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You can now use YC's Startup School directory to find a cofounder
- kevin 7y agoIf you register now for Startup School 2019, you can now start using the directory to find other single founders looking for a cofounder. Filter by proximity, vertical and company description. This is a really great free resource to help you do the single best thing to help your startup. Over 11K founders have already signed up for Startup School. Classes start July 22nd. https://startupschool.org https://startupschool.org
- azhenley 7y agoThis is great! I've been looking for a way to find a cofounder.
- logicallee 7y agowhat are you working on or would like to do?
- andrewstuart 7y agoIs this an official Ycombinator project or something else?
- verdverm 7y agoYes, it's a ten week program. You should see a link at the bottom of HN
- ekc 7y ago"Cofounder dating" is a bad idea. Cofounders should be friends before starting the company. - pg https://twitter.com/paulg/status/852493839176785921 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/852493839176785921
- kevin 7y agoStartup School is a good way to start finding a friend with similar interests. You gotta start somewhere. - Kevin (YC Partner / Startup School Instructor/Host)
- davidw 7y agoYou guys have any data? I mean, it seems like a bad idea to me too, but you guys have access to a lot more data than I do.
- matz1 7y agoHow is it a bad idea? To find friend you have to start from somewhere right ? One way maybe from this "dating" site
- davidw 7y agoI don't have first hand experience, but my impression is that the best co-founders are those who you've got some history with, who you know and trust. That doesn't happen overnight. Kind of like an actual dating site might be a good way to meet potential marriage partners, but you'd look at someone pretty weird if you went on a date and they suggested they want to get married right away. But who knows; those guys see a lot of founders, maybe things work out differently.
- matz1 7y agoThe same way you use dating site to make that initial connection for that history to begin with. Dating site doesn't imply anything regarding having to get married right away. Its simply a medium for that initial connection, that's it.
- davidw 7y agoI think most people interested in starting a company have a different time frame in mind than people who are dating. But who knows... I'd be curious to see actual data rather than supposing.
- holoduke 7y agoA little bit off topic and a bit pessimistic, but I have just started a new company and I am surprised how high the rates are for services related to job postings/cofounders. Linkedin, angellist etc. If you don't watch out you can easily spend 50k on zero result. Unfortunately not all startups are backed by 5m. Wonder how much this service costs.
- carlosdp 7y agoYC Startup School is free, you can just sign up before the July 22nd deadline.
- opportune 7y agoI've never had this issue before but why not either 1) act as recruiter yourself. Yeah, some activist investors will tell you to only focus on core business stuff/creating product market fit but that's just certain people's opinion. Presumably you have some kind of network you can leverage + you can cold message people earnestly 2) Contract with a recruiting agency to perform some of the administrative/vetting part and give you the candidate for 1-2 interviews. You only pay for each hire. Expensive (I've heard of rates in the 10-30k range) but definitely does not cost $50k for zero result. This has the added benefit of allowing you to bundle recruiting tasks that you yourself probably don't have time for like background checks
- crimsonalucard 7y agoI'm a senior developer. I'm up to quit my job and start something for anyone who's looking for a technical cofounder. Specifically though I prefer people who compliment what I lack in areas of salesmanship and social engineering.
- noloblo 7y agoCrimson what’s your email
- crimsonalucard 7y agoheynairb@gmail.com
- taytus 7y agoIf you want to help us make the web faster, please email me.
- zafka 7y agoAre there many young hungry lawyers who go to startup school? I have always felt if I could hook up with a good lawyer who liked dealing with the bureaucratic stuff the sky would be the limit.
- noloblo 7y agoWhere are you located
- zafka 7y agoSouth Florida, east coast.
- scotth 7y agoHow about old hungry lawyers?
- zafka 7y agoHee, that might be even better. Although that raised the question of why they are still hungry. Perhaps I stated the original question incorrectly. Hmmm.
- avinium 7y agoWhat field are you with so much red tape that you need a lawyer cofounder?
- zafka 7y agoThe Field I am currently working in is "medical devices", but I have a very wide range of interests from agricultural to grinding and cutting tools, Ceramics, etc. Obviously you really don't need a lawyer on full time, but someone with that bent could be taking care of all the paper stuff which I can comprehend, but all too often put off.
- devteambravo 7y agoI'm a passionate born entrepreneur with a powerful story and a weirdly extended network. I'm a warrior, a recruiter, and I believe in violence of action. Are your a chess player with a taste for risk? I'm interested in creating the company of the future, heavy on processes and UX. Let's mix empathy and Sun Tzu's the Art of War to create a global conglomerate?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pbiggar 7y agoLooks like a good time to write my guide on how to find a cofounder and what to do when you do. Quick summary: - based on 3 failed cofounder relationships, 1 successful company (CircleCI) - current cofounding (https://darklang.com https://darklang.com) very strong - spoke to 50 potential cofounders (not 2-3 like before) - 50% of my pipeline were founders with underrepresented backgrounds - after first 10 had a profile that I was looking for (PM in consumer or devtools) - had a 40 part questionnaire that potential cofounders filled in, took about 90 mins, sent them my answers after I got theirs - prioritize chemistry and company value alignment (eg questions like when do you want to sell the company) - worked together on small company-building projects for a few weeks to assess fit - went to cofounder therapy (still going, it's been two years) - getting 50 is hard, I asked for recommendations from friends, colleagues, investors, posted on social media and linkedin, used angellist, went to meetups, cold emailed people, cold linkedin messaged. All produced good leads and lots of bad leads
- EllenChisa 7y ago@pbiggar's cofounder here! +1 to everything Paul said, especially cofounder therapy. The other thing that really helped me was understanding what I wanted from a cofounder (philosophically, skills-wise, ideology) before I was making a this person-or-not decision. Feels less personal. I got that knowledge by doing many hackathon/intense sprints with other people to figure out when people tended to not work for me: https://blog.ellenchisa.com/startup-lockdown-day-0-576d2d7d40b2 https://blog.ellenchisa.com/startup-lockdown-day-0-576d2d7d4.... I also had a good sense of traits that others found annoying (esp when they quit other jobs) that I felt fine with. Other useful things: - Explicitly naming "red flags" and things we were worried about. - Calling Paul's previous cofounder (who graciously agreed to talk to me). As a random thing I still find interest, I said no when someone tried to warm intro me to Paul, but agreed to meet when he sent me a cold email. Felt more sincere somehow.
- rmac 7y agoCan you share the questionnaire?
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
- baby_wipe 7y agoThis works great as a reality check to see how my idea isn't as original as I thought.
- bravura 7y agoDoes this mean if you sign up for startup school that your idea is shared with everyone?
- baby_wipe 7y agoAs far as I know. I don't remember seeing an option and mine is showing.
- yeldarb 7y agoI browsed through the hundred or so other Startup School companies in my vertical and there’s nothing even close to my vision of the future (using computer-vision to add a software layer to real world objects; proof of concept: https://twitter.com/braddwyer/status/910030265006923776 https://twitter.com/braddwyer/status/910030265006923776). It’s pretty frustrating actually; it seems obvious to me that it will be the future of human-computer interaction. I have been waiting for someone to build it for the past 18 months... but nobody seems to be working on it. I finally said “screw it” and I’m going to build it out myself. If this sounds interesting feel free to reach out! I’m one of the ones looking for a cofounder. (Twitter is easiest. My dms are open)
- machinelearning 7y agoIsn’t that the goal of every AR startup/project? Care to explain?
- yeldarb 7y agoMaybe I haven’t been looking in the right places but I’ve downloaded most of the AR apps and games that have come out for iOS thus far and they’re almost all gimmicky. Simply plopping a 3D model into the room isn’t particularly compelling or useful. But that seems to be the bar for “AR apps” today.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- m0zg 7y agoThis is a _profoundly_ bad idea. Cofounders should have a strong personal relationship before they start a company. They need to actually _know_ and _trust_ each other. I'd rather start a company without a co-founder than bring in someone I don't know as an even remotely equal partner.
- kevin 7y agoMost people are in Startup School haven't even started or have no idea. SUS is a perfect place to start on a small project with other people. From our experience at YC, getting a cofounder is the single best thing to improve the odds of your startup.
- m0zg 7y agoThat could be at the same time true on average and not true for the specific case where the founders don't know each other all that well (and therefore don't trust each other much more than you'd trust a stranger). If you have stats on the latter case, I'd be curious to see them. If not, consider collecting the stats from this experiment. Maybe people are "good by default" and all that, but I do have some very early stage startup experience (VPEng), and both the founders and the employees have enough trouble trying to not get screwed even without such additional complications. Money and egos always find a way to ruin everything.
- burtonator 7y agoScrew that... I'm going to find a co-founder right here! :) https://getpolarized.io/ https://getpolarized.io/ I need someone really awesome in product + growth OR an amazing React + frontend developer. We've made GREAT progress so far.. Here's the rough elevator pitch. Polar is a tool for managing knowledge which is kind of a hybrid of Kindle, Github, and Slack. Polar allows you to keep all your knowledge and reading material in one place. You can easily suspend and resume reading complex technical material and annotate and take notes directly without ever having to leave your reading platform. More specifically, Polar implements spaced repetition, is a technique from cognitive science to prevent the user from forgetting the material they've read. This same technology is used in other platforms like Duolingo but we apply it to other areas outside of just language learning. ... and here's what I'm struggling with at the moment. 1. The long term vision is large but I have to do a better job of explaining the short term vision. 2. I need to do a much better job of conveying the 'aha' moment to our users who visit the site. 3. Marketing right now can definitely be improved. Huge opportunity there. I've nailed a LOT but of course everyone has limited talents and time. The areas where Polar shines: - our users that 'get it' LOVE Polar. - we have a lot of users that STILL love Polar but are waiting to come on board due to one or two smaller missing but critical features. Like Firefox support or mobile or something along these lines. They users LOVE the app once they get the aha moment.
- jpking 7y agoPolar sounds interesting. I've got experience in helping the tech-focused sell their visions, so I might be able to help. Despite that I'm probably not co-founder material. I'm heading back to Uni in September to study comp sci. But I'm interested in finding impactful side projects. If you're interested in a chat email me: jpk@zealous.digital
- priyankt 7y agoJust like “Who is hiring” thread, a “Looking for co-founder” thread every quarter or 6 months might be helpful to the community? That can help start the conversation which is the first step towards finding the right co-founder. You can also get a good idea about a person by looking at their submission/comment history on HN.
- tyleo 7y agoSomeone posted one of these recently. I am looking for a cofounder and don’t find one but still found the thread interesting. I think it would be good for the community.
- andrewstuart 7y agoPG both highly recommends having a cofounder and also identifies cofounder conflict as a leading reason for company failure. So what's the "right" thing to do? Have a cofounder to greatly increase your chances or success, or endanger your company by getting a cofounder?
- mceoin 7y agoSingle founder success stories are the minority. Despite the leading cause of startups failing being founder breakup, the greater chance of winning still lies with having one (or two) cofounders.
- ttcbj 7y agoThe answer, as with all things in starting a business, is that you have to make wise decisions that yield good results. Seriously. If you choose a great co-founder with complementary skills and personality, it will drive you forward. If you choose poorly, you would have been better off staying single. The only thing that is really going to matter is your specific results. There is no reason for there to be a general rule that applies to everyone.
- OrgNet 7y agohe tells you that you have to have a cofounder to get funding and then tells you how to get a cofunder... thanks pg
- friendscallmejw 7y agoAs someone with two acquisitions under their belt (now technically three since IBM acquired Red Hat, though I wasn't part of that deal in any significant capacity) I can say that the next time I look for a cofounder, I'm going straight to the YC Startup School directory. Nothing like a cofounder with no real world experience, YC level entitlement, and a history of running/failing out of an overcapitalized tech-startup.
- haggy 7y agoYour sarcasm and snark is next level. Well done.
- friendscallmejw 7y agoThank you, I put extra effort into it on that comment.
- claudiulodro 7y agoSo, the part I don't get is how you need to have already started working on your startup to get access to the directory. Like, if you find a co-founder on it, won't one or both of the founders have to shut down their start up to work together?
- segmondy 7y agoIf you're an amazing frontend design who can write nice HTML/CSS from scratch, ping me.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]