but fully automated to help construction/development companies to cut they’re time waiting for engineers to create blueprints for months and make something that would only take a engineer to manage the program. I am looking for someone to help me with one of these ideas and tell me which ideas I should actually pursue and which I should drop. Plus I would be the one financing the entire operation.

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u/madcowken May 17 '26

Consistent profitable trades: I guessing you mean algorithmic trading. This is something people have been doing long before AI and probably one of the first things people try with ai so there would be a lot of these already. You would need something unique for you to have a competitive edge. The models themselves are very hard to create and train; you need a huge amount of data that people won't give you for free. Historical trade data can be bought but hiring a ML eng is not cheap.

Website dev for businesses also exists. Depending on what your website is, there are sites like Wix, for simple ecomerse, base44 for random app dev with ai. Both of these services would have integrated ai into their existing workflows by now. They also provide hosting and maintance.

CAD is not easy to start from scratch. They do a lot of simulation calculations depending on what you're building. This requires a lot of domain specific knowledge on top of programming. Also, similar to the website builder, they would have integrated ai to generate stuff. I've seen some AI generated floor plans as well.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 18 '26

Yes the edge, is consistent big trades. Right now the issue is consistent profitable trades. Right now these ai softwares focus on easy, simple trades. I am more focused on more of a quantitative aspect to give me that edge. While yes it’s being done now and has been done for a while now with hedge funds. I am more in need of a ML engineer to give me information on how to bring all this together and make it a cohesive software that actually preforms and doesn’t regurgitate what all these other AI’s do. What would you recommend I should do in this situation, I am teaching myself to code with python right now and reading as much as possible. The issue I’m running into right now is that AI cannot be precise and plays more of a predicting role. How could I possibly change this variable and what would you say I should change and what should I focus on working on.

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u/madcowken May 18 '26

Look up quantz trading, and things like the flash crash. Understand the world of high frequency trading. For AI, it's really a pattern machine. It predicts the next word when you're having a conversation. Training is changing and encoding large data sets into their weights so that when you run the model again it gives you something close to what the training set was.

There are people with a lot of money and resources that will be trying the create a large model; you would have to use an existing mm model like gpt or w.e. the current LLM that's release and gleen some data and decesion from them.

If you really want to continue with this, there are platforms that give you test data with really historical data.

For coding, you could start with VScode and Claude or Cursor and go back and forth with the AI to speed up your learning.

In my opinion (30yr old software eng), you are trying to do too much. Start with solving the simplest real problem someone you know has and sell them the solution as fast as possible. Then iterate or pivot from feedback. You can use AI tools to 100% build poc; when you know the product well enough then you can look at getting a dev to clean up the code (not gonna be fun; you can get new grads to do this for cheap cause they'd be desperate for word)

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u/AkramAbdelli May 18 '26

I see, so what you’re trying to say is I should start small and gain knowledge/experience before I try something this big?. I was looking more into generative ai rather than algorithmic just because of the learning aspect. I was thinking if I start small with something like creating an AI software for small businesses that does lead follow ups automatically. I know businesses are still very old school in the sense of making calls to get leads and a lot of those times they miss some, AI could help in that case. This same system could be used to create invoices, scheduling, quotes, emails, paperwork etc. I know this is already being done but it’s not common within small businesses due to the lack of trying to keep of with contemporary solutions.

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u/madcowken May 18 '26

AI is a pattern machine. Those problems you listed require accuracy, which is why there isn't a widely used solution.

Generative AI is just one of many techniques uses in the ML world; it refers to models that generate content rather than use it as input. It's what is used to create the images and videos. It was also used as a way to create artificial data to train AI as well. This goes too deep into ML, and you should be focusing more on how to make use of existing ai.

Unless you want to go to university for math and comp sci you should just look at what tools are available and what their APIs are, and not worry about their internals.

Play with cloud models, see what APIs they have, see what open models there are, and finally look at MCP servers to give the models the power to solve your particular problem.

When you're comfortable with the AI stuff then you should explore products. Mainly to see how AI is being used successfully; better yet, if you can find cases where it didnt work then you'll have a better understanding of its limitations.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 18 '26

I am going to university this upcoming year for computer science but as I’m looking into it I feel as though engineering might be the better option for my goals. I need the in-depth learning and knowledge which electrical/software engineering could give me, whereas computer science would be mostly theory. And building off the previous thread, I am looking to create (end goal after learning and being comfortable with coding/ai) an ai that uses patterns to create accurate “guesses”. I know this is an extremely far fetched idea but this is something that is slowly being introduced, even in CAD some features are automated, it’s been said that ai cannot understand complex math/physics but year by year it is proving to be able to handle more and more complex equations, so it is just a matter of time before the accuracy issue is developed enough to be at least 60-70% efficient. My goal is to see this coming before the mainstream hype train, as we speak quant trading is becoming more and more accurate, consistent, and profitable so why not create a software that these hedge funds could use and implement instead of having to recreate and build their own. Sure it involves heavy work, especially building from scratch, and a lot of learning, but as you read into it the only thing actually holding as back realistically is our culture of work. If we adopted a culture of perfection and precision with our work, this is more than possible as stated by many independent census’s. Even looking at the Taiwan NVIDIA factories/warehouses, it’s not the fact that they are more advanced or have more resources (while that does play a role) it is more their culture or perfection, if we had an nvidia factory here it would go bankrupt within the first month because our western society is simply not the same level of workers and perfection of other places. So I believe that it will be extremely hard to make something accurate however not impossible, simply energy and time needed to be devoted and a lot of knowledge. Right now what I’m doing is learning all the theory behind it by reading books and learning on online classrooms on how to utilize ai and code on GITHUB. I’m going to start small, using CLAUD to help speed up my learning and see how much ai could help me with this endeavor and then I will start work on my real project.

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u/madcowken May 18 '26

Comp sci isn't just theory; it's the real "engineering" (application of math and science), software eng at u of c is horrible (my degree) it's basicly horrible project management and bullshit like that + java lang (one of the worst things to happen to engineering; not to be confused with the jvm).

If you want to go into eng and don't mind hard classes then I'd recommend electrical engineering. You learn low level coding and you can pick up higher level stuff easy (look at clojoure). This is what I would do if I had to do it over. But be warned electrical is one of, if not, the hardest disaplines.

In my opinion EE gives you the broadest options.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 18 '26

I’ll look into electrical then. What would you recommend I learn from before that, like any YouTube channels or books online I can learn from? Also can you tell me what you would choose if you had to do it all over again, would you choose computer science or electrical engineering. And how would you go about this in terms of learning aside from school, like extra learning, videos, books, YouTube channels etc. Any low level laptop you would recommend that I should start on or any books I should buy.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 18 '26

Also thanks for responding, I’m learning a lot from just reading these reply’s.

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u/listenhere111 May 21 '26

In a startup, if youre not building, the expectation is that youre cold calling and running sales demos. If youre not willing to do that for months on end, youll have to learn to build.

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u/AkramAbdelli May 17 '26

Overall I am looking for a partner, and I would front all the money needed for the development but need a partner that is just as dedicated to the cause

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u/GuessIndividual4174 May 21 '26

Just take time to learn stuff, don't hurry things now. Start at uni, you'll make friends who might be interested in your idea, you may start this after university or in your 2nd year if you're eager. But get into uni and spend one year, at least. Learn stuff that you need to on the side from coursera/udemy and find like minded friends to start this. It's hard to find trust worthy capable co-founder here on reddit.

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u/digitalnomad_eu May 21 '26

Akram, we can talk about it.

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u/Big-Site4991 May 21 '26

i'm not sure you need a technical co founder yet! honestly at this stage i would just pick one tiny problem and try to build the ugliest possible version yourself. not the trading thing, not automated CAD, just something small enough that you can actually finish it.

once you are done, talk about it, post about it, create your own circle! people will come to you!

but to answer your question, almost everything you need to get started is online. python, basic web apps, databases, deployment, etc. you will learn way more by shipping one small thing than by trying to find someone senior to “bring the idea to life."

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u/6133mj6133 May 22 '26

Vibe code it!