6 ms·

Cofounder matching is a market for lemons, much like online dating. The best prospects are either never on the open market, or get snapped up very quickly. So i

Cofounder matching is a market for lemons, much like online dating. The best prospects are either never on the open market, or get snapped up very quickly. So it's always a problem of sorting through many low-quality options to find diamonds in the rough (and if you can find one, upgrading a rough diamond to a shiny diamond is still a nontrivial process). Point being, cofounder matching is inherently a frustrating grind.

999900000999 4y ago
To be fair, I've met plenty of idea guys in real life. I can't imagine the internet somehow being worse. It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.' Then if you do waste a weekend on a POC you'll hear it doesn't match their vision. You don't even get a thank you from these jerks. TBH I've given up on starting a tech company completely, I work a 9-5 and then make small games afterwards.
- lagniappe 4y ago
  Make the POC your business, call yourself a market-fit engineer and "yes, right away" all the way to early retirement.
  - thecleaner 4y ago
    Jesus Christ. This is such an amazing idea.
    - itronitron 4y ago
      I'm willing to offer lagniappe 2.5% equity vested over 5 years if they build this for me. Which reminds me of something I read once on the internet, paraphrased ... "build the thing that you want or be forced to build the thing that somebody else wants"
  - solarmist 4y ago
    I think this is what many technical serial-founders do essentially.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.' Those are the generous ones. If you're a tech person and you 'join as employee #1' then you have just decreased your chances for a reasonable payday by about 90%. So make sure that salary is a substantial one, or negotiate for double digits stock. Otherwise: better to be a founder. Same risks, more control, better payday if it works out.
  - 999900000999 4y ago
    Oh the idiots I was talking to didn't want to actually pay me any money. It's just equity in whatever far off pipedream they have.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      That's borderline abusive.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  I mean you could always disappear to somewhere with nicer weather and run away with their idea... Every time I've been given an annoying "you do all the work" offer like this I've entertained the thought. I'm surprised you don't hear about it happening more often to be honest.
  - jokethrowaway 4y ago
    Because someone else's idea is always worse than your idea. The only ideas I considered stealing were ideas I had previously (or close to that). There is an upside, you can talk about your idea freely, chances of theft are low.
shrimpx 4y ago
I disagree about online dating. Increasingly, my peers who end up in long term relationships or married have found each other on dating apps. Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring and limiting.
- testTED 4y ago
  Read the entire comment you are responding to.
  - shrimpx 4y ago
    I did, and I strongly disagree that online dating is a market for lemons.
    - gardenhedge 4y ago
      Your friends got snapped up leaving the lemons behind
      - maerF0x0 4y ago
        they didn't specify if it they were "snapped up" (presuming this means rapidly) , or if it was a "grind" Assuming it's a man and woman, and average experiences the guy likely went through 100s-1000s of profiles to match with her, and she likely in the high 10s to low 100s.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    You're not supposed to make comments like this on here because usually what ends up happening is that they did read the full comment and that you disagree with their interpretation of it, but then the discourse grinds to a halt because the discussion becomes about reading. The reason you disagree FWIW is that you believes 'snapped up quickly' means near-instantaneous, whereas they see it as more of 'with the right strategy you can be the snapper'
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  >> Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring and limiting. It's a network problem; this is where you start but not necessarily end.
jrumbut 4y ago
But it's also like dating in that a successful outcome is worth exponentially more than the time it takes to read a few dozen profiles.
maerF0x0 4y ago
> much like online dating Interesting that you just called about 40% of the <50yrs old population "lemons"
thaumaturgy 4y ago
This reminds me of the old joke: an economist is walking down the street with a friend, and the friend says, "Look! There's a $20 bill on the ground!" The economist replies, "Nah, if there were, somebody would've picked it up already," The real world is messy. There are many reasons why a suitable cofounder might be found through a matching service, or a life partner, or even just a fun date. YCombinator was founded in part on the notion that there existed quality technical founders that were being excluded from traditional venture capital networks.
- itronitron 4y ago
  A friend of mine once found a $100 bill on the street, at night on a city street near restaurants and bars, which makes me wonder if $100 bills are more likely to be found than $20 bills. Or maybe people under report finding $20 bills since it isn't as memorable an experience.
fdgsdfogijq 4y ago
Wouldnt be surprised to find a bunch of "idea guys" looking for a programmer to implement their idea, meanwhile they "sell" to clients.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  As an ideas guy that can program, I super value people that want to sell stuff.
mettamage 4y ago
My experience with Tinder does not match what you describe as "lemons". I'm an average looking guy at best. To be fair, I did hack the process a bit. I definitely do not have an average strategy ;-) With that said, I did notice that Tinder in the US is just utter garbage, even with my strategy. The best places so far have all been in Europe (only tested the US a bit and some European countries).
- BadassFractal 4y ago
  Request for startup: Tinder in the US that isn't utter garbage. Maybe you can find a cofounder on this platform :)
  - mettamage 4y ago
    Aren’t there other dating apps that help?
fl0ps 4y ago
I pointed to this in another thread, but: "for some reason, a lot of people treat choosing their cofounder with even less importance than hiring. Don't do this! This is one of the most important decisions you make in the life of your startup and you need to treat it as such. And for some reason, students are really bad at this. They just pick someone. They're like, I want to start a business and you want to start a business, let's start a startup together. There are these cofounder dating things where you're like, Hey I'm looking for a cofounder, we don't really know each other, let's start a company. And this is like, crazy. You would never hire someone like this and yet people are willing to choose their business partners this way. It's really really bad. And choosing a random random cofounder, or choosing someone you don't have a long history with, choosing someone you're not friends with, so when things are really going wrong, you have this sort of past history to bind you together, usually ends up in disaster. We had one YC batch in which nine out of about seventy-five companies added on a new cofounder between when we interviewed the companies and when they started, and all nine of those teams fell apart within the next year. The track record for companies where the cofounders don't know each other is really bad." from https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec02/ https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec02/
quickthrower2 4y ago
Used cars are a market for lemons. Maybe less so these days as they are more mechanically reliable. But dating and cofounding isn’t. People with nothing wrong with them break up, become single, appear on dating sites. People who are great cofounders may decide to work in great jobs first.

999900000999 4y ago

To be fair, I've met plenty of idea guys in real life. I can't imagine the internet somehow being worse. It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.' Then if you do waste a weekend on a POC you'll hear it doesn't match their vision. You don't even get a thank you from these jerks. TBH I've given up on starting a tech company completely, I work a 9-5 and then make small games afterwards.

lagniappe 4y ago
Make the POC your business, call yourself a market-fit engineer and "yes, right away" all the way to early retirement.
- thecleaner 4y ago
  Jesus Christ. This is such an amazing idea.
  - itronitron 4y ago
    I'm willing to offer lagniappe 2.5% equity vested over 5 years if they build this for me. Which reminds me of something I read once on the internet, paraphrased ... "build the thing that you want or be forced to build the thing that somebody else wants"
- solarmist 4y ago
  I think this is what many technical serial-founders do essentially.
jacquesm 4y ago
> It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.' Those are the generous ones. If you're a tech person and you 'join as employee #1' then you have just decreased your chances for a reasonable payday by about 90%. So make sure that salary is a substantial one, or negotiate for double digits stock. Otherwise: better to be a founder. Same risks, more control, better payday if it works out.
- 999900000999 4y ago
  Oh the idiots I was talking to didn't want to actually pay me any money. It's just equity in whatever far off pipedream they have.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    That's borderline abusive.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
I mean you could always disappear to somewhere with nicer weather and run away with their idea... Every time I've been given an annoying "you do all the work" offer like this I've entertained the thought. I'm surprised you don't hear about it happening more often to be honest.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  Because someone else's idea is always worse than your idea. The only ideas I considered stealing were ideas I had previously (or close to that). There is an upside, you can talk about your idea freely, chances of theft are low.

shrimpx 4y ago

I disagree about online dating. Increasingly, my peers who end up in long term relationships or married have found each other on dating apps. Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring and limiting.

testTED 4y ago
Read the entire comment you are responding to.
- shrimpx 4y ago
  I did, and I strongly disagree that online dating is a market for lemons.
  - gardenhedge 4y ago
    Your friends got snapped up leaving the lemons behind
    - maerF0x0 4y ago
      they didn't specify if it they were "snapped up" (presuming this means rapidly) , or if it was a "grind" Assuming it's a man and woman, and average experiences the guy likely went through 100s-1000s of profiles to match with her, and she likely in the high 10s to low 100s.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  You're not supposed to make comments like this on here because usually what ends up happening is that they did read the full comment and that you disagree with their interpretation of it, but then the discourse grinds to a halt because the discussion becomes about reading. The reason you disagree FWIW is that you believes 'snapped up quickly' means near-instantaneous, whereas they see it as more of 'with the right strategy you can be the snapper'
skeeter2020 4y ago
>> Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring and limiting. It's a network problem; this is where you start but not necessarily end.

jrumbut 4y ago

But it's also like dating in that a successful outcome is worth exponentially more than the time it takes to read a few dozen profiles.

maerF0x0 4y ago

> much like online dating Interesting that you just called about 40% of the <50yrs old population "lemons"

thaumaturgy 4y ago

This reminds me of the old joke: an economist is walking down the street with a friend, and the friend says, "Look! There's a $20 bill on the ground!" The economist replies, "Nah, if there were, somebody would've picked it up already," The real world is messy. There are many reasons why a suitable cofounder might be found through a matching service, or a life partner, or even just a fun date. YCombinator was founded in part on the notion that there existed quality technical founders that were being excluded from traditional venture capital networks.

itronitron 4y ago
A friend of mine once found a $100 bill on the street, at night on a city street near restaurants and bars, which makes me wonder if $100 bills are more likely to be found than $20 bills. Or maybe people under report finding $20 bills since it isn't as memorable an experience.

fdgsdfogijq 4y ago

Wouldnt be surprised to find a bunch of "idea guys" looking for a programmer to implement their idea, meanwhile they "sell" to clients.

hgomersall 4y ago
As an ideas guy that can program, I super value people that want to sell stuff.

mettamage 4y ago

My experience with Tinder does not match what you describe as "lemons". I'm an average looking guy at best. To be fair, I did hack the process a bit. I definitely do not have an average strategy ;-) With that said, I did notice that Tinder in the US is just utter garbage, even with my strategy. The best places so far have all been in Europe (only tested the US a bit and some European countries).

BadassFractal 4y ago
Request for startup: Tinder in the US that isn't utter garbage. Maybe you can find a cofounder on this platform :)
- mettamage 4y ago
  Aren’t there other dating apps that help?

fl0ps 4y ago

I pointed to this in another thread, but: "for some reason, a lot of people treat choosing their cofounder with even less importance than hiring. Don't do this! This is one of the most important decisions you make in the life of your startup and you need to treat it as such. And for some reason, students are really bad at this. They just pick someone. They're like, I want to start a business and you want to start a business, let's start a startup together. There are these cofounder dating things where you're like, Hey I'm looking for a cofounder, we don't really know each other, let's start a company. And this is like, crazy. You would never hire someone like this and yet people are willing to choose their business partners this way. It's really really bad. And choosing a random random cofounder, or choosing someone you don't have a long history with, choosing someone you're not friends with, so when things are really going wrong, you have this sort of past history to bind you together, usually ends up in disaster. We had one YC batch in which nine out of about seventy-five companies added on a new cofounder between when we interviewed the companies and when they started, and all nine of those teams fell apart within the next year. The track record for companies where the cofounders don't know each other is really bad." from https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec02/ https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec02/

quickthrower2 4y ago

Used cars are a market for lemons. Maybe less so these days as they are more mechanically reliable. But dating and cofounding isn’t. People with nothing wrong with them break up, become single, appear on dating sites. People who are great cofounders may decide to work in great jobs first.