31–40 of 60 posts
But if you make a bit of a start and talk about the idea itself, perhaps you'll happen across someone as passionate about the area as you.
(Armchair advice with no experience...)
Join an existing startup in the same field. Not only will you learn a lot - on someone else’s dime - but you will meet plenty of people hungry to do the same.
I've been working for somewhat large company for years, and I'm highly interested in working someone else's startup these days. But one thing I worry about is, assuming most companies don't live longer than a year or two, staying in the fields of early staged companies would essentially be the synonym to hopping around there, to me feels like to result in horrible resume. How do you guys deal with this?
Any company that would ding you for working at a few failed startups in a row is not worth working for anyway.
I’ll put this out there as a point that’s serious and I’ve come across a few times as both a founder and freelancer. No body wants to build your idea for free. For those that are reading this and thinking that finding a cofounder is actually just finding a set of hands you can work with, be buds and create your idea and you can split it 50-50 or whatever. Just stop. These people don’t exist in the random hallways of…
I am not willing to be the tech guy for some 20-something business student "idea person."
I didn’t pay for membership. Turned out it wasn’t necessary to make those initial connections.
The tough thing is that anybody can call themselves an entrepreneur. There’s no barrier for entry, so you’ll get a lot of jokers.
I certainly don't think we should sit on a web bulletin board and say thing like "only get business partners from IRL networks"
I’ll put this out there as a point that’s serious and I’ve come across a few times as both a founder and freelancer. No body wants to build your idea for free. For those that are reading this and thinking that finding a cofounder is actually just finding a set of hands you can work with, be buds and create your idea and you can split it 50-50 or whatever. Just stop. These people don’t exist in the random hallways of…
It's also very hard to fall with someone else's idea - you are attached, it's your baby, others are not that attached. The job is to allow others to meddle with the idea, so they can treat it like their own.
Personally I've hired 2 people over the past year, one of whom I wanted to become co-founder and he declined - even when he is young, we have a good relationship together and he really had not that much to loose. He is working for respected company and don't just want to dump it like that. That's why joining incubators like YC can help a lot - helps with potential co-founders to join full time, among other things of course.
Sooo, now the plan is to build MVP and achieve early product market fit hehe.
[1] https://youtu.be/ephzgxgOjR0?t=958 I really recommend these videos, as a solo startup founder, working on a project for the past 10 years, at 32 and being broke listenting to this makes me much less isolated. These guys are really articulating ideas perfectly
I’ll put this out there as a point that’s serious and I’ve come across a few times as both a founder and freelancer. No body wants to build your idea for free. For those that are reading this and thinking that finding a cofounder is actually just finding a set of hands you can work with, be buds and create your idea and you can split it 50-50 or whatever. Just stop. These people don’t exist in the random hallways of…
YC wants cofounders that have strong relationships, clear leadership, and significant/differentiated contributions to the venture by both cofounders.
“Build my idea” founders generally don’t have strong relationships and also not true hustlers, they literally have an idea, nothing more, which is worthless; met 10s of thousands of “founders” and the build my idea founders are definitely a type of (wannabe) founders.
No one cares about ideas, they care about growth, especially if they don’t have an existing relationship with you. If you want ideas, they are easy to find, any experienced founder would be happy to give you “good” ideas for free if they liked you; that does not mean the ideas are guaranteed to work, nor will magically build themselves. If you think your idea is worth something with nothing built, go ask potential customers or investors for money to build it; seriously, if it’s really such a good idea, they’ll give you money to build it; just make sure your estimated costs include realistic market rate labor costs.
I’ll put this out there as a point that’s serious and I’ve come across a few times as both a founder and freelancer. No body wants to build your idea for free. For those that are reading this and thinking that finding a cofounder is actually just finding a set of hands you can work with, be buds and create your idea and you can split it 50-50 or whatever. Just stop. These people don’t exist in the random hallways of…
I think that HN is the perfect place, but perhaps there should be another monthly thread - not looking2hire but looking4startuppartner. I know there is a startup school matching thing but it does not seem (from my experience) to be crossing that chasm. I certainly don't think we should sit on a web bulletin board and say thing like "only get business partners from IRL networks"