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8 Comments

How did you find your co-founder?

There are always people here on IH looking to partner up as co-founders. Perhaps some stories would be useful to others who are currently looking.

For those with co-founders, how did you find yours?

  1. 5

    He was foist upon me at birth

    1. 2

      Gasp! This answers a question I had the other day - "Are Courtland and Channing twins??"

      (Yes, the double question mark is integral here)

    2. 1

      Haha I was just doing a Google search to feed my curiosity and this popped up @csallen!

  2. 3

    Current live project I'm flying solo...though actually going to post some adverts for volunteers soon (as it's a charity). However, I have a stealth mode/super-secret project 😂and that is with a cofounder.

    The cofounder in that instance is a former colleague from around 3-4 years back, we both happen to have complementary skills and knew already that we worked well together and were fans of each others work, so when he asked if I wanted to build something together I said yes 🙂...so far so good 🤞

  3. 3

    With Ministry of Testing I started it on my own.

    • I then found a co-founder once I had a bit of traction, but that went a bit pearshaped. He left after some difficult discussions.
    • Once I was making enough money (year 3-ish) I convinced my husband to come on board to 'do the tech'.
    • Year 6ish I hired a CEO, who I also view as a co-founder. He is now leading the company without my day to day involvement.
  4. 1

    I'm working with a co-founder right now and I highly, highly recommend it.

    I've done a few solo projects where I felt like I was in a mental funk more often than not. It was really difficult to figure out what to do next, decide whether I was on the right track, etc. With a co-founder, I feel like we can achieve 4-8x what I could do a solo founder, simply because I have someone to collaborate with.

    With this being said, I have had past business partnerships fall apart for one reason or another. In my experience, it's really important to make sure you're on the same page as your partner as it relates to motivations, level of commitment, and willingness to work together. If any of these are out of sync, it's much more difficult to make the partnership work.

    Probably the most important attribute to develop needs to be your ability to overcome disagreements. A business partnership is a highly emotional relationship, just like a marriage or long-term romantic relationship. There's probably not enough written about managing emotions in business because being a jerk as a boss seems to be the accepted norm. Crucial Conversations is a favorite of mine.

    To answer the original question, my co-founder and I were introduced through a mutual acquaintance to do some consulting work at a previous company he worked at. Now, two years later, we're both consulting + starting our product company.

    Patience goes a long way in forming a co-founder relationship. You'll probably need to meet at least a few times in person, and you'll likely need some existing foundation to build upon (hobbies in common, live in the same town, overlapping peer group, etc.).

  5. 1

    I am looking for a partner for wpgenie.io any one?

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