Foundathons to find co-founders, earn some money and have fun

Hi All,

Finding a co-founder seems like is a significant pain point for entrepreneurs. My idea consists of a platform that would organize "Foundathon" competitions to let entrepreneurs find and 'trial test' how they would work with potential co-founders.

The platform would propose "start-up ideas" on a rolling-basis which teams would need to build an MVP for and market in a short time-frame (4-6 weeks?). People can put themselves in teams (like on multiplayer video games) or let the platform pick a team based on skills / interest criteria.

The competitions would have a monetary prize so that all co-founders are incentivized to put their best foot forward. Co-founders can then truly see how other potential co-founders would work in a simulated environment similar to a real start-up. No one would need to reveal their start-up ideas since lots of people are wary of doing this and everyone would work on the ideas proposed by the platform.

Unlike incubators/accelerators, the platform wouldn't care about the ideas and MVPs. People would own the IP on whatever they work on and do what they want with them after the foundathons. It would be solely focused on providing an easy, fun and potentially $ rewarding way for co-founders to find the partners for their current or next venture. I think it could also be a testing ground for people who are in jobs to see if being an entrepreneur is something for them.

Winners of the competitions would either be chosen by objective criteria (how many users did you get) or potentially by the community or a jury - TBD.

My survey of the competitive landscape shows that finding a co-founder is either done ad-hoc (through posting on forums/sites/social media), through own networks of friends, family and colleagues, or through matching sites that are kind of stiff/boring and do not solve the "fit" issue. Some accelerators like Antler allow people to just apply to be a founder with no ideas in mind and they do the matching process. But then they tie teams to an idea and take an equity stake in that business. YC has a co-founder matching process too but they leave it to people to do a "trial project" to see if there is fit. I wonder how many people successfully find a fit and how many actually stay together after the matching.

I would love to hear thoughts on the idea. I would also love to hear your experiences of using your own methods or sites like Co Founders Lab / YC co-founder matching. Is fit a common problem? I have to say I have always found trouble fitting in teams when I was a management consultant - may be that's why I'm doing the entrepreneur thing solo LOL.

Is the pain point high enough that you would consider using a platform as outlined above? Would you pay with your money or time to do it?