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I’m looking for a co-founder, running https://fixparser.dev which is a profitable company with clients worldwide. Been applying to YC twice but failed - will continue the search for funding. Reach out at victor@logotype.se cheers
.....probably would be quite useful also?
misread this as "my tactical guide to firing a cofounder." .....probably would be quite useful also?
> Red flags to watch for > They want to work on this part-time > They want to quit their job but haven't set a date to do it > They're going to quit their job but only after the YC interview ...so this guy wants someone in SF to quit their job and work full time while unpaid? This method selects from the bottom of the pool, not from the top.
Isn't that the difference between a co-founder and an employee? I'm assuming that half of the company will belong to the new co-founder, of course.
It _is_ possible to get seed funding for a business if the idea is solid and you bring something valuable to the table, like the right connections and domain knowledge. If a founder doesn't have either, that's bad. The money doesn't have to come from an investor: There's government funding, you can line up pilot customers etc. If they can't raise any seed funding, what does that say about their talent to be a CEO? The job is _all_ about bringing money in.
Asking someone to work with zero cashflow for who knows how long (investments and initial customer acquisition can take months) is just not reasonable. If somebody doesn't _need_ cashflow, chances are they're either comfortably doing nothing, or already working on their own idea.
What you're left with are mostly people who need cashflow, but are for some reason desperate or reckless enough to try and go without. So then your founding team is a naive CTO, and a CEO who can't raise money. Not a winning combination usually.
Am I missing something, or are HN readers assuming (incorrectly) the author is non-technical and looking for someone to build out their ideas? From what I can see, the author is a CTO who is ex-meta and Stanford computer science. They look like a technical co-founder to me. I know there's this annoying and widely prevalent persona of co-founder dater with only ideas, and no skills to build them, but this author doesn…
I have to repost an earlier comment of mine ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27752798 ) on this topic: I have a tip on finding a cofounder. I've been looking for the last 12 months and I tried a lot of things, but the thing that worked best is this: Post a job ad. That's it. My ad sounded like a normal job in every way, with a title like "Director of X". A couple of specific notes: 1) the first line said "cofou…
Did you both do take-homes?
Some responses that I'll probably also update in the post:
a/ Why not start with people you know or friends?-- This is 100% the best way and I tried it first. Timing is hard and there's only like 7 people I'd want to start companies with. They all had good reasons not to embark on starting a company at this moment.
b/ Vibes is super vague-- I found it really important to get along with a cofounder as friends-- I met my CF's wife early on, we did thanksgiving together, we spent a lot of time together outside of work. We've had actual fun building so far. For some that's important, for others not. It's a great point, I'll clarify.
c/ OP is a non-technical ideas guy looking for his coding ninja-- Nope, sorry. I've never had an eng job but learned to code early in college building random iphone apps. Been building nights and weekends for the past 10 years (including while cofounder searching).
d/ Start building instead of just CF searching- great point. Building out ideas, talking to customers, etc makes your cofounder conversations waaaay more interesting because people can see you get excited about something real. Early on I had too many high-level conversations about "the space" or "starting something" that led nowhere.
e/ These "modes" are total bs-- Totally agree but gotta keep the title interesting : )
The mindset of wasting 9 months going on dates instead of starting something is so foreign. Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone. It was a job interview (50 question homework, 3 day hackathon trial) plus firm requirements and who has the final say is presented. We didn't hear about the different tests and requirement…
The mindset of wasting 9 months going on dates instead of starting something is so foreign. Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone. It was a job interview (50 question homework, 3 day hackathon trial) plus firm requirements and who has the final say is presented. We didn't hear about the different tests and requirement…
> Based on what this person was looking for (someone to build out his ideas) he would be better off trying to get funding and hiring someone. Yeah.. or even just learning how to code himself. Could learn a decent amount in 9 months.
If you sepnd 9 months getting a technical co-founder, you likely get a seasoned engineer + thought partner for all decisions going forward.
One is vastly more valuable than the other.