YC Startup School’s Co-Founder Speed-dating

I recently attended Y Combinator's Startup School Co-Founder Speed-dating event and wanted to share my experience in case someone else will find this tool interesting. I wrote a short summary in this post, but I have also written a more detailed version here.

Reasons for attending

• Open to finding a business partner or collaboration to expand my product's potential.
• Needing help on the marketing front as a solo engineer/builder.
• Seeking a balanced/holistic perspective to improve my entrepreneurial skills.

Event Procedure

• Sign up for and log into Y Combinator Startup School and access the Co-Founder Match feature.
• Select a speed-dating event based on your sector of interest and join the event at the event time.
• The system matches you with another participant based on criteria you set.
  If both participants agree, enter a 5-minute video call.
• After 5 minutes, the call ends and you can choose to reconnect later.
• Repeat until the event ends (for 1 hour).

Result

• Had 8 video calls and reconnected with 6 participants.
• Skipped ~10 profiles and had some participants skip me.
• Saw approximately 70-120 participants (i.e., potential matches) throughout the event.

Takeaways

• Liked that there were many enough potential matches and how I could skip to another match vs. be forced into having a chat with someone I was not that interested in.
• Met interesting people with diverse backgrounds and qualifications.
• Got to pitch my product and gauge interest from potential matches, some of whom with more experience in entrepreneurship.
• Recommend trying it for those interested in meeting founder-type people without having to make a big time commitment.

Question for you

• Has anyone tried this tool? If so, what was your take and how does this compare to other tools?
• Would you be interested in hearing about the post-event conversations and activities I had/will have with my matches?

Cheers!