What do people want in a co-founder?
blog.ycombinator.com
blog.ycombinator.com
Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon Valley, but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, so the signal to noise ratio is actually less. I feel any kind co-founder dating suffers from the exact same thing. YC's name gives it more legitimacy, but that very fact attracts more dedicated wannabes who are just playing house harder.
Ultimately after all these years I keep coming back to Joel Spolsky's idea of working with people who are "smart and get things done". That's it. I am skeptical I will find someone I want to work with on a co-founder dating site, because the people I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing with the resources available to them versus looking for a longshot silver bullet. There are exceptions of course, but this is just my gut instinct, you might take it with a grain of salt since I waste a lot of time commenting on HN :)
I really believe that finding a co-founder is almost impossible to plan but it is more of an accident. Unless you have worked with someone for a while and know their strengths and weaknesses, no site can solve this problem.
Having said this, if you have a great co-founder, you truly are very lucky because I know how lonely it gets as a solo founder.
In lieu of that it’s a lot of rhetoric (not unimportant; valuable in many contexts), but not exactly a talent attractor.
And I agree with your point. I will likely keep self-funding it through software devs until market fit is reached, but by that point why wouldn’t I just keep a dev firm on retainer for QC? Or reach out to seed funding to find an in-network tech lead? I realize now that not all devs are ambitious, but maybe think about early retirement or building financial independence? Then again those who don’t need to work in orgs to pay the bills are independent anyways shrug.
The way I’m thinking about it is that it’s useful to see how people present themselves, to meet other people in the same early-stage position, and to participate in an ecosystem that is oriented around learning. In the meantime, I’m trying to make progress understanding the customer and market, getting the input of developer friends I’ve worked with in the past, and doing fake-out prototyping so I’ll be ready to move quickly when I develop the relationship with a collaborator. This will likely be someone I already know, but it’s great to keep discussing it with new people too, if only to refine my thinking.
Right on. Most people I'd co-found anything with in a heart beat are too busy with 101 things already. The question isn't who I would want to work with, but how to convince them that this venture is worth dropping everything else in the world for.
I started in DC and moved to the SFBA. Maybe I was around the wrong people in DC, but it sure seems a lot easier to at least find good people out here. It’s not that SV has magical water or anything. It’s simply there’s more people with startup experienced, and more people who come here to gain that experience.
I imagine the reverse is also true. If government and policy were my passion, I prevent would’ve been best staying in DC. Even though there’s plenty of talented government execs and policy experts everywhere.
I want to be a successful and well compensated software engineer. Thus I try. Maybe one day I will succeed.
Kids play a game where someone pretends to be the mum, the dad, the baby, etc, and pretend be family. So someone is pretending be a responsible parent (and the commenter here is insinuating the wannabe co-founder is just pretending they have the necessary skills and abilities). As a kid, we never really had a name for it, but adults seem to refer to the activity as “playing house”.
While on the platform, I was flooded with non technical people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA. I guess if they could credibly raise money/sell product then maybe it would make sense but I was highly skeptical of the value add, and I got the feeling a lot of them were looking for a free dev to build some big product that they now get to shop around to investors, taking 50% of the equity for doing so.
The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important. For some reason SWEs make more money than designers in industry but whenever you’re at startup network events it always seems SWEs outnumber designers 3 to 1. And likewise I didn’t see many people with design portfolios on this platform.
I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. It seems YC is geared towards situations where you go all in, work hard full time on the project etc. That would be a situation where I would most care about a strong relationship that I think would be much easier to build in person.
The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of already having started my own company), but start with the obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell themselves to investors, customers, and future employees.
I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with them - you can then tell real talent from their real world effects, even if it is not your own skill set.
Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is integrity - if you can’t trust them then their other skills don’t matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult.
If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.
I would assume that a cofounder matching platform with 16000 profiles has a similar problem, it's just too few people to bother looking for local matches.
Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious screen shots but it says you can filter on location. Thus, a "global" matching platform becomes a local one. It's not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping for a local person to appear.
It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby potential co-founder in a subset on a popular website such as YC is more likely than a local website such as lasvegas.craigslist.org
I got the impression that many of the people using these services felt they had already exhausted their local networks and decided to look more broadly.
I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full-remote companies anyway.
That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. The co-founder relationship is too important.
Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go very far with a single contractor designer picked up from dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you well into later funding rounds.
Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that happen.
Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
The market for developer talent and designer talent are visibly different. Different in terms of supply, compensation (as a factor of supply), and risk (due to the compensation!). Risk here is you mostly take the word of the developer they're competent. We come up with elaborate interview processes for this (if you have an idea for a better process... ). For a designer, a portfolio clearly demonstrates they're competent. This makes outsourcing and freelancing more viable, increasing supply, and driving down the overall costs, in my opinion.
I won't touch on actual skill / investment in becoming a good designer vs. developer except to say I think there's differences there too, at least outside of the tail.
I would circle back to my second point, that even if you have an excellent designer, someone still needs to implement it and not make it janky. I think it explains, as a whole, why people gravitate towards engineering co-founders if they don't have the skillset.
> Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
I don't think Airbnb won on design or would consider design its moat. Designers can also be excellent leaders and executives.
I think for an early stage startup you need to make tradeoffs. What skills can we get with our founding team's overlap, and what skills can we easily fill? Of course, the person matters so much more than these checkboxes, and I don't think anyone would suggest not working with a designer, but I think it does explain why so many are looking for technical founders.
The fact that it’s harder to find designers than engineers for founders despite the opposite dynamic in the job market is what I was saying was surprising.
The platform does not have many designers looking for technical founders. As I said, it’s filled with MBAs. When pressed what skills they would contribute, they say things like “backend finance.” Usually either they have no money but need you to build a complex project before you can think about raising money (raising the question why not just build it and pitch VCs yourself), or they already raised money but want to give you some absurdly low percentage (you’re not really cofounder).
Are there people in there that would be able to raise money /sell the product if you built it? Maybe but others have discussed why that’s the hardest of all skills to vet for.
Either way if the platform was filled with strong designers interested in partnering with technical cofounders I’d be much happier and speak more highly of it.
And there's plenty of successful companies that do this btw.
> But there's a bunch of risks with that approach and they are similar to the ones where you outsource design - you will constantly have to re-hire if you need pivots, there might be major friction switching people, and the costs can start to add up.
This is simply not true. This can happen regardless of wether you outsource your dev team or not.
> Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
One of the top 50 largest companies in the world was started by an engineer who dropped out of school. What's your point? Correlation != causation.
Outsourcing is such a dirty word here and I don't get it. It's objectively not a bad option, it just has different risks.
I think the concept we need here is “taste” - that ability to recognise something is great, and ideally the ability to know what will work and be able to make it happen.
Often you want to have a designer because you are paying them for their taste, and perhaps not so much for their technical skills. Perhaps you personally are the opposite, where you have the taste and ability to spec, and you just want to have someone do what you ask.
There is a stereotype of founders with no taste, who drive the production of hideous products.
A sensible founder that doesn’t have great taste needs a cofounder or employee that does have great taste, and the founder needs to give that person the authority to drive the aesthetic of the product. That role is usually given to a designer - and I suspect that you are misunderstanding what waprin (the person you are replying to) meant.
I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little.
> 57% of founders do Operations
> 52% of founders do Sales and Marketing
> 37% of founders do Design
> 31% of founders do Engineering
> Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering.
This mirrors what I've seen in every co-founder matching forum: A huge imbalance of soft skills over engineering experience.
I'm sure some of those founders are extremely talented at product, operations, sales, and design. However, there are many others who fit the classic "idea guy" stereotype.
One thing I've learned from using co-founder matchmaking services like this is how hard it is to tell the difference between the two types of founders from credentials alone. A striking number of the people with impressive resumes and FAANG backgrounds got there by mastering big company skills and working their way up the ladder and through interview processes. Eventually they conclude that a startup is just more of the same big skills but with them at the top of the org chart.
Some of the most promising people I've talked to on these platforms had less traditionally impressive resumes. They didn't necessarily have Ivy League university backgrounds or FAANG companies on their resume. That's likely what led them to use these platforms in the first place: Smaller personal networks that necessitate reaching farther for potential co-founders.
These services can be interesting, but it really feels like a numbers game. Be prepared to take a lot of conversations very quickly, don't let impressive credentials alone sway you, and don't get discouraged by the volume of negative matches.
As I've become less technical, I occasionally come across the highly technical, often almost genius-like engineer who fails to comprehend organizational structure and social structures. They fail to 'see' them, so sometimes decisions that you make as manager, or that the company makes, feel foreign to them. And so they often have cynical ideas (often found online) about companies, managers and so forth.
While some of the cynical stuff can often be true, my point is this: the successful engineer is also someone with social skills, and that includes company skills as you put it.
The person with pure ladder climbing skills is a fraud. But the person who can both be technical 'enough' and understand organizational and human structures can help things scale.
What's missing from the conversation is Creativity, I think, or maybe it's me that's out of touch. Successful people seem to be ones that aren't afraid to take unique approaches to solving problems. Sometimes 'engineers' are highly talented but they're looking for blueprints and patterns to follow rather than create - and I am not talking about code.
From my experience ex-FANG guys are helpful when it's time to raise money but they rarely have the skills needed in a startup environment.
My approach now is to partner up with people I have a lot of history with and that I know they get things done, even if they're all technical. We're figuring out how to become the founders we need.
We are also not a fan of the entire "startup", high risk, high reward thing. It's too much risk, hassle and stress and you can live comfortably with a smaller profitable business.
The problem is that the profiles I match with read like resumes. I don't care too much that you were early employee at XYZ Corp or that you had a successful $100m exit. I care about your heart.
I've cofounded too many times with cofounders whose worldview, politics, and level of emotional empathy and openness were incompatible with mine. It sucked every time and was the #1 cause for failure.
Sometimes I feel like a vox clamantis in deserto when it comes to advocating for founders with higher emotional awareness. I'm happy whenever I read posts on HN about why neurodiversity matters in tech, but they almost always focus on folks on the spectrum. Then there are folks like me, oftentimes survivors of abuse who are neuro-atypical in a different way. We are empaths--and very much not fitting in the mold of a "typical" engineer or how non-engineers perceive typical engineers.
I don't need a fellow empath as a co-founder, but at least I need someone who understands where I'm coming from and is compatible. Brag sheets tend to drive me away, but that's the ethos we've built into our industry, so I don't blame the individuals.
Did you just give up (using that platform)? Did you find a better platform?
Right now, though, I'm going through a phase where I'm doubting whether I want to do a startup at all. Still fully onboard for entrepreneurship, but I'm questioning whether the startup path (especially the VC path) is right for my goals.
I am, however, interested in making organic connections with like-minded individuals. Perhaps like right here, in the comments of HN ;-)
I'd be legitimately interested in discussing your ideas; I'm not sure that this is the best place for that. It looks like I recently made a reddit account if you want to chat: u/KaleidoscopeOdd3338
I’m curious, what area of need would you service if you did find a co-founder that was more self-aware?
- Domain knowledge—but, very specifically, knowledge of how to navigate the legal and business environment of that domain, especially all the "secret" stuff. If they don't know what X or Y is called or how to do some procedure that only low-on-the-totem-pole people do, that's fine—if they've got the rest of this, then they'll surely know people we can ask/interview for those parts.
- At least enough sales skills to get the folks from the first point to fund us OR to make some useful introductions OR to grease some wheels.
You'd think that the merits of your product would be enough to carry your sales, but in practice, sales is primarily driven by your network, which involves getting close to as many people as possible. Turns out, it's easier to do that over golf than via formal meetings.
Most of the shit from the now-ancient Official Preppy Handbook is still basically true, in fact, as far as I can tell.
The tech version of "where to meet people to make connections" is probably rock climbing gyms, right now. That'd be for barely-rich new money people connected to tech, or for programmers if you're looking to hire. Every group has their in-crowd preferences.
Try selling your CRM to the VP of Sales of a regional retailer who lives in Phoenix and NOT take him out to play golf.
I've seen this first hand. Having a good sales team is like a cheat code - things flow like water and it feels like you're hardly struggling at all. And yes, "golf" is still a thing.
I'm sure this familiar to any engineer on this site. "I have this great idea for an app, and I just need you to build it. We'll split the company 50/50."
After becoming a designer/engineer I've realized that most of these ideas take shape during the engineering process. And the process will in turn change and twist the idea itself based on customer interviews and iterative prototypes.
The engineering process leads to better "ideas" that replace the initial ideas. But most non-engineer, first-time founders don't realize that's the case. The engineering process also pokes so many holes in the first idea, because they require the idea to actually be fleshed out...
Maybe I'm just bitter about working with doe-eyed, non-technical first time "idea person" kind of founders.
If you know the industry inside out and you are willing to sell, I would have no problem to partner up. But usually those who are successful in an industry rarely have enough time to invest in a startup.
People I want to partner up with are so busy managing their business, client and family, they will just end up having a custom software made with their money and try to sell that.
Over the years I've coached more than a few founders. Usually they come to me because they are looking for a CTO because they assume they need one. My #1 advice to companies like that is actually to not get a CTO unless they are a proper tech startup where the tech is what defines the company. Most startups simply aren't and they need skilled engineers rather than some CTO/propellor head. They need somebody that will build them an MVP and that is good at bringing in more tech people when growth happens.
I have a few reasons for this:
1) the type of engineer that ends up taking that role is rarely proper CTO or even management material; or even very senior when it comes to engineering. It's a convenience marriage between a random tech person who happens to be available and some business people not really qualified to make tech hiring decisions. So, avoid that situation and get some doers involved and give them enough equity or cash to keep them motivated but without creating the illusion that they are there to do something else than executing your vision.
2) inevitably the moment comes where early CTOs not really suitable for the job need to be replaced (or simply walk away) if the company actually survives long enough. As a founder you need to be honest about how the company will evolve. And that often means getting some grown ups involved as soon as money allows for that; especially on the tech front. I've seen more than a few startups with very awkward CTO types getting a senior baby sitter in the form of a VP of engineering or something similar.
3) CTO is a vanity title in a startup. You can use it to up-sell to engineers their role in your company and sometimes you need to do that to keep them and get them to build your product. However, it often ends up looking a bit desperate when you hand it out to the first engineer willing to talk to you and it creates awkward situations when you later meet someone more suitable for the role.
If you are a proper tech company it's different. You need such a company to be driven by a technical founder and such a company needs to be created primarily by technical founders. So, it would be unusual for such a company to be even looking for a CTO because that would indicate some serious issues with the founding team. They'd be looking for CMO/CSO/CEO types instead.
I wish! Usually it's "I'll give you 5% equity if you implement my idea. No no, I cannot actually help, I'm the idea guy"[1].
Honestly, I'd take a 50/50 split with someone who:
a) Provably has strong connections to decision-makers in the target market,
b) Has already raised the money for a 6 month runway,
and
c) Has some objective data around the proposed product/vision and a few of the competitors.
I've heard my fair share of "the next facebook/google/youtube" ideas, or "whatsapp/netflix meets reddit/amazon", etc.
[1] Probably the number one thing that turns me off is hearing "I'm the idea guy". Seriously, if you can't contribute to the engineering/building of the product, then at least ensure an income to pay those who can.
Anyone can come up with ideas; there's no degree in ideas. Most of us got into programming/engineering fields because we ourselves 'have ideas', but sought out the education to build them.
It's very frustrating to work with others who can't directly contribute to the deliverable. It leads to burn out. I personally will never work with another team who haven't all been up until 4am crushing out code.
I'd only pick a cofounder that doesn't do engineering if they have deep connections, domain expertise in a relatively complex field that I myself can't pick up easily or has alot of red tape, etc. This person also needs a public past track record of success too. It'd also depend on the industry too, b2b is where this partnership has more merits (and larger contracts), b2c not so much since the barrier to entry is lower
The other thing I want in a co-founder is someone who will have my back unflinchingly and always when speaking to others, whether it’s investors or customers or just friends and family, because inevitably things will come up that worry you which can sow mistrust if not caught quickly. I was lucky to have such a co-founder, and I actually feel guilty for worrying that they didn’t always support me. I tried to return the trust at all times. But note that discovering differing visions can and does threaten your ability to know if a co-founder trusts you! I think it’s a miracle that companies survive, knowing how easy it is for people to want different things.
someone I respect in a domain of life I respect (could be music/athletics/relationships/humor/whatever but ultimately it is a reason I enjoy them as a person and in times of adversity can't dismiss them as a disposable generic employee)
moreover, the above attribute also often demonstrates a healthy life balance outside of work, and this will help prevent workaholic burnout which is a very real pitfall ina startup
someone that has motivation/ambition in a domain(s) that I do not (maybe I can do a particular skill and even at a competent level, but I'd rather have a partner that enjoys it and reads up about it in their spare time even if they aren't as "good" at that skill as I am right now)
someone that has been challenged in life in some fashion. again the domain isn't as important as the experience of facing pressure/adversity and finding that extra gear within oneself to emerge. and furthermore then wanting to start the next challenge despite having already gone through the wringer. in my experience there are people who thrive under pressure and those that tend to hide/crumble when challenged. you obviously want the former and some that has been tested.
there are plenty of other attributes that are covered by great replies that I won't repeat. I felt these seemed a bit distinct (at least when I posted) and worth mentioning
It's like a rocky marriage with divorces and re-marriages, you have to really trust and get along, even when visions are not aligned.
If you don't have that it will be very difficult.
I am the introverted engineer type. I believe am well versed in listening but I don’t have the willpower to listen to endless word vomit. I want to get shit done.
My magical cofounder would be somebody slightly extroverted. Somebody who loves to go to parties, mingle, and form relationships. Somebody who views relationships as another form of engineering problem they are eager to solve and dazzle. When I say dazzle I mean impress and not bullshit. Everybody seemed impressed by Elizabeth Holmes but her motivational mantras, like going all in without a backup plan always felt like a hollow lie, even far before she was exposed. I couldn’t work with anybody like that.
I've seen lots of advice that says people ship too late. I'm not sure if that's the case here, but something to consider.
Who knows what shape it's in, who knows if it's bugged? Releasing something to just get it out there and it's so bugged, the users run away.
I understand why you are saying what you are saying but maybe try to look at it from a different perspective because whenever someone says that to me, it's demeaning. I (we) know what we're doing and perfectly capable of judging when something is "done".
----
Right which is why I qualified it with "If you have a small set of useable features". Honestly, feeling shamed is your hang up, same with feeling demeaned. I've had that said to me and it motivated me and was helpful, because I had been holding back.
I guess we'll agree to disagree because I don't know you and I don't want to like armchair psychology here. But, I'm certainly not going to tiptoe around every word though just because someone somewhere may be offended, especially in this case where I believe most people would find it helpful.
The actual statistics don't bear this out. Many projects fail because they never get started or take far too long. It's so incredibly common that every business 101 includes the saying that "perfect is the enemy of good", and even HN states that product velocity and iteration is directly related to startup success.
Also it's rather extreme to call this demeaning. Perhaps you should look at it from a different perspective of it being a fair question based on massive collective experience and encouragement to find success.
But I agree with you a hundred percent. That's the ideal situation for someone that likes to build
I want someone to handle people and let me handle product.
2) Also, it's never clear. So you want someone who you can work with to forge a path through the jungle.
The unfortunate truth is that this usually doesn't work because of two reasons:
1) If you can't convince anybody to buy your product, you also won't be able to convince anybody to sell your product. You need to be able to at least sell your idea to the cofounder.
2) If you've never tried selling your product, and have never interacted with your customers, chances are that what you built doesn't solve anybodys problem. I've never seen a successful product that was a hit right away without any user testing and iteration based on user feedback, but some people are convinced their product is different.
From my experience, having good sales (by which I mean, a good selling / marketing strategy, not necessarily going door to door) will make or break early stage startups.
Maybe people in SV don't care because they can get funding more easily?
A spouse tends to have all of these. Hmm...
- Specific skill set (what is their expertise) - Values alignment - Ways of working (work life balance, etc) - Communication style - Conflict resolution and disagreement management
Beyond that, a trusted friend with similar goals and complementary skills.