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Like many who post here, I've often thought it would be cool to be able to go to a "Founder Match" type of site to identify possible co-founders. What's intere

Like many who post here, I've often thought it would be cool to be able to go to a "Founder Match" type of site to identify possible co-founders. What's interesting to me is that at once, this article speaks both to why a site like this SHOULD NEVER exist (you should really know your co-founder) but also why it REALLY MUST exist (some kind of reputation score could have helped here).

redthrowaway 15y ago
I could see someone like pg starting it as a sort of HN-like venture, with no expectation of making money aside from making YC more prominent, but I can't see it as a startup. How much would you have to charge in order to be profitable? How big is your actual market? I just think it's a potentially useful service that would be very difficult to build a company on.
- spinlock 15y ago
  At first blush, I'd say you have a very serious problem that you're trying to solve. That's always a good place for a startup to begin. In this one example, millions of dollars were lost and one founder did time in jail and is hundreds of thousands in debt. Hind-sight being 20/20, I'm sure these guys would pay $10k to avoid this mess (not to mention going after the potential upside of doing this business right). The risk that I see is that the problem is a latent problem (i.e. one that founders are not aware of) rather than a realized problem. So, the people who understand your value proposition are already ruined and don't have the cash to pay you and the ones who have the cash and need your service don't know that they need your service.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Chicken and the egg. If you've got 10k in cash lying around, you've probably already found a cofounder and got funded. Even the people who save up before launching a startup aren't going to want to part with 10k just to find a cofounder, regardless of how good an investment 10k for the right cofounder may end up being. The immediate problem of how to match people is also non-trivial. Reputation doesn't really work in the startup field, unless you're matching serial entrepreneurs, who probably don't need your service. It's a real problem, and it'd be great if someone could solve it, but I just don't see a business in it. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, however.

redthrowaway 15y ago

I could see someone like pg starting it as a sort of HN-like venture, with no expectation of making money aside from making YC more prominent, but I can't see it as a startup. How much would you have to charge in order to be profitable? How big is your actual market? I just think it's a potentially useful service that would be very difficult to build a company on.

spinlock 15y ago
At first blush, I'd say you have a very serious problem that you're trying to solve. That's always a good place for a startup to begin. In this one example, millions of dollars were lost and one founder did time in jail and is hundreds of thousands in debt. Hind-sight being 20/20, I'm sure these guys would pay $10k to avoid this mess (not to mention going after the potential upside of doing this business right). The risk that I see is that the problem is a latent problem (i.e. one that founders are not aware of) rather than a realized problem. So, the people who understand your value proposition are already ruined and don't have the cash to pay you and the ones who have the cash and need your service don't know that they need your service.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Chicken and the egg. If you've got 10k in cash lying around, you've probably already found a cofounder and got funded. Even the people who save up before launching a startup aren't going to want to part with 10k just to find a cofounder, regardless of how good an investment 10k for the right cofounder may end up being. The immediate problem of how to match people is also non-trivial. Reputation doesn't really work in the startup field, unless you're matching serial entrepreneurs, who probably don't need your service. It's a real problem, and it'd be great if someone could solve it, but I just don't see a business in it. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, however.