Guarantees for remote Technical founders

You know, you can have all of the documentation and legal contracts drawn up that you want. But honestly it comes down to trust. You really really have to have a good relationship with the other founder. If the guy you are working with really wants to screw you, you're going to get screwed! Sure you can have an ironclad contract and take the dude to court, but all of that burden is on you. AND it's incredibly rare for a business to survive that much conflict.

So honestly the best thing you can do, is get to know someone and make sure you can work with them. Build trust, get a feel for them. Avoid jumping all in on a project with a guy you don't know. There is this whole concept of "founder dating", read up on that.

This is exactly why I don't do work for free unless it's for myself ;)

Exactly as @shanefromfargo mentioned. Legal documents will not save you in the face of a scammer and you will probably lose a lot of time on unnecessary things.

The best way is to go through a trial period of say 1-month hustle with potential co-founder and see how you work together, your aspirations, your end-goal and expectations from each other. When the revenue starts rolling, you can discuss incorporation but as you test it out for some time your gut should pretty much tell you if it makes sense to continue.

I would love to see more talk about this -- especially specifics.

Something like this, that at least seems to attempt to address the problem seriously:
https://firstround.com/review/the-founder-dating-playbook-heres-the-process-i-used-to-find-my-co-founder/

I just finished listening to an IH podcast episode (don't remember which) that had a founder talking about how he found a tech co-founder, and over time, the co-founder earned his equity/co-founder-type status by starting to just put in work -- to the point I think they were both equal-equity, or something like that. What were the specifics/details? He never says.

The Slicing Pie book does a good job generally, though I've never had any success in pitching it to someone:
https://slicingpie.com/

Yep, I think there's a massive vacuum here.

I suspect that most successful startups are people who were friends to start with, maybe good or best friends, or lovers, from the same social class at least, same geography, and of course all the other 'sames' that come with all those things -- hopes, dreams, expectations, etc.

Totally understand your concern - myself I am on the other side of equation. Validated business idea with potential users, looking to get MVP in place: software house or tech co-founder. Similarly, the whole risk is about sharing business details with strangers / working with sb to eventually find out you end up without a code.

My approach: I believe the best feeling about people you get through working on small projects in real life. So after "founder dating", I execute 2-3weeks work trial to test the relationship (full or part time). Some people might feel it is a waste of time, for myself it gives environment to observe how people react to environment/challenges, and what is their general life attitude. In the end such approach is beneficial to both parties vs. painful divorce after a few months of mis-alignment.

You can look at this from typical dating perspective: invite sb for a dinner(s) - cost: money & time - to learn more about the person, rather than getting marry quickly with a huge risk involved.

Hope it helps!