To everyone pointing out sites for networking with potential co-founders: I find them disappointing. They're great places to chat with interesting folks, but if you're like me you've been to them for months without actually getting to first base with anyone.
First base isn't exchanging bodily fluids. It's hacking together on a project. Why's it so hard to find people to actually hack with for an evening? We all know the hacking is important, and yet I don't see anybody out there networking with hacking in mind. I'm starting to suspect 'networking' is the wrong word for what we're trying to do. Perhaps we need to focus deeply on a few leads rather than a bunch of shallow ones.
Have you found a co-founder by networking? Tell me how wrong I am.
Agree here. Never see anyone find a co-founder by networking. And, probably not suggest it as well since it takes time to know if someone is a GREAT cofounder.
In Australia, we had 'Bootup Camp' http://www.bootupcamp.com/.
In 2 weeks, they went from idea to auctioning the business. In this event, i have seen people that eventually become friends and continue to build their next startup.
Yes, shdh used to be awesome! But it seems every iteration diverges further from what I'd like to get out of it. More people attending, more aimless talking and partying, less hacking. And the hackers are all going it alone, being anti-social.
You need to go there and hack. But it needs to be with someone else.
Yeah, that's why you should come to the casual hacking sessions at the Hacker Dojo. There's less partying here because the hack sessions recur every week. I've done a bit of pairing with random people that show up and want to hack.
The description PG gives of 'the ideal cofounder' tends to be someone who you've known for a long time, or have a fairly 'deep' history with - you're good friends or colleagues who get on really well or something like that.
If you go by that definition, you simply cannot 'go out and find' someone because it would then take years to reach that level of comradeship.
But that doesn't mean everyone who didn't have a technically inclined college experience and doesn't have a hacking job should give up on the whole concept of cofounders.
No - there are plenty of places to meet that sort of friend. The key point is not meeting people at college or at a job, but rather to know someone very well in order to be prepared to go through thick and thin with them.
If you just want to meet entrepreneurs, I suggest hanging out at the Hacker Dojo (http://www.hackerdojo.com) There's a physical job corkboard in the lobby if you're interested in finding cofounders, however getting the information will require you to be physically present.
There are people there from 10am to 5am daily (yes, we are open that late). There are around 8 YC companies that frequent the hangout. I've also met 4 other mini teams there who are applying for the next YC round.
I suggest anyone in Silicon Valley looking for cofounders to come to the Founder Institute mixer meetup event held at the Hacker Dojo this Tuesday. Details here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=158007268648
OpenCoffee Seattle is good. I've only been once (two weeks ago) but it was valuable, good group of people and I met one of the best possible investor/advisors for the startup I'm working on.
Thanks hedgehog, the mentor-y types is exactly what I was looking for. I'll check out the Thursday's Redmond meeting and then the next Seattle meeting as well.
Reading this, I feel like it may be more relevant to business people starting startups than hackers starting startups.
It's hard for a startup that's all business people to get very far. A startup that's all hackers has a decent chance. You need some versatility in your hackers -- and it may well make sense to have a business person onboard at the get-go, but I don't know if having one on average produces better results.
I think the confusing thing when you read stuff like this is that it's tempting to assume that this is the way, not a way to find co-founders. Viaweb, for instance, was founded by three Harvard CS PhDs.
Although I can't argue whether this article is aimed at the technically inclined or not, I do believe that the advice is equally applicable for both parties.
Just because "business people" can't put together a brilliantly coded working product, does not mean that they can't do anything to get their venture started. Who is to say that setting up a legal entity, researching market trends, and securing sales channels is any less productive activity than programming?
I know that this is not a popular view, but in my eyes there are two distinct sets of tasks in a startup. Yes, one is the tech side and the other is the business side. Both pieces need to be in place to maximize chances for success though. Is a heavily tech-centric startup with a beautiful beta and no business model in any better of a position than a non-tech startup with a well thought out sales strategy and a static landing page as a minimum viable product?
As important as having complimentary skill sets is, I also believe that having some overlap isn't a bad idea either. A hacker who can read a statement of cash flows paired with an MBA who knows an 'if' statement from a 'while' loop will ultimately be able to work better together.
Oh, usually I'm the person that's out defending that business folks can contribute quite a lot to a startup. I'm just questioning the logic that you need to do things that way, as the article implies, and not based on some fuzzy notion of utility, but just looking at the history of successful startups. Some have business people on the founding team; a lot don't.
The post is really great! Very practical advice. But this is not really new advice. I've read this before at different places, may be in bits and pieces. But unfortunately I'm not very successful at it.
I think not looking within your close friends is probably a good advice. So I tried attending different events, met different people, but the problem is building that trust in few meetings that you have with friends.
I completely understand that it's not the right strategy to do it alone, and I'm actively looking for a co-founder, but still not getting luck.
I think I'll try to follow this advice again, and will see if I find any luck.
I think you already failed if you have to actually go looking for a co-founder. You are getting into a major endeavor, the co-founder should be someone who you've known for a while, not someone you just met playing ultimate frisbee. + at that point, you'll be just another "business guy" with an idea, so chances are you won't find anyone anyways
p.s. I'm assuming that this is advice for the non-programmer entrepreneurs, since programmers can just start building, without needing anyone else.
Not true. At times you just bump into a guy who happens to be exactly what you're looking for. This has happened to me more than once, so I would not make "looking for co-founder" a point of failure.
That said, I still think getting to know a person you will be closely involved with well enough before starting out.
how many programmers go out looking for a "business guy with an idea", programmers get pitched the whole "yeah man, I have this idea, it's ultra secret, so I'll need you to sign an NDA first, but basically it's like faceb...."
the only way for a "business guy with an idea" to hookup with a programmer, without being lifelong friends, is to bring a crapload of money to the table.
There are many highly lucrative niche opportunities (that can still scale to $10mm+ revs) that would be impossible to identify or execute on without an inside industry expert who knows the big players, potential customers, and precise pain points.
When referring to "business people with an idea" with some degree of derision, it's productive for us to remember this mostly applies to the MBA grads with generic consulting/banking background and little industry-specific expertise.
really? many lucrative niche opportunities? Then surely we'd have heard at least some examples of that on techcrunch. Hell if their other coverage is any indication, they would have made it seem like the norm by now. But hey if your version is correct, then you can find plenty of success stories where a niche business guy, got a programmer partner without having to pay thousands of dollars in the process.
I just don't buy that. Looking for a programmer partner as a biz guy with just an idea, is the equivalent of looking for VC funding with an idea...it might happen, but chances are it's a huge waste of time.
We're going after a lucrative niche opportunity that requires significant industry specific knowledge (apparel industry in this case).
I've seen plenty of niche/vertical opportunities like this - mainly because I enjoy interrogating people who work in various sectors about their jobs and pain points.
These opportunities will not be on the radar of someone who doesn't have in depth knowledge of the sector in question. For us, the key was personal experience and knowing potential customers. We worked with them to build the product from the beginning.
As the article says, it's about having a team with complementary skills. That's often a product guy (either a business person or just someone who knows the sector really well) and some tech guys.
I find "reality checks" to be a great benefit of having a co-founder. The best of us spend time pursuing ideas and tangents for our startups that really don't matter. A co-founder can help identify and keep those incidents to a minimum. Of course this works both ways.
It depends on your working habits. Simply having someone else to report/share progress, ideas, etc to can make a huge difference, especially if, as recently discussed on HN, you're inclined towards the manic depressive. Having someone else there really helps during the low periods.
I think one unraised question is: what do you do once you have a potential cofounder?
Do you interview them? How do you figure out if this is going to work? Is it all on instinct?
In my case it's been the latter, mostly, but I think it would have been better in retrospect to work on something together - these hack days/weekends/Launch48 etc sound ideal - before bringing him into a business I'd founded. Then I would have had more of an idea how to establish the relationship formally within the business too; doing it casually has its downsides, especially if you're not in the lifelong friends situation.
I built hndir.com to help solve the challenge of finding technical cofounders at universities. everyone in there is verified and has probably signed up from this site.
Sometimes you luck out and your friends don't actually have your skillsets, or vice versa. I've known the guys I'm working with for years before we started on the startup venture - one's a cinematographer, another's a programmer, and I'm an editor.
Or maybe it isn't that lucky. I highly suspect I'm /not/ unique in having a diverse social circle. Sternberg is probably overplaying the like-attracts-like effect by quite a bit.
Sigh... The minute I read the word synergistic, I had "Promote synergy! Like a boss!" go through my head. Needless to say, I couldn't finish the article after that.
I found one in looking for a college dorm room mate. I got a bit lucky but in talking a bit about what I love to do, I have met more potential co founders on campus.
First base isn't exchanging bodily fluids. It's hacking together on a project. Why's it so hard to find people to actually hack with for an evening? We all know the hacking is important, and yet I don't see anybody out there networking with hacking in mind. I'm starting to suspect 'networking' is the wrong word for what we're trying to do. Perhaps we need to focus deeply on a few leads rather than a bunch of shallow ones.
Have you found a co-founder by networking? Tell me how wrong I am.