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Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

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Re: Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

#32

I'm a technology entrepreneur in Provo, UT. I'm starting a "master-mind" group here with other entrepreneurs, business owners, or executives of start-up's. I want to keep it to under 10 people for now. If you're not familiar with the master-mind concept, it's where entrepreneurs sit down all (in our case Saturday once a month) day and brainstorm on eachothers' business ideas. John D. Rockefeller attributed most of hi…

so you aren't looking for a cofounder? Then i don't think this is relevant on this thread.

Re: Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

#34
I know pg says you need co-founders, but I have a feeling that partnering with a stranger will hurt your chances of success more than it will help. I remember Jessica saying a major cause of death in startups was founder disputes (link: http://www.grid7.com/archives/189_podcast-28-jessica-livings..., around the 14 minute mark).

Re: Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

#35
i'm a programmer fresh out of college in bergen, norway (planning to relocate to boston or bay area). i'm 34, and i'm building a neural network to do speech to text. i need another programmer, preferrably someone with more experience than myself, especially with browsers and low-level signal processing.

Re: Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

#38

Okay, I'll start. I'm 24 and living in San Francisco. I'm a programmer but would like to find another technical person to work with. I have three ideas for a startup: 1. An easy software solution for multivariate testing web pages. 2. A bid management tool for PPC. I'm thinking something like www.efrontier.com, but for small and medium sized businesses. 3. Totally different from the top two, but I'm interested in a p…

i just spent past 7 years working with companies doing your #1 & #2 ideas. i'm a product mgr, not a programmer person so I am happy to share with you my perspective. send me an email:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgmcmahon mgmcmahon at gmail

Re: Looking for a co-founder? post here (3 rules apply)

#39
post #37

It's nice to make friends but this isn't how you start up companies

From the responses on this page you appear to be correct. What would you suggest?

The pairings that are made today would be best to apply for future cycles later in the year. Most people here you talk to will at best end up as an employee in your eyes, it's going to be hard to treat them as equals when most people are just throwing out soft skills they want filled.

My partner and I have known each other since high school but he went off to college while I went into the military. After reconnecting we've been working on small projects on and off for the past couple cycles to learn each others quirks, styles, and most importantly trust.

And after attending our 5 year high school reunion it's really surprising that people we haven't talked to in awhile turned out to be doing very similar tech things as well, even if they're not in the area. It surely doesn't hurt to look up Facebook some old friends and see what they're doing or what they're working on. Maybe some hate big corporate culture as much as we all do here.

A better way would be for people to list out their work experiences or market they're analyzing for their startup.

For example, one of the failed ideas I was researching for was event planning and building an evite competitor. After 4 months I dropped it but I've kept plenty of notes about trends, other websites, feature lists, specs, and so forth. If anyone wants to discuss it feel free to get in touch with me at alaska.miller@gmail.com. I also worked at a big corporation working with CMS tools, search tools, publication, enterprise software for PLM processes. If you want to build software to optimize those fields, again, get in touch with me.

Likewise my current idea is dealing with Flash video and Flex environment, and accessibility. If anyone has experience with that, please email me.

Start emailing people and sharing with them your ideas for feedback, then ask them for another referral to someone else you can talk to until you've literally have no one left to talk to. I've been keeping track of all my conversations and people of interest in iCal and 37s Highrise and building my business network. I'm also inviting local people to lunch to pick their brains.

But it's completely youthful naivety to think this is the right way to cofound a business together.

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