I need a cofounder, so I built okcofounder.com

http://okcofounder.com/

by anthonycole • 13 years ago

61 56 13 years ago

okcofounder.com

te_chris• 13 years ago

I've known Anthony for a while, good developer and fun guy to hang out with, hope this works well for him!

cyphersanctus• 13 years ago

Did anyone else think he created a solution for everyone and not just for himself?

Macsenour• 13 years ago

Yep!

27182818284• 13 years ago

I sure was. It is even styled to look like OKCupid, so I figured it would be matching people like that.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

That was initially my assumption. Clearly, that's what he should build...

girvo• 13 years ago

I think that he should pivot his entire startup to build this.

incision2• 13 years ago

I'm a bit disappointed.

I was hoping for a full-blown site for entrepreneurial individuals to find and connect with each other.

epynonymous2• 13 years ago

doesn't angelist do some of the same things?

vineet• 13 years ago

If you are looking for a full-fledged site, you might find these guys relevant: http://www.cofounderslab.com/

(I haven't used them)

dhawalhs• 13 years ago

http://founderdating.com is another one.

bravura• 13 years ago

If you are sick of co-founder dating and looking for that perfect match, are ready for something serious, why not consider:

eCofounderHarmony.com

(I just made that up. But perhaps the "eHarmony" approach to cofounder matches makes more sense than OkCupid. Since, ya know, you're "married" to your cofounder.)

twic• 13 years ago

AdultCofounderFinder.com?

ISL• 13 years ago

cfHarmony.com ...

simcop2387• 13 years ago

I don't like that one, reminds me too much of cold fusion.

bazillion• 13 years ago

Plenty Of Co-Flounder

pocf.com

unoti• 13 years ago

Cool site! Typo on the book The Selfish Hene.

anthonycole4• 13 years ago

Oops! Fixed that.

tehrania• 13 years ago

There's a typo; the selfish gene.

hjay• 13 years ago

I get where the domain name comes from, but are you sure the co-founder you're looking for is only "ok"?

nedwin• 13 years ago

Do you feel the same way about OKCupid? "Are you sure the boy/girlfriend you're looking for is only 'ok'?"

rdl• 13 years ago

With OKCupid, I thought it was implying the selection process is "just OK" -- as in it's a sort of effective but not perfect matching system. Not that the people found are only OK (I personally only ever found crazy people, but I know a few people who got married from OKC...)

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

I'm going to be frank with you, Anthony. I checked out okcofounder.com and read about you. Then I checked out your project, residen.se.

In my humble opinion, I think you should abandon residen.se and work full time on okcofounder. This is not something I'm saying lightly. Consider it this way:

1. You designed and created okcofounder with a clear need in mind. I don't "feel" the same sort of inspiration and personal connection with residen.se

2. There are at least three comments at the time of this writing in this thread that express disappointment at okcofounder not being for finding cofounders and being applicable to their lives. You just got user feedback.

3. Residen.se looks like the perfect web 2.0 model of what a tech startup should be, but okcofounder is something that is immediately relevant and comprehensible on the front page. I had a little trouble figuring out what residen.se was for immediately. Not so with okcofounder.

I'll come out and say that I'd pay for a service like okcofounder. I live in NYC and it's harder to find people than it is in Silicon Valley.

okcofounder satisfies true entrepreneurial need - despite the odd fact that it's a meta-project, you created it trying to solve a problem for yourself. But there are users saying they'd love the idea on a wider, open scale. So do it.

anthonycole4• 13 years ago

Thanks man. I... kind of built it as a joke, yeah. I got bounced back from an incubator because I didn't have a co-founder and wanted to build something slightly ironic. I didn't think other people actually really had a need for something in that respect.

But... I guess you have a very good point.

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

I hope you don't take it the wrong way. I'm not criticizing residen.se - I'm just praising okcofounder a hell of a lot.

But, hey, good response to being rejected. At least you're doing something about it.

inspiredworlds• 13 years ago

Great response & bounce back after not getting into the incubator. Residen.se is a excellent idea trying to solve a problem in the lucrative real estate sector. I'm helping out Anthony, who is a good friend of mine and I use to share a house with him in Melbourne.

Recoil42• 13 years ago

Only problem? The idea's hardly new. Sites like http://founderdating.com/ http://collabfinder.com/ http://www.cofounderslab.com/ http://techcofounder.com/ already exist. It's not quite a crowded space yet, and there's probably room for innovation, but your comment makes it sound like you think he's hit idea paydirt with okcofounder -- he hasn't.

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

You're right. But the fact that he received so much disappointment so quickly means that those venues aren't working - yet...so yes, room for innovation.

danielweber• 13 years ago

3 of those sites seem sub-optimal, at least for searching in non-top-5 cities.

Cofounderslab.com has a background that scrolls horizontally as I down-arrow on it. Stop that! Otherwise, the listings seem good. Best of the bunch.

Techcofounder.com provides no geographical search at all, from what I can see. Of the 3 ads in my area, 1 is from 2011.

Collabafinder gives me a list of people, but it seems I have to sign in to find more.

I have to register for Founderdating before I can find out if I want to register.

benblodgett• 13 years ago

Well at least he has the best name out of the ones listed. Am I missing something though, his site seems to just be a description of what he's looking for a link to a contact form? Do we consider this a product now?

incision2• 13 years ago

Here's the thing...

I'd never heard of any of those sites, I checked them out none made me want to sign up right now.

I clicked through on okcofounder here wanting and expecting to be able to sign up only to be disappointed.

Ideas are essentially worthless without effective implementation. This roughed out one page implementation was effective for me and I'm clearly not alone.

mindcrime• 13 years ago

Don't forget http://www.startupwithme.com/

dakrisht• 13 years ago

Couldn't agree more - focus on OKCoFounder - great a novel idea, could potentially be a thriving community of tech talent seeking on another. You're onto something here

SandB0x• 13 years ago

Oh please, a site for other prospective entrepreneurs on budget of $0 vs a site aimed at a fixing a very real problem in the vast and lucrative world of property?

dylangs10304• 13 years ago

My comment is based on how easily I understood the two projects at a first glance and user feedback I saw. I'm not claiming one is more financially viable over the other, I'm just saying one seems more inspired by the other.

Inspiration through need is organic and genuine - he needed something, he built it, and other people want it. That's been the essence of startup culture from the beginning.

cpursley• 13 years ago

I concur. Forget the naysayers. okcofounder is great.

alain94040• 13 years ago

Couldn't disagree more. I think I know the co-founder market quite a bit: I ran the co-founders meetup in Silicon Valley for a few years, and ran foundrs.com to get people to work together on startups.

1. As a business, targeting broke founders is not a get-rich-quick approach. I did it for love of entrepreneurs.

2. Finding a co-founder is hard. Over the years, I became convinced that personal chemistry is very important (that's why I moved from an online site to in-person meetups). And it takes time. Think 1 month of working together, minimum, before you even should consider someone as a co-founder.

After ~3 years of effort, the one very successful result fro my efforts is the co-founders equity calculator. That is something that a lot of people use, learn from, and solves an immediate issue. If you are curious, it's now the only content on the home page of http://foundrs.com

davidandgoliath• 13 years ago

I second this. I was just about ready to plop down a profile..

HunterV• 13 years ago

Unintentionally neat idea, but I'd be wary of the legalities behind using that name or any other variation of a popular dating site. They'll be onto you as fast as you gain popularity.

anthonycole4• 13 years ago

I've added a campaign monitor subscription form to the site for anyone who's interested in potentially using an idea like this. I'm not sure where I'm going to take it, but if you'd actually use okcofounder for real, then I think we should keep in touch.

krmmalik• 13 years ago

You seem to have gotten many positive comments already but just to respond to this point specifically. If it was a site as the audience was expecting i would have signed up and could have done with something like this a couple of months ago.

I come across people quite often looking for co-founders. They don't necessarily need them, but that's their choice.

unholyalliance• 13 years ago

why not something millionaire match maker styled, where you pay an MBA to get you hitched?

gregcohn• 13 years ago

Piling on the comments that say you should consider developing this as a general service.

One constituency to keep in mind is the person who has a job but would quit it if they had the right cofounder -- ie some form of anonymous or semi-anonymous matching until both sides choose to reveal.

weisser• 13 years ago

I like this concept and I too was disappointed I couldn't sign up to check it out. I have a co-founder but I would love to try a service like this to bring on early employees.

rickdangerous1• 13 years ago

Hey Anthony, If you do pivot and take okcofounder forward as your primary venture, can you do all us solo founders a favour? Can you NOT take on a cofounder for okcofounder? That way the irony of it all will make the startup scene a better place for solo guys like me. All the best!

tuxidomasx• 13 years ago

This site was not what I thought it was.

I want to find a match-- but nothing too serious... I'm really just looking for a good time. I want to be someone's interim technical co-founder with benefits for a while. Just temporarily. And not for equity (you see, I have a problem with commitment), but for cash.

Just long enough to get their idea from conception to climax.

And then we can part ways and I can find someone else who could benefit from my expertise.

I need a high-end co-founder matchmaker service, and okcofounder was not that.

epynonymous2• 13 years ago

anthony, just a note, you should also buy the domain residen.ce for the other half of the world that uses a bastardization of the english language :) you can just redirect to residen.se

good luck with your venture. some thoughts on okfounder:

1. where is the return value of the site, in other words, if i found a great founder on the site and am happy with him/her, what incentive do i have to revisit? maybe your idea is that most people will start something else up, but that number won't necessarily be high. perhaps of more value is to find startup people, not just founders, but initial employees, founders, consultants, advisors, etc.

2. personally i don't feel some of the content are that relevant, such as your favorite artists/people, books you've read, there's a much better place for this information (facebook, twitter), you should link to those. you should put more things along the lines of what you're trying to build, personally, i don't think ideas need to be secret, that's what will really draw in a cofounder or employee, not whether or not you both like catcher in the rye.

phylofx• 13 years ago

First level .ce-Domains are not available for registration. The domain name is not that important anyway. Residen.se is fine in my opinion.

lessnonymous• 13 years ago

IMHO, it's more important to get residense.com than residen.ce

I have a site that uses the '.se' and the (non tech) people who are my target market keep asking '.com?'

synapticism• 13 years ago

Cute, but think twice about making this the focus of your time as people have advised above. Finding a cofounder is a pain point for many people (myself included) but the market can't be very large. You will also have to address a challenge that regular dating sites have, namely that those who successfully find a match will no longer use your service. Unlike regular dating sites, cofounder-matching sites seem stacked with people looking for help with their idea, perhaps because those willing to work for someone else already have a job and aren't as driven to get involved. Are there really an equal number of people who think "I'd love to work on a startup but don't have an idea of my own that I am passionate about"?

That being said, none of the cofounder-matching sites I've used have solved my problem so I suppose there is room in this space. If you did take a cue from OKC and institute a system of curated user-generated Q&As you might be on to something. The services I've used were primitive in their matching ability (e.g. I am a developer looking for a designer, which tells you nothing about values, principles, working style, etc.) so hey, maybe you could make it work.

qompiler• 13 years ago

Your website is blocked on any major corporate network with a web-filter for using "dating" in your title, just letting you know.

I need a cofounder, so I built okcofounder.com

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