Ask HN: How did you find your current cofounder?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6610116

by sosagain • 13 years ago

5 6 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How did you find your cofounder? Did you find them at meetups? Or College friends? Or Co-workers? What would you say in your experience is the most effective way to find a good cofounder?

manidoraisamy• 13 years ago

Co-workers always! You know their most recent + relevant strengths/weakness.

jonnyhosabah• 13 years ago

Co-workers. I'm technical, he is in operations.

WesleyThurner• 13 years ago

It can be tough, I'm in a technical/educational environment yet I cannot find anyone interested. Has anyone had luck with meetups or something similar?

adidash• 13 years ago

Any email where I can connect with you?

secfirstmd• 13 years ago

I'm looking for a tech person to be part of my human rights startup. We are building a mobile application to manage the physical security of human rights defenders, activists amd journalists. If anyone is interested, drop a mail to secfirstmd@gmail.com

dzink• 13 years ago

1. Family makes the worst founding team (my parents almost divorced mid-way through their first company).

2. Friends are a bad idea if you can't fire someone from a task without hurting the friendship.

3. That linkedin/meetup guy with the great resume, likely has much better things to do.

4. Colleagues, especially those you have been in really tough times with and survived respecting each-other are the most trustworthy co-founders.

If you are short on #4, try to do many small projects with #3s and #2s until you earn each-other's trust and know you can hold each-other responsible. Co-founder is a very heavy word. To put it in context replace it with "Spouse" and see if it still makes sense in your head before asking someone to be one. Based on standard vesting you are bound to stay together for 4 years minimum and that person has to know they will like you and your idea that long. So don't drop that word in the beginning or you may scare people off.

I don't put much faith in people who say they want to be "co-founders" and go on a matching service for that. Wanting that title and having a mission strong enough you are ready to leave salary, social life, and security for the next 10 years to do it are two very different things.

I too need a co-founder in a bad way. My product is live and picking up steam fast and my sleep is cut short by the day. However, I've stopped "looking" for a co-founder and instead let the product ( http://Doerhub.com/for/doerhub ) actually attract and help me evaluate the best team for itself.

Ask HN: How did you find your current cofounder?

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