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5 Comments

Has anyone found a cofounder here?

I just wanted to ask if anyone found a cofounder here ever? Is it a waste of time? What is your experience? I see people posting but I think nobody found a cofounder so far.

on October 14, 2022
  1. 8

    unfortunately I do not think most of the people posting here actually know the meaning of "cofounder", most non tech people are looking for a free labor.
    there is also a lot of ridiculous ideas that sound "ground breaking" but the person have 0 idea what actually is needed to make it work.
    I'm assuming there is a lot of good sales people here that just end up talking with "tech" people that have no idea how to build software end to end and think they are capable of making anything.
    I think the problem is that the tech people (the actual good ones) are very cautious about sales people as they have no idea what is a good sales person and can they do what they promise, plus having a six figures salary does not help when you realize that you investing thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of real money in a project that you do not know it is going to make anything.

  2. 1

    I've had many experiences, some stories:

    1. The 2 founders had built a web app product. I pitched myself, exchanged messages, and later joined a scheduled video call with them. There, I talked about their product, idea, vision, their day jobs, life, random jokes, and then about myself. I asked them whom they had sold yet. They had one 'customer' - their gym owner, who didn't pay but offered them discounted gym memberships in exchange. That's all but the founders kept talking "MVP," "just gotta do sales," "sales, sales, sales." I pointed it out and made them realize the product was not ready for anyone to pay. I gave them my vision and a complete roadmap and gave everyone a task (including myself) until the next meeting. Everyone agreed their duties positively. The next meeting never happened and they didn't communicate after that.

    I initially thought I wasn't good enough. That they didn't like me. But I realized they were just lazy and didn't want to commit anything. They built something and thought their job was done, and now they just need a salesman to take them to the moon. Now 6 months later, their website + product is still the same, with no changes at all. No product dev, no blog post, no nothing. They abandoned it.

    Lesson learned:

    • Most full time employees aren't made or willing to hustle or build a business.
    • Stay away from tech founder who thinks they know everything. Let those cocky guys work by themselves.
    1. A guy looking to work on an idea pitched himself, I reached out to him and let him know we have common interests. We chatted a bit. He was from Portugal, and then I told him I was from India. From that moment on, his tone changed lol. Of course, that convo didn't end up anywhere.

      Lesson learned:

    • Founders are humans and humans have biases. Finding a co-founder is more than just a biz partner or a Calendly call, you have to connect on a personal level and build a friendship.
  3. 1

    I think this section of IH does not work very well. Finding the right cofounder takes a lot more than a quick post with an idea, at at specific time.

    I would suggest more of an 'add on' to your IH profile, where you select to be open to match with cofounders, if certain criterias are met. These could be:

    Location
    Skills
    (Start up) experience and age
    How much dedication (hours) can you give
    Interests and values
    Have own idea / open to ideas
    Access to funding / money
    When are you ready to roll

    Y combinator has some of this in their co-founder matching, but it seems not to many people have a profile in there.

    Especially I think it should be made attractive for techical founders / developers, so they can find the best and brightest design and business entrepreneurs, to match with

  4. 1

    I am going to start looking today. But some of the comments below ring true

  5. 1

    I tried, but no luck tbh.

    I didn't look for free labor mentioned below.

    It seemed like the majority of those who contacted me were passively looking for something that isn't real startup work, some side hustle maybe, or just "window shopping".

  6. 1

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