Ask HN: YC co-founder matching is bad

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.

> That would be my approach

Is there a place for such like-minded individuals? Haha.

I'm lean more pragmatic; there are only so many billion dollar ideas. In the post ZIRP era, I think that being able to demonstrate a viable business model might (hopefully) carry more weight.

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)

> 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?

+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.