I have a tip on finding a cofounder. I've been looking for the last 12 months and I tried a lot of things, but the thing that worked best is this:
Post a job ad.
That's it. My ad sounded like a normal job in every way, with a title like "Director of X". A couple of specific notes: 1) the first line said "cofounder" in it somewhere, and 2) it specified "part-time to full-time, heavy on equity compensation" somewhere else.
The result: Lots of inappropriate candidates applied. But also, my 2 job posts resulted in three extremely excellent team members: a equity-only cofounder, a mostly-equity cofounder/early hire, and an amazing advisor. I have been working with these folks for months and they are very solid.
I also recommend my vetting process: just like a job. That is, I did a phone screen, a multi-hour interview, a little take-home, and I winnowed down the candidates at each stage. With the chosen few, I kicked off a "let's do this" conversation. My pitch was, "I know it's ridiculous, but let's get business married, we'll set up an offsite and start working together full-time... and, if we really need to, we'll get an annulment". That's what vesting is for!
It's a guy with an idea that he doesn't know how to build, asking you to spend hours filling out a form then three days building something to see if you know how to build stuff. And you need to be unemployed and love the idea.
That should have taken unbounded time to find someone, not a mere 9 months.
The mindset of wasting 9 months going on dates instead of starting something is so foreign. Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone.
It was a job interview (50 question homework, 3 day hackathon trial) plus firm requirements and who has the final say is presented. We didn't hear about the different tests and requirements these 100 dates demanded so it appears one sided.
The best way to meet a cofounder is to be interested in something; so interested you explore it and you find something you like someone else is doing and you talk to them about it. You come up with some idea and you reach out to this person and explore it.
It's reportedly hard to get funding for ideas. Investors want to see a team that is strong enough to iterate through some ideas and pivots. It's not one perfect idea that becomes the product or the company. People actually are too focused on some magic initial milestone. They'll align it with the end of the funding, or the limit of their patience, or the limit of the patience of their support system. That's not how these things work. They're repeated marathons, not sprints. And being focused for nine months on finding a co-founder also seems like an oversized goal, that shouldn't take so much time. It's not uncommon to swap out key people later, including founder, painful as it may be.
> They want to work on this part-time
> They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it
> They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview
I resonate with the OP because I am in this exact situation that I am building something but I cannot leave my current job now.
When some friends started to build companies in mid-2000/mid-2010 you could code/build something, try to get some traction and you could be received by VCs/angels and occasionally they could write a 25K check for you to work for 3-6 months to build it and perhaps you could get some traction and then scale or go burst.
Now the bar for new products it's absurdly high if you're out of the YC or San Francisco VC circles or if you do not have anyone in the industry; plus most of the VCs prefer to invest in "pedigree founders" than in unknown people, especially if those people are outside of the bay area.
In my first endeavor, I went with a finished product that undercut some big enterprise SaaS vendors, and we lost space for a bunch of non-technical guys with PPTs and one idea.
Honestly, in this situation, you want paying customers not VC-funding. YC at least has an objective application process (VC's don't, it just cold-email) and even then the acceptance rate makes it a non-viable dependable strategies.
Especially if you're enterprise SaaS..the question you need to answer is, how do you get a customer to pay?
(Sometimes having a co-founder here helps to answer this question)
Is this how you make a soulless throwaway "hope I get acqui-hired" type company? It doesn't sound like there is a lot of passion to make something great.
Yes, this process also filters out candidates who would refuse to go in such a hiring process.
I think the goals of having a good match are nevertheless important. Perhaps it is better to communicate these goals to your candidate co-founder and figure out together what the best approach is to verify them.
Good q and I can't name one either. Though I suspect when you're successful you tell a modified story about how you met.
"I ran a tight interview process and selected the best match based on vibes and a spreadsheet" isn't super inspiring to customers, employees, investors.
Suppose it's the same as online dating vs "meeting the old fashioned way".
I'm also pretty partial to "just work on your hobby and meet someone else". But probably a lot of opportunity left on the table that way. Especially if you know you want to build something serious.
Asking your potential co-founder to quit their full time job as a first thing in your zero customer startup is the biggest Red Flag of OP as a Co-Founder. That is too selfish.
I’m looking for a co-founder, running https://fixparser.dev which is a profitable company with clients worldwide. Been applying to YC twice but failed - will continue the search for funding. Reach out at victor@logotype.se cheers
I wanted to label this as a “nothingburger”, but all the pieces of advice are either tautologies, vague general dating tips (i.e. "make sure the vibes are not off"), or straight up untrue: "They want to work on this part-time", "They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it", "They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview". The latter are all very context dependent and are impossible to label as a "red flag" without further information. Possibly SEO bait?
> Red flags to watch for
> They want to work on this part-time
> They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it
> They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview
...so this guy wants someone in SF to quit their job and work full time while unpaid? This method selects from the bottom of the pool, not from the top.
Shooters gonna shoot
I'm working on something new. It's pre-seeded and MVP is almost ready, and pilots will start in three weeks. It involves AI and education.
I'm an engineer, raised VC money before, and I'm planning to raise again.
If you love sales and want to learn more, email me.
I have to repost an earlier comment of mine (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27752798) on this topic:
I have a tip on finding a cofounder. I've been looking for the last 12 months and I tried a lot of things, but the thing that worked best is this: Post a job ad.
That's it. My ad sounded like a normal job in every way, with a title like "Director of X". A couple of specific notes: 1) the first line said "cofounder" in it somewhere, and 2) it specified "part-time to full-time, heavy on equity compensation" somewhere else.
The result: Lots of inappropriate candidates applied. But also, my 2 job posts resulted in three extremely excellent team members: a equity-only cofounder, a mostly-equity cofounder/early hire, and an amazing advisor. I have been working with these folks for months and they are very solid.
I also recommend my vetting process: just like a job. That is, I did a phone screen, a multi-hour interview, a little take-home, and I winnowed down the candidates at each stage. With the chosen few, I kicked off a "let's do this" conversation. My pitch was, "I know it's ridiculous, but let's get business married, we'll set up an offsite and start working together full-time... and, if we really need to, we'll get an annulment". That's what vesting is for!
Hope that helps :)
It's a guy with an idea that he doesn't know how to build, asking you to spend hours filling out a form then three days building something to see if you know how to build stuff. And you need to be unemployed and love the idea.
That should have taken unbounded time to find someone, not a mere 9 months.
The mindset of wasting 9 months going on dates instead of starting something is so foreign. Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone.
It was a job interview (50 question homework, 3 day hackathon trial) plus firm requirements and who has the final say is presented. We didn't hear about the different tests and requirements these 100 dates demanded so it appears one sided.
The best way to meet a cofounder is to be interested in something; so interested you explore it and you find something you like someone else is doing and you talk to them about it. You come up with some idea and you reach out to this person and explore it.
It's reportedly hard to get funding for ideas. Investors want to see a team that is strong enough to iterate through some ideas and pivots. It's not one perfect idea that becomes the product or the company. People actually are too focused on some magic initial milestone. They'll align it with the end of the funding, or the limit of their patience, or the limit of the patience of their support system. That's not how these things work. They're repeated marathons, not sprints. And being focused for nine months on finding a co-founder also seems like an oversized goal, that shouldn't take so much time. It's not uncommon to swap out key people later, including founder, painful as it may be.
> They want to work on this part-time > They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it > They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview
I resonate with the OP because I am in this exact situation that I am building something but I cannot leave my current job now.
When some friends started to build companies in mid-2000/mid-2010 you could code/build something, try to get some traction and you could be received by VCs/angels and occasionally they could write a 25K check for you to work for 3-6 months to build it and perhaps you could get some traction and then scale or go burst.
Now the bar for new products it's absurdly high if you're out of the YC or San Francisco VC circles or if you do not have anyone in the industry; plus most of the VCs prefer to invest in "pedigree founders" than in unknown people, especially if those people are outside of the bay area.
In my first endeavor, I went with a finished product that undercut some big enterprise SaaS vendors, and we lost space for a bunch of non-technical guys with PPTs and one idea.
Honestly, in this situation, you want paying customers not VC-funding. YC at least has an objective application process (VC's don't, it just cold-email) and even then the acceptance rate makes it a non-viable dependable strategies. Especially if you're enterprise SaaS..the question you need to answer is, how do you get a customer to pay?
(Sometimes having a co-founder here helps to answer this question)
People playing their options on multiple fronts is even worse than finding a way to increase and maintain the increased levels of participation.
Is this how you make a soulless throwaway "hope I get acqui-hired" type company? It doesn't sound like there is a lot of passion to make something great.
Yes, this process also filters out candidates who would refuse to go in such a hiring process.
I think the goals of having a good match are nevertheless important. Perhaps it is better to communicate these goals to your candidate co-founder and figure out together what the best approach is to verify them.
> I spent 9 months and almost 100 “cofounder dates” finding my cofounder.
What’s the highest value company that was started with a method like this? Genuinely curious, can’t think of one.
Good q and I can't name one either. Though I suspect when you're successful you tell a modified story about how you met.
"I ran a tight interview process and selected the best match based on vibes and a spreadsheet" isn't super inspiring to customers, employees, investors.
Dropbox comes to mind.
Yes, what happened to building side projects? Meeting people that you've worked with that you would care enough to build something with?
Suppose it's the same as online dating vs "meeting the old fashioned way".
I'm also pretty partial to "just work on your hobby and meet someone else". But probably a lot of opportunity left on the table that way. Especially if you know you want to build something serious.
Coinbase is probably an example.
thats like doing tinder instead of talking to users and building it
Asking your potential co-founder to quit their full time job as a first thing in your zero customer startup is the biggest Red Flag of OP as a Co-Founder. That is too selfish.
I’m looking for a co-founder, running https://fixparser.dev which is a profitable company with clients worldwide. Been applying to YC twice but failed - will continue the search for funding. Reach out at victor@logotype.se cheers
There is also a free little tool for cofounder alignment called https://aligna.team
I wanted to label this as a “nothingburger”, but all the pieces of advice are either tautologies, vague general dating tips (i.e. "make sure the vibes are not off"), or straight up untrue: "They want to work on this part-time", "They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it", "They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview". The latter are all very context dependent and are impossible to label as a "red flag" without further information. Possibly SEO bait?
Sounds like a standard hiring workflow with some questions tailored for the role. Is this supposed to be revelatory?
> Browse profiles and then adjust your own profile based on the best examples.
What does that mean?
I think it just means "learn how to make a good profile by looking at some good profiles"
No-bs mode is the ultimate mode tbh. Whatever you do, do it w/o making a hype, coining marketing words, and exaggerating.
This sounds like a recipe for never getting funded, sadly.
That’s almost demonstrably false if your goal is to get funded.
Just look at the pear AI guys.
> Red flags to watch for > They want to work on this part-time > They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it > They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview
...so this guy wants someone in SF to quit their job and work full time while unpaid? This method selects from the bottom of the pool, not from the top.
Isn't that the difference between a co-founder and an employee? I'm assuming that half of the company will belong to the new co-founder, of course.
Devils advocate: people in a position to work full time unpaid have probably enjoyed outsized success in their career to date
Got spooked by the exact quote you mentioned, but your conclusion is more precise. You're correct, this is a recipe for messing up your chances lmao.
Shooters gonna shoot I'm working on something new. It's pre-seeded and MVP is almost ready, and pilots will start in three weeks. It involves AI and education. I'm an engineer, raised VC money before, and I'm planning to raise again. If you love sales and want to learn more, email me.
This whole "mode" shit - stupid start up yuppies and their movements.
I think the kids call it “sigma mindset”
Same stuff, but for 12yos
Tech bro yuppie mode
I think finding cofounders is one of those things where the best time to start was always last year or two years ago