You know in 20+ years of founding and working at a bunch of different startups and companies ranging from big companies in fly-over country, to team-of-2 bootstrapped 6-figure businesses, and all the way up to super hot pre-IPO unicorns; one thing I've learned is that great people that you gel with and might want to start a company with are everywhere in equal proportions.
Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon Valley, but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, so the signal to noise ratio is actually less. I feel any kind co-founder dating suffers from the exact same thing. YC's name gives it more legitimacy, but that very fact attracts more dedicated wannabes who are just playing house harder.
Ultimately after all these years I keep coming back to Joel Spolsky's idea of working with people who are "smart and get things done". That's it. I am skeptical I will find someone I want to work with on a co-founder dating site, because the people I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing with the resources available to them versus looking for a longshot silver bullet. There are exceptions of course, but this is just my gut instinct, you might take it with a grain of salt since I waste a lot of time commenting on HN :)
> "people I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing with the resources available to them versus looking for a longshot silver bullet."
Right on. Most people I'd co-found anything with in a heart beat are too busy with 101 things already. The question isn't who I would want to work with, but how to convince them that this venture is worth dropping everything else in the world for.
I have been on the y combinator co-founder portal and so far, it has not been that great. Most people either don't respond or if they do, they are really mostly interested in their own ideas and I know the irony of saying this because I have my own ideas.
I really believe that finding a co-founder is almost impossible to plan but it is more of an accident. Unless you have worked with someone for a while and know their strengths and weaknesses, no site can solve this problem.
Having said this, if you have a great co-founder, you truly are very lucky because I know how lonely it gets as a solo founder.
I’ve also been using this service, but I generally think such forums are unlikely to lead to success. A cofounder is someone you’ll presumably be spending more time with them as you do with a partner or spouse. The “matching services” are basically dating services, with way, way fewer people in the pool. Meeting “the right person” there would be surprising to begin with, and then add in the expectations that some people seem to have that you’re going to go from meeting to marriage in a matter of a few conversations.
The way I’m thinking about it is that it’s useful to see how people present themselves, to meet other people in the same early-stage position, and to participate in an ecosystem that is oriented around learning. In the meantime, I’m trying to make progress understanding the customer and market, getting the input of developer friends I’ve worked with in the past, and doing fake-out prototyping so I’ll be ready to move quickly when I develop the relationship with a collaborator. This will likely be someone I already know, but it’s great to keep discussing it with new people too, if only to refine my thinking.
I know the feeling. I have spent the last two years with almost half a dozen “introductions” with possible co-founders for a business card reading app who just do not have the bandwidth or the gumption to take that “leap in being”. I’m finding in this phase of the tech cycle, it is simpler to bring the product to market through contractors and then finally lure in a tech talent once market fit has been established. Obviously there is great advantages in having a tech lead from the ground floor, but so far, it is eye opening to me how complacent people are with their current high paying jobs. I suppose that’s self-evident, but why not try to live a little?
It might be a case of Survivorship Bias (erm... anti-bias). The people out there who are still looking for co-founders are likely saddled with a business proposition that most people find objectionable.
> Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon Valley, but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, so the signal to noise ratio is actually less.
I started in DC and moved to the SFBA. Maybe I was around the wrong people in DC, but it sure seems a lot easier to at least find good people out here. It’s not that SV has magical water or anything. It’s simply there’s more people with startup experienced, and more people who come here to gain that experience.
I imagine the reverse is also true. If government and policy were my passion, I prevent would’ve been best staying in DC. Even though there’s plenty of talented government execs and policy experts everywhere.
As someone currently in DC, I think you might've moved from the worst place in the whole country for that comparison. DC is completely packed with wannabes, especially when it comes to anything tech-related. The problem isn't so much relatively little tech knowledge, but a huge disconnect between how much tech knowledge people claim versus actually have. The entire culture, at least among white-collar affluent people, is built around faking it for consulting/contracting/lobbying money. The place is full of hustlers starting fake "AI" and "blockchain" conferences. Almost any randomly chosen city in the U.S. would get you a better signal to noise ratio. I was more impressed with Houston, for example. It doesn't necessarily have any more technically competent people in absolute terms (there are actually a good number of solid companies in the DC area with knowledgeable people), but Houston doesn't have the same level of tech-bullshitting scene, so it's easier to sift through the noise.
Agree with this take. It’s a network effect - lots of good tech people have moved to the Bay Area, so you’ll find higher quality people. Nothing to do with the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a result of the people moving, and causes people to move, etc.
Completely agree. I'm an employee right now, but if I were ever looking for a co-founder, my shortlist would be the people I've worked with, hacking together some random project at all hours.
Kids play a game where someone pretends to be the mum, the dad, the baby, etc, and pretend be family. So someone is pretending be a responsible parent (and the commenter here is insinuating the wannabe co-founder is just pretending they have the necessary skills and abilities). As a kid, we never really had a name for it, but adults seem to refer to the activity as “playing house”.
I briefly floated a profile on there, though I decided to take a new full time job and focus on that for a while instead.
While on the platform, I was flooded with non technical people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA. I guess if they could credibly raise money/sell product then maybe it would make sense but I was highly skeptical of the value add, and I got the feeling a lot of them were looking for a free dev to build some big product that they now get to shop around to investors, taking 50% of the equity for doing so.
The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important. For some reason SWEs make more money than designers in industry but whenever you’re at startup network events it always seems SWEs outnumber designers 3 to 1. And likewise I didn’t see many people with design portfolios on this platform.
I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. It seems YC is geared towards situations where you go all in, work hard full time on the project etc. That would be a situation where I would most care about a strong relationship that I think would be much easier to build in person.
> The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important
Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go very far with a single contractor designer picked up from dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you well into later funding rounds.
Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that happen.
By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the programming too. There are some pretty good people out there who aren't that expensive. But there's a bunch of risks with that approach and they are similar to the ones where you outsource design - you will constantly have to re-hire if you need pivots, there might be major friction switching people, and the costs can start to add up. It's not 100% analogous, freelance design is a bit cheaper, it's easier to spot bad designers etc, but I think the analogy somewhat holds.
Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
I think the concept we need here is “taste” - that ability to recognise something is great, and ideally the ability to know what will work and be able to make it happen.
Often you want to have a designer because you are paying them for their taste, and perhaps not so much for their technical skills. Perhaps you personally are the opposite, where you have the taste and ability to spec, and you just want to have someone do what you ask.
There is a stereotype of founders with no taste, who drive the production of hideous products.
A sensible founder that doesn’t have great taste needs a cofounder or employee that does have great taste, and the founder needs to give that person the authority to drive the aesthetic of the product. That role is usually given to a designer - and I suspect that you are misunderstanding what waprin (the person you are replying to) meant.
> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives.
If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.
>Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.
Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious screen shots but it says you can filter on location. Thus, a "global" matching platform becomes a local one. It's not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping for a local person to appear.
It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby potential co-founder in a subset on a popular website such as YC is more likely than a local website such as lasvegas.craigslist.org
Well even if I want to find someone local, doesn’t mean I can just walk outside and find them, especially since the pandemic shut down most events in the Bay Area. Dating apps seem pretty popular and I think vast majority of people on those platforms are looking for someone local.
> "people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA"
I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little.
> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives.
I got the impression that many of the people using these services felt they had already exhausted their local networks and decided to look more broadly.
I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full-remote companies anyway.
That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. The co-founder relationship is too important.
For me it would be sales and the "business" side of things. And perhaps some domain expertise. I can do design competently enough to make it work (I do most the design work at my current company despite nominally being the lead software engineer).
The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
> The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with them - you can then tell real talent from their real world effects, even if it is not your own skill set.
Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is integrity - if you can’t trust them then their other skills don’t matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult.
> The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of already having started my own company), but start with the obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell themselves to investors, customers, and future employees.
> Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering.
This mirrors what I've seen in every co-founder matching forum: A huge imbalance of soft skills over engineering experience.
I'm sure some of those founders are extremely talented at product, operations, sales, and design. However, there are many others who fit the classic "idea guy" stereotype.
One thing I've learned from using co-founder matchmaking services like this is how hard it is to tell the difference between the two types of founders from credentials alone. A striking number of the people with impressive resumes and FAANG backgrounds got there by mastering big company skills and working their way up the ladder and through interview processes. Eventually they conclude that a startup is just more of the same big skills but with them at the top of the org chart.
Some of the most promising people I've talked to on these platforms had less traditionally impressive resumes. They didn't necessarily have Ivy League university backgrounds or FAANG companies on their resume. That's likely what led them to use these platforms in the first place: Smaller personal networks that necessitate reaching farther for potential co-founders.
These services can be interesting, but it really feels like a numbers game. Be prepared to take a lot of conversations very quickly, don't let impressive credentials alone sway you, and don't get discouraged by the volume of negative matches.
I'd like to comment here as a tech person that's moved into management. Not as a founder, but I've done consulting in the past and I've worked in all sized companies.
As I've become less technical, I occasionally come across the highly technical, often almost genius-like engineer who fails to comprehend organizational structure and social structures. They fail to 'see' them, so sometimes decisions that you make as manager, or that the company makes, feel foreign to them. And so they often have cynical ideas (often found online) about companies, managers and so forth.
While some of the cynical stuff can often be true, my point is this: the successful engineer is also someone with social skills, and that includes company skills as you put it.
The person with pure ladder climbing skills is a fraud. But the person who can both be technical 'enough' and understand organizational and human structures can help things scale.
What's missing from the conversation is Creativity, I think, or maybe it's me that's out of touch. Successful people seem to be ones that aren't afraid to take unique approaches to solving problems. Sometimes 'engineers' are highly talented but they're looking for blueprints and patterns to follow rather than create - and I am not talking about code.
I ran into the same issue. Of all the people I've met who end up being successful startup founders I never guessed correctly they would end up successful (a couple even became unicorns) and the cofounders I picked turned out to not so great.
From my experience ex-FANG guys are helpful when it's time to raise money but they rarely have the skills needed in a startup environment.
My approach now is to partner up with people I have a lot of history with and that I know they get things done, even if they're all technical. We're figuring out how to become the founders we need.
We are also not a fan of the entire "startup", high risk, high reward thing. It's too much risk, hassle and stress and you can live comfortably with a smaller profitable business.
I have an engineering background. My experience with cofounder matchmaking services is that non-tech cofounders often just want someone who will code the entire product in exchange for some equity. Hard no.
Isn't it good to have complementary skills in the founding team though? Technical founders often struggle with sales, marketing, raising money, operations and their time is better used in building the actual product. Having said that, founders with non-technical backgrounds who have experience working in startups are likely going to understand and enjoy the grind better v/s MBAs fresh out of B-School or a consulting firm.
I signed up for the platform as an engineer looking for non-engineers. Unlike some of the engineer types here, I'm of the opinion that engineering is as important (not more important) than non-technical skill sets. In some startups, it's probably less important.
The problem is that the profiles I match with read like resumes. I don't care too much that you were early employee at XYZ Corp or that you had a successful $100m exit. I care about your heart.
I've cofounded too many times with cofounders whose worldview, politics, and level of emotional empathy and openness were incompatible with mine. It sucked every time and was the #1 cause for failure.
Sometimes I feel like a vox clamantis in deserto when it comes to advocating for founders with higher emotional awareness. I'm happy whenever I read posts on HN about why neurodiversity matters in tech, but they almost always focus on folks on the spectrum. Then there are folks like me, oftentimes survivors of abuse who are neuro-atypical in a different way. We are empaths--and very much not fitting in the mold of a "typical" engineer or how non-engineers perceive typical engineers.
I don't need a fellow empath as a co-founder, but at least I need someone who understands where I'm coming from and is compatible. Brag sheets tend to drive me away, but that's the ethos we've built into our industry, so I don't blame the individuals.
I didn't give up per se, but I'm not actively checking it, either. Sometimes I get emails about matches, which I read. Haven't found any that clicked so far.
Right now, though, I'm going through a phase where I'm doubting whether I want to do a startup at all. Still fully onboard for entrepreneurship, but I'm questioning whether the startup path (especially the VC path) is right for my goals.
I am, however, interested in making organic connections with like-minded individuals. Perhaps like right here, in the comments of HN ;-)
I’ve had the experience that you mention here too, basically a really competent co-founder but someone with a vastly different worldview. You can’t really change someone’s worldview, so it was tough to find out later.
I’m curious, what area of need would you service if you did find a co-founder that was more self-aware?
- Fat rolodex full of rich people they know well enough that they might say yes to chatting over golf, and who aren't risk-averse (I have zero such people in mine, so this would be a must).
- Domain knowledge—but, very specifically, knowledge of how to navigate the legal and business environment of that domain, especially all the "secret" stuff. If they don't know what X or Y is called or how to do some procedure that only low-on-the-totem-pole people do, that's fine—if they've got the rest of this, then they'll surely know people we can ask/interview for those parts.
- At least enough sales skills to get the folks from the first point to fund us OR to make some useful introductions OR to grease some wheels.
This is very far from dying off. A friend of mine recently started a company, and close to 100% of the money they raised was a direct result of squeezing into golf games, ski trips, and retreats with prospective investors. My salesperson friends regularly score very large deals over games of golf or similar activities.
You'd think that the merits of your product would be enough to carry your sales, but in practice, sales is primarily driven by your network, which involves getting close to as many people as possible. Turns out, it's easier to do that over golf than via formal meetings.
"golf" is just a euphemism that sometimes literally means golf, but other times means any type of social activity that can be used to build relationships. What did you hope was dying off? There will always be a need for people who have and can form strong relationships with rich people who are looking for new investments.
So are country clubs, and social clubs that organize fundraising galas and such. Joining them to make useful business contacts very probably works pretty well (I've not tried, but I've done some looking—note that the social clubs are usually exclusively for women—yes, even in 2021—but men attend the events). Tennis is still huge. Skiing. That stuff changes slowly, if at all—you and I just aren't part of it, so we can imagine it's some old-fashioned thing that's all but extinct, if we don't go looking for it.
Most of the shit from the now-ancient Official Preppy Handbook is still basically true, in fact, as far as I can tell.
The tech version of "where to meet people to make connections" is probably rock climbing gyms, right now. That'd be for barely-rich new money people connected to tech, or for programmers if you're looking to hire. Every group has their in-crowd preferences.
I think it is still important to Angels. Angels want to invest in people/teams that are "like" them. They are more likely to trust other country club types that they assume have the same background and social circles they do. A lot of Angels don't care about the money or the return, it is about having stuff to talk about over drinks or between holes on the course. "I'm in a couple of blockchain start-ups that are really promising". It is about being interesting and in the know. Viability is meaningless.
>Fat rolodex full of rich people they know well enough that they might say yes to chatting over golf, and who aren't risk-averse (I have zero such people in mine, so this would be a must).
I've seen this first hand. Having a good sales team is like a cheat code - things flow like water and it feels like you're hardly struggling at all. And yes, "golf" is still a thing.
"Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering."
I'm sure this familiar to any engineer on this site. "I have this great idea for an app, and I just need you to build it. We'll split the company 50/50."
At first I thought it'd be great to pick up engineering and say yes to some of these founders.
After becoming a designer/engineer I've realized that most of these ideas take shape during the engineering process. And the process will in turn change and twist the idea itself based on customer interviews and iterative prototypes.
The engineering process leads to better "ideas" that replace the initial ideas. But most non-engineer, first-time founders don't realize that's the case. The engineering process also pokes so many holes in the first idea, because they require the idea to actually be fleshed out...
Maybe I'm just bitter about working with doe-eyed, non-technical first time "idea person" kind of founders.
As a dev I entertain this idea on 4 criteria - 1. You are a veteran in the target industry. 2. You have connections and you are well-liked. 3. You can sell to those people. 4. There is a mutual trust and respect between us.
If you know the industry inside out and you are willing to sell, I would have no problem to partner up. But usually those who are successful in an industry rarely have enough time to invest in a startup.
People I want to partner up with are so busy managing their business, client and family, they will just end up having a custom software made with their money and try to sell that.
> I'm sure this familiar to any engineer on this site. "I have this great idea for an app, and I just need you to build it. We'll split the company 50/50."
I wish! Usually it's "I'll give you 5% equity if you implement my idea. No no, I cannot actually help, I'm the idea guy"[1].
Honestly, I'd take a 50/50 split with someone who:
a) Provably has strong connections to decision-makers in the target market,
b) Has already raised the money for a 6 month runway,
and
c) Has some objective data around the proposed product/vision and a few of the competitors.
I've heard my fair share of "the next facebook/google/youtube" ideas, or "whatsapp/netflix meets reddit/amazon", etc.
[1] Probably the number one thing that turns me off is hearing "I'm the idea guy". Seriously, if you can't contribute to the engineering/building of the product, then at least ensure an income to pay those who can.
The sad part is the "idea guys" are generally too lazy to even learn a little basics of programming to converse with the ones building their idea.
Anyone can come up with ideas; there's no degree in ideas. Most of us got into programming/engineering fields because we ourselves 'have ideas', but sought out the education to build them.
It's very frustrating to work with others who can't directly contribute to the deliverable. It leads to burn out. I personally will never work with another team who haven't all been up until 4am crushing out code.
I don't get why "idea people" or people who can't contribute much to the launch of a product pick up some design skills to at least help convey the ideas they want implemented.
I'd only pick a cofounder that doesn't do engineering if they have deep connections, domain expertise in a relatively complex field that I myself can't pick up easily or has alot of red tape, etc. This person also needs a public past track record of success too. It'd also depend on the industry too, b2b is where this partnership has more merits (and larger contracts), b2c not so much since the barrier to entry is lower
Yep, it's worse actually. You rarely get offered anywhere near 50%.
Over the years I've coached more than a few founders. Usually they come to me because they are looking for a CTO because they assume they need one. My #1 advice to companies like that is actually to not get a CTO unless they are a proper tech startup where the tech is what defines the company. Most startups simply aren't and they need skilled engineers rather than some CTO/propellor head. They need somebody that will build them an MVP and that is good at bringing in more tech people when growth happens.
I have a few reasons for this:
1) the type of engineer that ends up taking that role is rarely proper CTO or even management material; or even very senior when it comes to engineering. It's a convenience marriage between a random tech person who happens to be available and some business people not really qualified to make tech hiring decisions. So, avoid that situation and get some doers involved and give them enough equity or cash to keep them motivated but without creating the illusion that they are there to do something else than executing your vision.
2) inevitably the moment comes where early CTOs not really suitable for the job need to be replaced (or simply walk away) if the company actually survives long enough. As a founder you need to be honest about how the company will evolve. And that often means getting some grown ups involved as soon as money allows for that; especially on the tech front. I've seen more than a few startups with very awkward CTO types getting a senior baby sitter in the form of a VP of engineering or something similar.
3) CTO is a vanity title in a startup. You can use it to up-sell to engineers their role in your company and sometimes you need to do that to keep them and get them to build your product. However, it often ends up looking a bit desperate when you hand it out to the first engineer willing to talk to you and it creates awkward situations when you later meet someone more suitable for the role.
If you are a proper tech company it's different. You need such a company to be driven by a technical founder and such a company needs to be created primarily by technical founders. So, it would be unusual for such a company to be even looking for a CTO because that would indicate some serious issues with the founding team. They'd be looking for CMO/CSO/CEO types instead.
Having gone through it, I think the single most important things are missing. Your co-founder needs to have the same vision as you, they need to want the same outcome. And you don’t find out that you want different outcomes for a long time, it’s very very easy in the beginning to agree you both want a successful company, for your software to be awesome, and for money to roll in. Later when things get real, you may discover your shared vision isn’t quite as shared as you thought.
The other thing I want in a co-founder is someone who will have my back unflinchingly and always when speaking to others, whether it’s investors or customers or just friends and family, because inevitably things will come up that worry you which can sow mistrust if not caught quickly. I was lucky to have such a co-founder, and I actually feel guilty for worrying that they didn’t always support me. I tried to return the trust at all times. But note that discovering differing visions can and does threaten your ability to know if a co-founder trusts you! I think it’s a miracle that companies survive, knowing how easy it is for people to want different things.
someone I respect in a domain of life I respect (could be music/athletics/relationships/humor/whatever but ultimately it is a reason I enjoy them as a person and in times of adversity can't dismiss them as a disposable generic employee)
moreover, the above attribute also often demonstrates a healthy life balance outside of work, and this will help prevent workaholic burnout which is a very real pitfall ina startup
someone that has motivation/ambition in a domain(s) that I do not (maybe I can do a particular skill and even at a competent level, but I'd rather have a partner that enjoys it and reads up about it in their spare time even if they aren't as "good" at that skill as I am right now)
someone that has been challenged in life in some fashion. again the domain isn't as important as the experience of facing pressure/adversity and finding that extra gear within oneself to emerge. and furthermore then wanting to start the next challenge despite having already gone through the wringer. in my experience there are people who thrive under pressure and those that tend to hide/crumble when challenged. you obviously want the former and some that has been tested.
there are plenty of other attributes that are covered by great replies that I won't repeat. I felt these seemed a bit distinct (at least when I posted) and worth mentioning
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Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon Valley, but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, so the signal to noise ratio is actually less. I feel any kind co-founder dating suffers from the exact same thing. YC's name gives it more legitimacy, but that very fact attracts more dedicated wannabes who are just playing house harder.
Ultimately after all these years I keep coming back to Joel Spolsky's idea of working with people who are "smart and get things done". That's it. I am skeptical I will find someone I want to work with on a co-founder dating site, because the people I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing with the resources available to them versus looking for a longshot silver bullet. There are exceptions of course, but this is just my gut instinct, you might take it with a grain of salt since I waste a lot of time commenting on HN :)
Right on. Most people I'd co-found anything with in a heart beat are too busy with 101 things already. The question isn't who I would want to work with, but how to convince them that this venture is worth dropping everything else in the world for.
I really believe that finding a co-founder is almost impossible to plan but it is more of an accident. Unless you have worked with someone for a while and know their strengths and weaknesses, no site can solve this problem.
Having said this, if you have a great co-founder, you truly are very lucky because I know how lonely it gets as a solo founder.
The way I’m thinking about it is that it’s useful to see how people present themselves, to meet other people in the same early-stage position, and to participate in an ecosystem that is oriented around learning. In the meantime, I’m trying to make progress understanding the customer and market, getting the input of developer friends I’ve worked with in the past, and doing fake-out prototyping so I’ll be ready to move quickly when I develop the relationship with a collaborator. This will likely be someone I already know, but it’s great to keep discussing it with new people too, if only to refine my thinking.
I started in DC and moved to the SFBA. Maybe I was around the wrong people in DC, but it sure seems a lot easier to at least find good people out here. It’s not that SV has magical water or anything. It’s simply there’s more people with startup experienced, and more people who come here to gain that experience.
I imagine the reverse is also true. If government and policy were my passion, I prevent would’ve been best staying in DC. Even though there’s plenty of talented government execs and policy experts everywhere.
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I want to be a successful and well compensated software engineer. Thus I try. Maybe one day I will succeed.
Kids play a game where someone pretends to be the mum, the dad, the baby, etc, and pretend be family. So someone is pretending be a responsible parent (and the commenter here is insinuating the wannabe co-founder is just pretending they have the necessary skills and abilities). As a kid, we never really had a name for it, but adults seem to refer to the activity as “playing house”.
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While on the platform, I was flooded with non technical people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA. I guess if they could credibly raise money/sell product then maybe it would make sense but I was highly skeptical of the value add, and I got the feeling a lot of them were looking for a free dev to build some big product that they now get to shop around to investors, taking 50% of the equity for doing so.
The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important. For some reason SWEs make more money than designers in industry but whenever you’re at startup network events it always seems SWEs outnumber designers 3 to 1. And likewise I didn’t see many people with design portfolios on this platform.
I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. It seems YC is geared towards situations where you go all in, work hard full time on the project etc. That would be a situation where I would most care about a strong relationship that I think would be much easier to build in person.
Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go very far with a single contractor designer picked up from dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you well into later funding rounds.
Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that happen.
Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
I think the concept we need here is “taste” - that ability to recognise something is great, and ideally the ability to know what will work and be able to make it happen.
Often you want to have a designer because you are paying them for their taste, and perhaps not so much for their technical skills. Perhaps you personally are the opposite, where you have the taste and ability to spec, and you just want to have someone do what you ask.
There is a stereotype of founders with no taste, who drive the production of hideous products.
A sensible founder that doesn’t have great taste needs a cofounder or employee that does have great taste, and the founder needs to give that person the authority to drive the aesthetic of the product. That role is usually given to a designer - and I suspect that you are misunderstanding what waprin (the person you are replying to) meant.
If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.
Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious screen shots but it says you can filter on location. Thus, a "global" matching platform becomes a local one. It's not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping for a local person to appear.
It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby potential co-founder in a subset on a popular website such as YC is more likely than a local website such as lasvegas.craigslist.org
I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little.
I got the impression that many of the people using these services felt they had already exhausted their local networks and decided to look more broadly.
I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full-remote companies anyway.
That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. The co-founder relationship is too important.
The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with them - you can then tell real talent from their real world effects, even if it is not your own skill set.
Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is integrity - if you can’t trust them then their other skills don’t matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult.
I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of already having started my own company), but start with the obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell themselves to investors, customers, and future employees.
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> 57% of founders do Operations
> 52% of founders do Sales and Marketing
> 37% of founders do Design
> 31% of founders do Engineering
> Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering.
This mirrors what I've seen in every co-founder matching forum: A huge imbalance of soft skills over engineering experience.
I'm sure some of those founders are extremely talented at product, operations, sales, and design. However, there are many others who fit the classic "idea guy" stereotype.
One thing I've learned from using co-founder matchmaking services like this is how hard it is to tell the difference between the two types of founders from credentials alone. A striking number of the people with impressive resumes and FAANG backgrounds got there by mastering big company skills and working their way up the ladder and through interview processes. Eventually they conclude that a startup is just more of the same big skills but with them at the top of the org chart.
Some of the most promising people I've talked to on these platforms had less traditionally impressive resumes. They didn't necessarily have Ivy League university backgrounds or FAANG companies on their resume. That's likely what led them to use these platforms in the first place: Smaller personal networks that necessitate reaching farther for potential co-founders.
These services can be interesting, but it really feels like a numbers game. Be prepared to take a lot of conversations very quickly, don't let impressive credentials alone sway you, and don't get discouraged by the volume of negative matches.
As I've become less technical, I occasionally come across the highly technical, often almost genius-like engineer who fails to comprehend organizational structure and social structures. They fail to 'see' them, so sometimes decisions that you make as manager, or that the company makes, feel foreign to them. And so they often have cynical ideas (often found online) about companies, managers and so forth.
While some of the cynical stuff can often be true, my point is this: the successful engineer is also someone with social skills, and that includes company skills as you put it.
The person with pure ladder climbing skills is a fraud. But the person who can both be technical 'enough' and understand organizational and human structures can help things scale.
What's missing from the conversation is Creativity, I think, or maybe it's me that's out of touch. Successful people seem to be ones that aren't afraid to take unique approaches to solving problems. Sometimes 'engineers' are highly talented but they're looking for blueprints and patterns to follow rather than create - and I am not talking about code.
From my experience ex-FANG guys are helpful when it's time to raise money but they rarely have the skills needed in a startup environment.
My approach now is to partner up with people I have a lot of history with and that I know they get things done, even if they're all technical. We're figuring out how to become the founders we need.
We are also not a fan of the entire "startup", high risk, high reward thing. It's too much risk, hassle and stress and you can live comfortably with a smaller profitable business.
The problem is that the profiles I match with read like resumes. I don't care too much that you were early employee at XYZ Corp or that you had a successful $100m exit. I care about your heart.
I've cofounded too many times with cofounders whose worldview, politics, and level of emotional empathy and openness were incompatible with mine. It sucked every time and was the #1 cause for failure.
Sometimes I feel like a vox clamantis in deserto when it comes to advocating for founders with higher emotional awareness. I'm happy whenever I read posts on HN about why neurodiversity matters in tech, but they almost always focus on folks on the spectrum. Then there are folks like me, oftentimes survivors of abuse who are neuro-atypical in a different way. We are empaths--and very much not fitting in the mold of a "typical" engineer or how non-engineers perceive typical engineers.
I don't need a fellow empath as a co-founder, but at least I need someone who understands where I'm coming from and is compatible. Brag sheets tend to drive me away, but that's the ethos we've built into our industry, so I don't blame the individuals.
Did you just give up (using that platform)? Did you find a better platform?
Right now, though, I'm going through a phase where I'm doubting whether I want to do a startup at all. Still fully onboard for entrepreneurship, but I'm questioning whether the startup path (especially the VC path) is right for my goals.
I am, however, interested in making organic connections with like-minded individuals. Perhaps like right here, in the comments of HN ;-)
I’m curious, what area of need would you service if you did find a co-founder that was more self-aware?
- Domain knowledge—but, very specifically, knowledge of how to navigate the legal and business environment of that domain, especially all the "secret" stuff. If they don't know what X or Y is called or how to do some procedure that only low-on-the-totem-pole people do, that's fine—if they've got the rest of this, then they'll surely know people we can ask/interview for those parts.
- At least enough sales skills to get the folks from the first point to fund us OR to make some useful introductions OR to grease some wheels.
You'd think that the merits of your product would be enough to carry your sales, but in practice, sales is primarily driven by your network, which involves getting close to as many people as possible. Turns out, it's easier to do that over golf than via formal meetings.
Most of the shit from the now-ancient Official Preppy Handbook is still basically true, in fact, as far as I can tell.
The tech version of "where to meet people to make connections" is probably rock climbing gyms, right now. That'd be for barely-rich new money people connected to tech, or for programmers if you're looking to hire. Every group has their in-crowd preferences.
Try selling your CRM to the VP of Sales of a regional retailer who lives in Phoenix and NOT take him out to play golf.
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I've seen this first hand. Having a good sales team is like a cheat code - things flow like water and it feels like you're hardly struggling at all. And yes, "golf" is still a thing.
I'm sure this familiar to any engineer on this site. "I have this great idea for an app, and I just need you to build it. We'll split the company 50/50."
After becoming a designer/engineer I've realized that most of these ideas take shape during the engineering process. And the process will in turn change and twist the idea itself based on customer interviews and iterative prototypes.
The engineering process leads to better "ideas" that replace the initial ideas. But most non-engineer, first-time founders don't realize that's the case. The engineering process also pokes so many holes in the first idea, because they require the idea to actually be fleshed out...
Maybe I'm just bitter about working with doe-eyed, non-technical first time "idea person" kind of founders.
If you know the industry inside out and you are willing to sell, I would have no problem to partner up. But usually those who are successful in an industry rarely have enough time to invest in a startup.
People I want to partner up with are so busy managing their business, client and family, they will just end up having a custom software made with their money and try to sell that.
I wish! Usually it's "I'll give you 5% equity if you implement my idea. No no, I cannot actually help, I'm the idea guy"[1].
Honestly, I'd take a 50/50 split with someone who:
a) Provably has strong connections to decision-makers in the target market,
b) Has already raised the money for a 6 month runway,
and
c) Has some objective data around the proposed product/vision and a few of the competitors.
I've heard my fair share of "the next facebook/google/youtube" ideas, or "whatsapp/netflix meets reddit/amazon", etc.
[1] Probably the number one thing that turns me off is hearing "I'm the idea guy". Seriously, if you can't contribute to the engineering/building of the product, then at least ensure an income to pay those who can.
Anyone can come up with ideas; there's no degree in ideas. Most of us got into programming/engineering fields because we ourselves 'have ideas', but sought out the education to build them.
It's very frustrating to work with others who can't directly contribute to the deliverable. It leads to burn out. I personally will never work with another team who haven't all been up until 4am crushing out code.
I'd only pick a cofounder that doesn't do engineering if they have deep connections, domain expertise in a relatively complex field that I myself can't pick up easily or has alot of red tape, etc. This person also needs a public past track record of success too. It'd also depend on the industry too, b2b is where this partnership has more merits (and larger contracts), b2c not so much since the barrier to entry is lower
Over the years I've coached more than a few founders. Usually they come to me because they are looking for a CTO because they assume they need one. My #1 advice to companies like that is actually to not get a CTO unless they are a proper tech startup where the tech is what defines the company. Most startups simply aren't and they need skilled engineers rather than some CTO/propellor head. They need somebody that will build them an MVP and that is good at bringing in more tech people when growth happens.
I have a few reasons for this:
1) the type of engineer that ends up taking that role is rarely proper CTO or even management material; or even very senior when it comes to engineering. It's a convenience marriage between a random tech person who happens to be available and some business people not really qualified to make tech hiring decisions. So, avoid that situation and get some doers involved and give them enough equity or cash to keep them motivated but without creating the illusion that they are there to do something else than executing your vision.
2) inevitably the moment comes where early CTOs not really suitable for the job need to be replaced (or simply walk away) if the company actually survives long enough. As a founder you need to be honest about how the company will evolve. And that often means getting some grown ups involved as soon as money allows for that; especially on the tech front. I've seen more than a few startups with very awkward CTO types getting a senior baby sitter in the form of a VP of engineering or something similar.
3) CTO is a vanity title in a startup. You can use it to up-sell to engineers their role in your company and sometimes you need to do that to keep them and get them to build your product. However, it often ends up looking a bit desperate when you hand it out to the first engineer willing to talk to you and it creates awkward situations when you later meet someone more suitable for the role.
If you are a proper tech company it's different. You need such a company to be driven by a technical founder and such a company needs to be created primarily by technical founders. So, it would be unusual for such a company to be even looking for a CTO because that would indicate some serious issues with the founding team. They'd be looking for CMO/CSO/CEO types instead.
The other thing I want in a co-founder is someone who will have my back unflinchingly and always when speaking to others, whether it’s investors or customers or just friends and family, because inevitably things will come up that worry you which can sow mistrust if not caught quickly. I was lucky to have such a co-founder, and I actually feel guilty for worrying that they didn’t always support me. I tried to return the trust at all times. But note that discovering differing visions can and does threaten your ability to know if a co-founder trusts you! I think it’s a miracle that companies survive, knowing how easy it is for people to want different things.
someone I respect in a domain of life I respect (could be music/athletics/relationships/humor/whatever but ultimately it is a reason I enjoy them as a person and in times of adversity can't dismiss them as a disposable generic employee)
moreover, the above attribute also often demonstrates a healthy life balance outside of work, and this will help prevent workaholic burnout which is a very real pitfall ina startup
someone that has motivation/ambition in a domain(s) that I do not (maybe I can do a particular skill and even at a competent level, but I'd rather have a partner that enjoys it and reads up about it in their spare time even if they aren't as "good" at that skill as I am right now)
someone that has been challenged in life in some fashion. again the domain isn't as important as the experience of facing pressure/adversity and finding that extra gear within oneself to emerge. and furthermore then wanting to start the next challenge despite having already gone through the wringer. in my experience there are people who thrive under pressure and those that tend to hide/crumble when challenged. you obviously want the former and some that has been tested.
there are plenty of other attributes that are covered by great replies that I won't repeat. I felt these seemed a bit distinct (at least when I posted) and worth mentioning