Ask HN: Co-Founder(s). Do I need any? How would I even find them? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Co-Founder(s). Do I need any? How would I even find them?

15 pointsbhollan17 comments

I'm a technologist and have experience in academia, private, and now public sector work. I had an idea stewing in the back of my mind for about a year and it became 'fully-formed' enough to be a proof-of-concept such that I filed a provisional patent a few months ago. At this point, I don't want to quit my day job (federal agency, GS11, but have an in to be GS15 within 3 years). But I really want my idea to succeed (or at the very least, see the light of day). I have some savings piled up, but I'm hesitant to spend it on 'grown-up' patent papers yet. I also already have 3 other 'side gigs' (not to mention 4 kids and a blushing bride) that take up more than most of my time. How would I even find someone that I could trust enough to help me take my idea and hit a home run with it?

I don't want to talk about the details of my invention. I did talk to a patent attorney that's done a couple dozen startups through their firm though. He said I could probably get $20k-$50k in seed money for it. It's not a "better mousetrap", it's more a "new thing" that's never existed before (but also never really 'needed to' before).

Do I NEED a co-founder, or can I 'slow-walk' launching a business based solely on a new gizmo? I'm not very good at social media/marketing, which is where I think my gizmo would thrive the most (but that's purely a guess). I feel like if I could find the perfect person, it really could explode, but I have literally not even the faintest clue where/how to start that. Am I an employer all-of-a-sudden even though I have no revenue to pay salaries?

Somebody heard that I had invented this thing and they asked me, "So, I hear you're an inventor?" And I kind of stammered and said "well.... it was an accident. I didn't mean to, I promise." This was mostly to be funny/silly, not that I don't believe in the idea. But I know this sort of 'startup/founder(s)/seed-money' thing is HN's bread-and-butter, so I at least thought I'd ask.

You don’t need a co-founder, but doing everything yourself while you have another job will be slow. Competitors may be able to get around your patent and scale up faster than you.

Having someone else also means you’re accountable to them, which puts a bit more urgency on getting things done, in addition to being a sounding-board for your ideas.

To be blunt, you're more likely to find cofounders, partners or investors if your approach to asking somewhere you might actually find one is less "I've invented a new type of thing but I can't tell you what it is or even what vague market it's in".

Whether you need cofounders/advisers/contractors depends a lot on whether your idea is, "widget I can get made in bulk in China sell on Amazon", "mechanism that needs a lot of R&D to make it work" or "perfect solution to niche problem" and what the gaps in your own skillset and network are.

To be clear, I don't actually know if my "patentability" is sufficiently "non-obvious" or not. So I didn't want to talk about the invention/details _here_. I would obviously say more about the gizmo w/ potential cofounders.

Here's my $0.02.

On a Co-Founder:

1) Like raising kids as a single parent, it's possible but it's far better with a partner. Same thing goes for being a Solo Founder vs having a Co-Founder. The magic number, in my opinion, is 2 total Co-Founders for a startup.

2) The right cofounder will complement your expertise. It's basically "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

3) Make a list of everyone in your friend group, those you've worked with in the past 3 years and maybe even a few you went to college with. Mark those who are formidable, reach out to all the ones you marked and just have a conversation with each of them to see where it takes you. But have those conversations with the intent that any one of them could potentially be a Co-Founder.

On getting started:

1) There's literally no hard and fast rule. But I think it's a good idea to keep your day job, and spend evening and weekends working on pulse checking your product with potential customers/users. Prioritize heavily on getting in front of customers. Patents don't matter much.

2) See how far you can take this as a business on your own while looking for a Co-Founder. Do both in parallel.

3) Limit yourself to a fixed time period, maybe a month, to lift this off the ground. And tell yourself, if you haven't seen any progress in a month after trying hard then maybe it's not worth it. Traction matters most, try and get some in any form within that month. For example, I know of people who are building electric motorbikes who got initial interest just by taking a detailed 3D printed model to potential distribution partners.

Good luck! :)

PS: Counterintuitively, I think having a supportive family gives you more purpose to build something enduring and meaningful.

One of the main challenge is, building trust takes time. Even if you feel you have got one, it will take time to develop faith in your partner. When I left my job in 2024 to work on my idea or join someone else's idea, I tried working with many people, but none worked out. It's way different than what it seems from the top.

As of now, I still believe finding a cofounder and it makes things easier especially when you have a job and a family which takes most of your time. You just need to be practical and see red flags which will tell you it won't work out.

I think best is to try without compromising important details of your project, when you feel you can trust, then go 100%.

You only have 12 months after filing the provisional application to get the full patent application in. You might not need a cofounder, but you definitely need a plan with a timeline.

If it's a choice between being too slow, losing the market timing and the provisional patent protections or finding a co-founder, then find a cofounder. Is it more work to find the cofounder vs develop it yourself? You can try posting a linkedIn job ad for a cofounder, someone found me that way, and yes it was upfront about the salary situation but there are people out there who might be in the right circumstances to take you up on what you can bring to the table.

As a solo founder in the thick of it right now, I would consider it.

Given your constraints (fulltime job, side gigs, family) it could help balance the workload, and if you find the right one, maybe offload things you don't like or aren't good at. Not to mention the comradery component and having someone to go through the difficult times with you.

I'd find the ying to your yang, so if you the technologist, find someone good at business, sales, marketing, product, etc. That's my two cents.

I built something on my own while I had a day job too. Mine is software, so it's a different situation, but AI helped with building it. Getting people interested is still hard. I can see why you'd want help with marketing. If I were looking for a partner, I'd look for someone who enjoys the work I find hardest. But I'd first try to find a few people who actually want to use the thing.

You don't NEED one, but you probably SHOULD have one. It just helps speed things up immensely and lowers the chances that you'll burnout.

"If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go together."

Most people's cofounders are someone they worked with at a previous job, or went to school with.

Don't listen to those other people who tell you you can do it alone. You can't.

You have 4 kids, there is no way you have that kind of time.

Regarding the patent: I know this is going to sound harsh, but what is likely is that it's going to be harder to find someone who finds your invention cool than to defend against anyone who might want to steal it.

Patents defend technical inventions useful in the industry, a social media gizmo not so much. Filing a patent will take a lot of time, and you won't have the money to litigate anyone who steals it anyways.

In your position, I would just throw the idea out there, make a kickstarter campaign or something. Try and get anyone interested. If there is interest, then it's easier to find a cofounder who might want to be in with you on this.

There is a good chance that the kickstarter result is a giant "meh" from the world. And you can go back raising your children and chase that GS15 (Idk what that is).

Also if you do this just to scratch your own itch, build the stuff just for yourself (LLMs and 3D printers make everything quite simple these days), and post a youtube video about it.

Anyways my take is:

- you need a cofounder to launch something

- but you need to validate the idea before finding a cofounder.

also don't be greedy with your cofounder, split 50 50 or close to that, it may be your idea, but you can't do it without the other person.

Well, the patent attorney was very clear that a kickstarter (at least any that offer anything remotely like a 'sale' or anything) 'voids' a lot of the protections of the provisional, and maybe even the full patent.

I don't know anything about provisional patents, but if selling a product that embeds patented ideas voided the protections of a patent, patents would be pretty useless.

Maybe there's some context or nuance that didn't get conveyed that I'm missing.

I would imagine you can't get treble damages from willful infringement on a provisional patent, given that they're not published... so if you publicize your item on kickstarter while the patent is provisional and/or pending, less potential damages from infringers ... but I dunno how many people get treble damages anyway.

The provisional serves as a timestamp only. It's literally not reviewed. The only reason at all to file a provisional is if you're going to file the proper one. Goods that are actually patented are under the 'proper' ones, and do not get the classic "protection" that we think of. The only thing the provisional really does is serve as the 'timestamped-steak-in-the-ground' that only you can claim as your timestamp. But it comes with conditions. You can't start selling your goods as-though-patented until you file the patents. You can put 'patent pending' on them after you file the big one and it's under review. But the provisional one doesn't really get you the 'patent pending' part at all. That's my not-even-close-to-a-lawyer version that I've learned in the last few months.

But what complicates this even more is that I don't really want to sit on the tech at all. I want it to become ubiquitous and (eventually) a standard (like how Yubico/Yubikey led to FIDO/FIDO2 later).

But others in the thread also bring up a totally valid point: I need to prove this has teeth with real people somehow.

I think I may have to bight the bullet and fork over some savings to get the proper patent done. I need to get busy with R&D to finalize the design.

Yes, I know, but my point is you don't need a patent in the first place. Your patent is going to cost you a bunch, and it's not going to help at all.

If your product does not interest a lot of people, the patent is going to be useless, cause nobody will want to steal your idea.

If your product does interest a lot of people, some people may want to steal it, but:

- would you sue a Chinese company for selling copies of your stuff on AliExpress? How would you even sue that company?

- would you sue a major tech firm, while it's likely that anything that you built is likely infringeing on at least one of their patents?

- in the case you want sue, what are the odds of winning? Your patent may be void for a variety of reasons, and a copying product may not be considered as infringeing, if it has enough difference with the patented invention. What time frame are you looking at? 5 years, 10 years? Do you want to spend 10 years in litigations? What legal costs are you facing? Probably in the tens of thousands.

My advice to you as a failed startup founder myself, is to cool your head down, and stop imagining that what you invented is the next telephone, and pitch pitch pitch. If you pitch a room with 100 people, you'll be lucky if 2 guys come up to you at the end telling you your stuff is a good idea.

The patent is keeping you in a fantasy world, and that's not good.

I'm in DC. You're suggesting I just go to pitch meetings and pitch with no patent? Doesn't that make me vulnerable to IP 'theft'?

Yes, that's what I am suggesting.

Yes it makes you vulnerable to IP theft, and it does happen. But if you look for startup founding advice, people will tell you that it's a mistake to try and protect your idea. The main arguments are:

1. Execution matters more than the idea.

2. It's always better to get feedback / test the market earlier rather than later.

3. Your IP may be protected in theory, but in practice, companies infringe on patents all the time.

See for instance here:

https://daniellenewnham.medium.com/no-one-is-going-to-steal-...

or here:

https://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/2015/04/what-id-tell-myself...

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