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Hello - I'm one of the people at YC who work on YC's co-founder matching site (which, if you aren't familiar with it, is at https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounde

Hello - I'm one of the people at YC who work on YC's co-founder matching site (which, if you aren't familiar with it, is at https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching). It's not totally clear to me if OP is referring to that product specifically or something else, but I figured I would take the opportunity to get feedback anyway! We are very actively working on the co-founder matching site and would love to hear from people who have used it - what your experience was and how we could make it better. We've been running the site for about two years now, since we launched it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27750298 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27750298. Coincidentally, the idea actually grew out of open threads just like the ones OP suggested. We started by experimenting with those threads on HN and our Startup School forum, but nobody ever found an actual co-founder that way. So we decided to build it as an actual product. Since we launched, over 20 teams that met on the site have gotten funded by YC, and many of them are doing quite well. So we think the early results are overall promising. That said, co-founder matching is a very hard problem. It's a multi-sided marketplace with complex dynamics, and we know we have a lot of work to do to make it work for everyone. We'd love your feedback if you've tried it.

amir734jj 4y ago
Thank you so much for the reply. Can you please add a search or filtering? I don't want to keep clicking "next"
- snowmaker 4y ago
  Yes, this is one of the things we're working on next.
  - BadassFractal 4y ago
    Excellent, thank you! The swiping model didn't feel like an ideal solution for the task.
- danvoell 4y ago
  This. Also could you add a not interested in matching up because field option when someone tries to connect. And/or if you want to poke someone by letting them know you like what they are up to but you wouldn’t be good co-founder material.
cwcw 4y ago
First of all, thanks for building it and as a user, the product is solid that matches the needs well. Note that I used 'matches' not 'solves' as the problem itself is so messy and difficult that a product like this could help but fundamentally it requires two people working together, which is super hard. My way of somehow hacking it is to come in with low or no expectation. There are otherwise tons of great people on YC co-founder matching site, and almost all conversations I've had were excellent. Even if it didn't help me find a cofounder, I still rate the product highly.
- joandeg 4y ago
  Also chiming in from the CFM team. This point resonated with me based on conversations I've had with some of the teams that matched & are still working together. The evaluation period: asking tough questions, trial projects, equity expectations, and setting a strong foundation to work together are important steps to add onto any cf search -- CFM platform or personal network.
justinzollars 4y ago
One thing that could improve is that it seems to filter on age and location. It should filter on specific skills.
CharlieDigital 4y ago
I've used it and met some interesting folks; some whom I still chat with. One whom I seriously considered working with. But ultimately no co-founders. I think that there are different modalities for the folks on YC Co-Founder Matching and that's OK, IMO. Like andrewfromx mentioned in a comment below, it would be great to be able to somehow identify and filter by those modalities. My sense is that there are some folks on there who would make great "first hires", but not necessarily "co-founder". There are some users on the platform who seem interested in joining a startup in the early stages (who should probably instead be on workatastartup.com instead) rather than actually co-founding a company.
benguild 4y ago
it’d be great if you could find a way to screen out “lurkers” and “shoppers” … in other words, people who just like the idea of having a startup
- analyst74 4y ago
  I wish the same! My first couple weeks on co-founder matching were consumed with meeting a wide range of folks, most of whom in the "I'd like to start a company if the right co-founder / idea / other criteria present themselves" stage. One thing that seems to reduce the noise is selecting "I'm working full time on my startup" and make that a requirement for co-founder. But it would be nice to also meet those who are not actively working on an idea but very committed to finding a co-founder to start something.
  - hoc 4y ago
    I actually would like to talk to people who really want to run a startup (with on of my great pre-developed ideas) in a somehow coordinated way and get a five percent stake in the company or something. Is there a good place for that (other than putting it on Hackster)? I met people with great ideas, ones with great skillsets, ones with great management and leadership skills, and you just can have all those things vary over time in your life. The question is, but also for the classic startup, how stable and dedicated would such a construct be. The need for fame, money or just joy of development also varies over time, so I would guess there should be a way to bring those interest together into a working construct without necessarily judging up front that this is not the real deal. Lots of CXXs are just employees in a company they did not found themselves after all. Still they receive shares of their company. So why not start with that as the base right away.
- BadassFractal 4y ago
  Yes! YC calls them "scenesters", but the reality is that often you don't know if you're cut out for the gig until you actually do it, so lots of people have to experience it first-hand to realize they don't actually want the job.
sdrinf 4y ago
Hi, I have been using it since launch, have reviewed ~100s-1000s of profiles, have talked with ~50-80 people, did a try-out with 2, for 6 months each. (Background is: I am a technical founder with 6 prior startups, 2 of which were successful; still want to build something, looking for good ideas, and great execution people) I'm still actively looking for high-quality cofounders to join, and will take anyone who jumps the (high) bar I've set that is required to make a startup a success. However, it is extremely frustrating to work with the site for a mix of cultural, and UX issues reasons. Specifically: * Establish a culture of people sharing both their ideas, and the progress they made so far on the project. If the "idea" section is empty / "will discuss on a phone call" / NDAs, that's a no-go from the start. You might want to add a text in the "idea" section of the profile builder, that _not sharing their idea_ is very very bad, and they will get passed on for that reason. * Search, and a way to look at "everyone who wants to work on X". There are several usability issues with browsing people one-by-one: for one, there are some startup ideas that are very timely right now, and I want to know everyone who wants to work in that area. For another, I can't know if a person I've passed on ~10 months ago haven't pivoted into something more interesting. This is not a sector-specific selector, rather a full-text search for every profile who has specific keywords; with results displayed in a list, similar to cofounderslab. * Having a profile checkbox, and ability to filter for high-quality founder signals: have built a startup before, have made it profitable, have sold things in the same product category he's thinking on launching a new thing in. (These are off the top of my head, will edit, if other things come up)
- BadassFractal 4y ago
  +1 on the site being lower value than it could be for repeat founders with previous successes, but who still want to build things with other people with extensive experience and a track record. You could argue that if you're in that situation you should be relying on existing networks to propel you into your next thing, but sometimes you want a new start or things just aren't aligning time-wise with your former allies. The majority of folks on the site have never done a startup before and are entirely unproven in a startup context, or have a couple of short stints that they unfortunately didn't learn much from because the thing never gained any traction, so they did "1 year experience 3 times over". Doesn't mean they're not potentially great startup material, it's pretty hard to get something to take off. But, it's still a pretty risky bet for someone who wants to derisk partners a tad more.
unusualmonkey 4y ago
> We are very actively working on the co-founder matching site and would love to hear from people who have used it - what your experience was and how we could make it better. I used it a year and a few months ago. I'm a technical person with 10 years working in startups. I treated it the way I'd treat a job search etc. I matched with ~150 people. Talked to ~50 people. Got close/did trial project with 3. Did a deal with 1. Raised a VC pre-seed (similar process) and have had a wild journey since. Some learnings: * Met some really cool people, some amazing talent on the platform. * Know what you're looking for (e.g. complimentary skillset, company stage). Matching experience was key - didn't want too little (still making mistakes) but not too much (wanted an equal relationship, not a minor founder role). * Co-founding is a relationship IMO. 'Matching' is just dating, 'trail project' is moving in together, and 'cofounding' is marriage. Expect to argue about curtains. * It's hard to do and complex, this isn't handed on a plate. On the flip side, that's how business is, so builds skill sets that come in useful later. Some ideas, if I ran this program: 1) Experiment with different interaction forms. E.g. 60 second video bio's to see if that helps people match faster. 2) Do a 'YC-lite' incubator program. We were never interested in the time or equity of a full YC program, so DIY'd fundraising, company formation etc. There's room to build community/support that's less intensive than YC's incubator, more suitable for founders who have matched and are building now... not waiting for incubator. I note that 20 match teams got YC funded... how many are doing well that YC knows nothing about?
- BadassFractal 4y ago
  Similar situation here, thanks for sharing your journey this last time around, I'll have to reuse some of those ideas myself.
- joandeg 4y ago
  This is cool to hear (as another member of the CFM team!) We have admittedly less insight in this type of 'success' (we talk to all of the teams that end up in a YC batch) but if you stopped actively using the platform and paused your account, you would have told us you met someone you were working with.
lumost 4y ago
Anecdotally I think some training on preseed/seed funding may be beneficial. I’ve met more than a few pre seed folks who are focused on equity retention. This is all well and good for a few exceptional founders, and they are welcome to seek out a compatible match. However there should be an asterisk on when people are looking for a founding engineer or otherwise giving out marginal equity. I had a few such meetings which were educational- but ultimately non productive as it would not make financial sense for me to join a seed stage firm for less than a 50% stake. Of course the discussion is different for later stage firms. That being said the speed dating events were fantastic.
- sdrinf 4y ago
  "Founding engineers" are employees. The site is for finding cofounders. Using the site for hiring is strictly against the rules -strongly advise letting that know to people who are doing this and/or report them directly on the site. We really really don't want the site to degrade into another jobsearch tool.
- snowmaker 4y ago
  Yes, this is definitely something that was happening. We recently added a question to the profile about "equity expectations" to try to solve this. I'm hopeful that will help, because then you can just not match with people who don't align with your expectations; would love any feedback on this.
  - lumost 4y ago
    > would love any feedback on this. It's a great feature, however I suspect that you may get too many "I'm flexible" entries relative to how flexible people actually are. In practice I'm probably flexible on equity expectations if a well known engineer/founder wanted to partner with me - or X MM had been secured for funding. While it might be too much information for a profile, allowing individuals to indicate equity preferences for specific company valuations in their match preferences might guide both parties to the right deal.

amir734jj 4y ago

Thank you so much for the reply. Can you please add a search or filtering? I don't want to keep clicking "next"

snowmaker 4y ago
Yes, this is one of the things we're working on next.
- BadassFractal 4y ago
  Excellent, thank you! The swiping model didn't feel like an ideal solution for the task.
danvoell 4y ago
This. Also could you add a not interested in matching up because field option when someone tries to connect. And/or if you want to poke someone by letting them know you like what they are up to but you wouldn’t be good co-founder material.

cwcw 4y ago

First of all, thanks for building it and as a user, the product is solid that matches the needs well. Note that I used 'matches' not 'solves' as the problem itself is so messy and difficult that a product like this could help but fundamentally it requires two people working together, which is super hard. My way of somehow hacking it is to come in with low or no expectation. There are otherwise tons of great people on YC co-founder matching site, and almost all conversations I've had were excellent. Even if it didn't help me find a cofounder, I still rate the product highly.

joandeg 4y ago
Also chiming in from the CFM team. This point resonated with me based on conversations I've had with some of the teams that matched & are still working together. The evaluation period: asking tough questions, trial projects, equity expectations, and setting a strong foundation to work together are important steps to add onto any cf search -- CFM platform or personal network.

justinzollars 4y ago

One thing that could improve is that it seems to filter on age and location. It should filter on specific skills.

CharlieDigital 4y ago

I've used it and met some interesting folks; some whom I still chat with. One whom I seriously considered working with. But ultimately no co-founders. I think that there are different modalities for the folks on YC Co-Founder Matching and that's OK, IMO. Like andrewfromx mentioned in a comment below, it would be great to be able to somehow identify and filter by those modalities. My sense is that there are some folks on there who would make great "first hires", but not necessarily "co-founder". There are some users on the platform who seem interested in joining a startup in the early stages (who should probably instead be on workatastartup.com instead) rather than actually co-founding a company.

benguild 4y ago

it’d be great if you could find a way to screen out “lurkers” and “shoppers” … in other words, people who just like the idea of having a startup

analyst74 4y ago
I wish the same! My first couple weeks on co-founder matching were consumed with meeting a wide range of folks, most of whom in the "I'd like to start a company if the right co-founder / idea / other criteria present themselves" stage. One thing that seems to reduce the noise is selecting "I'm working full time on my startup" and make that a requirement for co-founder. But it would be nice to also meet those who are not actively working on an idea but very committed to finding a co-founder to start something.
- hoc 4y ago
  I actually would like to talk to people who really want to run a startup (with on of my great pre-developed ideas) in a somehow coordinated way and get a five percent stake in the company or something. Is there a good place for that (other than putting it on Hackster)? I met people with great ideas, ones with great skillsets, ones with great management and leadership skills, and you just can have all those things vary over time in your life. The question is, but also for the classic startup, how stable and dedicated would such a construct be. The need for fame, money or just joy of development also varies over time, so I would guess there should be a way to bring those interest together into a working construct without necessarily judging up front that this is not the real deal. Lots of CXXs are just employees in a company they did not found themselves after all. Still they receive shares of their company. So why not start with that as the base right away.
BadassFractal 4y ago
Yes! YC calls them "scenesters", but the reality is that often you don't know if you're cut out for the gig until you actually do it, so lots of people have to experience it first-hand to realize they don't actually want the job.

sdrinf 4y ago

Hi, I have been using it since launch, have reviewed ~100s-1000s of profiles, have talked with ~50-80 people, did a try-out with 2, for 6 months each. (Background is: I am a technical founder with 6 prior startups, 2 of which were successful; still want to build something, looking for good ideas, and great execution people) I'm still actively looking for high-quality cofounders to join, and will take anyone who jumps the (high) bar I've set that is required to make a startup a success. However, it is extremely frustrating to work with the site for a mix of cultural, and UX issues reasons. Specifically: * Establish a culture of people sharing both their ideas, and the progress they made so far on the project. If the "idea" section is empty / "will discuss on a phone call" / NDAs, that's a no-go from the start. You might want to add a text in the "idea" section of the profile builder, that _not sharing their idea_ is very very bad, and they will get passed on for that reason. * Search, and a way to look at "everyone who wants to work on X". There are several usability issues with browsing people one-by-one: for one, there are some startup ideas that are very timely right now, and I want to know everyone who wants to work in that area. For another, I can't know if a person I've passed on ~10 months ago haven't pivoted into something more interesting. This is not a sector-specific selector, rather a full-text search for every profile who has specific keywords; with results displayed in a list, similar to cofounderslab. * Having a profile checkbox, and ability to filter for high-quality founder signals: have built a startup before, have made it profitable, have sold things in the same product category he's thinking on launching a new thing in. (These are off the top of my head, will edit, if other things come up)

BadassFractal 4y ago
+1 on the site being lower value than it could be for repeat founders with previous successes, but who still want to build things with other people with extensive experience and a track record. You could argue that if you're in that situation you should be relying on existing networks to propel you into your next thing, but sometimes you want a new start or things just aren't aligning time-wise with your former allies. The majority of folks on the site have never done a startup before and are entirely unproven in a startup context, or have a couple of short stints that they unfortunately didn't learn much from because the thing never gained any traction, so they did "1 year experience 3 times over". Doesn't mean they're not potentially great startup material, it's pretty hard to get something to take off. But, it's still a pretty risky bet for someone who wants to derisk partners a tad more.

unusualmonkey 4y ago

> We are very actively working on the co-founder matching site and would love to hear from people who have used it - what your experience was and how we could make it better. I used it a year and a few months ago. I'm a technical person with 10 years working in startups. I treated it the way I'd treat a job search etc. I matched with ~150 people. Talked to ~50 people. Got close/did trial project with 3. Did a deal with 1. Raised a VC pre-seed (similar process) and have had a wild journey since. Some learnings: * Met some really cool people, some amazing talent on the platform. * Know what you're looking for (e.g. complimentary skillset, company stage). Matching experience was key - didn't want too little (still making mistakes) but not too much (wanted an equal relationship, not a minor founder role). * Co-founding is a relationship IMO. 'Matching' is just dating, 'trail project' is moving in together, and 'cofounding' is marriage. Expect to argue about curtains. * It's hard to do and complex, this isn't handed on a plate. On the flip side, that's how business is, so builds skill sets that come in useful later. Some ideas, if I ran this program: 1) Experiment with different interaction forms. E.g. 60 second video bio's to see if that helps people match faster. 2) Do a 'YC-lite' incubator program. We were never interested in the time or equity of a full YC program, so DIY'd fundraising, company formation etc. There's room to build community/support that's less intensive than YC's incubator, more suitable for founders who have matched and are building now... not waiting for incubator. I note that 20 match teams got YC funded... how many are doing well that YC knows nothing about?

BadassFractal 4y ago
Similar situation here, thanks for sharing your journey this last time around, I'll have to reuse some of those ideas myself.
joandeg 4y ago
This is cool to hear (as another member of the CFM team!) We have admittedly less insight in this type of 'success' (we talk to all of the teams that end up in a YC batch) but if you stopped actively using the platform and paused your account, you would have told us you met someone you were working with.

lumost 4y ago

Anecdotally I think some training on preseed/seed funding may be beneficial. I’ve met more than a few pre seed folks who are focused on equity retention. This is all well and good for a few exceptional founders, and they are welcome to seek out a compatible match. However there should be an asterisk on when people are looking for a founding engineer or otherwise giving out marginal equity. I had a few such meetings which were educational- but ultimately non productive as it would not make financial sense for me to join a seed stage firm for less than a 50% stake. Of course the discussion is different for later stage firms. That being said the speed dating events were fantastic.

sdrinf 4y ago
"Founding engineers" are employees. The site is for finding cofounders. Using the site for hiring is strictly against the rules -strongly advise letting that know to people who are doing this and/or report them directly on the site. We really really don't want the site to degrade into another jobsearch tool.
snowmaker 4y ago
Yes, this is definitely something that was happening. We recently added a question to the profile about "equity expectations" to try to solve this. I'm hopeful that will help, because then you can just not match with people who don't align with your expectations; would love any feedback on this.
- lumost 4y ago
  > would love any feedback on this. It's a great feature, however I suspect that you may get too many "I'm flexible" entries relative to how flexible people actually are. In practice I'm probably flexible on equity expectations if a well known engineer/founder wanted to partner with me - or X MM had been secured for funding. While it might be too much information for a profile, allowing individuals to indicate equity preferences for specific company valuations in their match preferences might guide both parties to the right deal.