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Comment by rgbrenner | Hacker News Reader

Sorry bloatedcarpel, but I've always thought this is a terrible idea...

I've been a solo-founder for 15 years, and I'll admit a co-founder would be awesome. But starting a company is not a walk in the park.. things are going to go wrong. It's not going to go as planned, you're going to feel like quitting at some point... And you have to trust this person you just met to handle that, resolve differences of opinion on the company, etc all while barely knowing how this person behaves under pressure, with their livelihood on the line (or their unrealistic dreams of riches).

It would be some kind of miracle if it actually works out with a random person. I would never do it.

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> I've been a solo-founder for 15 years

> I would never do it.

So, it sounds more like you would never have a cofounder anyways. This idea probably isn't aimed at somebody who after 15 years still can't find someone available that they can trust.

(P.s. dear hn, fix your formatting ability to bee able to have a line break without a paragraph break, or maybe block quote actually be useable)

I don't get why this guy gets downvoted. He's right. Who in the right mind would take advice from a solo-founder? That's like taking marriage advice from a monk. Of course you can do it yourself and it could work, but that's not the point. Even if this project will fail at helping people to find a co-founder, it's still a better exercise than just dismissing the idea.

While I understand this angle, I do think this can be helpful to people with smaller side projects.

thanks for the clarification, and removing "co-founder" from the hn title. For side projects it could be useful.

Sure thing.

I started and sold a company with a random person. He now runs an even more successful startup.

At the time I had followed all advice of starting companies with friends, only to get screwed by very close friends. So I gave up on this whole business with friends thing and tried matching with people from Facebook.

The trick is not to get married on the first date, but use these platforms to just meet like minded people.

I think your points make sense, but at the same time I would also hesitate to risk destroying a relationship with a friend. So maybe I'd prefer a stranger.

You might not destroy a relationship with a friend, but you are potentially letting a stranger destroy your personal resources (time, money, energy, etc).

I would prefer someone I have a good working relationship with over a friend. My best friends are not in my field, but I have people in my life who I love working with, because we just click and are able to get stuff done. I wouldn’t say they were super close friends though as we don’t necessarily bond over anything other than work.

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