Are you looking for a co-founder?

ItsGeorgieMallett·Mar 02, 2021

Posted in:Founders looking for Co-founders Advice Tech Career Growth

I'm currently looking for a co-founder and would love hear:- Are you looking for a co-founder?- What would you ideally want in a co-founder?- How are you searching for your co-founder?- If you're currently a co-founder, how did you find each other?-----I currently work for Entrepreneur First (joinef.com) which is one great way to meet a co-founder! Would love to hear how others have approached this :)

teresaman·Mar 02, 2021

First Round has shared this very detailed guide on how to vet potential cofounders! https://review.firstround.com/the-founder-dating-playbook-heres-the-process-i-used-to-find-my-co-founderPS. Housekeeping note - I've tagged your posts under a few of our cofounder communities!

ItsGeorgieMallett·Mar 04, 2021

Thanks so much Teresa! Super helpful 🤩

joclark·Mar 02, 2021

Yes- I'm looking for a technical partner / lead that could turn into a Co-Founder. Will chk it out

Monisha·Mar 30, 2021

I work as a software engineer with one of the FAANG companies ;) and also I am a co-founder.So, I work with a lot of early founders. I would suggest going for a technical partner and eventually leading to Co-founder if things goes well. From what we’ve seen, though, it’s better to go slow when it comes to internal hiring. Avoid bringing on a full-time Co-founder or tech lead until you’ve found the perfect fit. One of the biggest issues we see in failed startups has to do with co-founder fallout.We often help clients hire and vet technical talent when the time is right because we know how important those first few hires are for startup culture and success.Hopefully, that helps? Happy to candidly chat about agency tradeoffs if you have more questions .! 😃We can have a talk about it at [email protected]

joclark·Mar 31, 2021

Thanks so much, yes I totally agree. It’s complex, not only should their skills complement yours but you have to agree on the mission and have similar values. A bit like finding a spouse!

Monisha·Mar 31, 2021

Yes, exactly @joclarkHaving similar values and sharing same mission and vision is equally important.

joclark·Apr 01, 2021

Is it true that FAANG /FAMGA allows their people to work on side projects? If so, what's the best way to attract someone like that to work on an MVP for a startup as a side project? Thx.

karlaschoenicke·Mar 03, 2021

Hei Georgie,I was looking for a co-founder recently and very simply put, I used my network on LinkedIn. I posted a visual created with Canva, which got a huge response and then I scheduled calls with all the people who showed interest via Calendly and Google Meet.I also found it inspiring to follow these two female founders on their journey: https://www.linkedin.com/company/femalefoundersstory/ Amongst other things, they shared a Co-Founder Questionnaire that they went through before founding the company together in order to be aligned and clear on the goals/individual motivation. This document helped me immensely to get clarity on what I want in a co-founder (same values, different skills) and how I want to build the startup.For Germany (where I'm from), there's an online magazine called Female One Zero and they have a Founders Zone, where people can submit co-founder searches for female founders: https://femaleonezero.com/founderszoneThere's also this meetup group https://www.meetup.com/Female-Co-Founders, that is active on both LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/femalecofounders and Instagram.Happy to talk more about the co-founder search and maybe I can even help you find your match 😊

ItsGeorgieMallett·Mar 04, 2021

Thanks so much Karla! Some amazing resources there and would love to chat - will drop you a line :)Do you have the original LinkedIn post / Canva design at all? Would love to see it!

karlaschoenicke·Mar 05, 2021

Sure, here it is: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/karlaschoenicke_far-together-founder-activity-6755538155467788290-PFmF

ItsGeorgieMallett·Mar 08, 2021

love that! thanks karla

Ena·Mar 05, 2021

Hey Georgie,- Yes I'm looking for a technical co-founder. A previous co-founder had to exit due to personal reasons (the split was amicable, we're still good friends) and I'm now leading this idea on my own and searching for someone to join me.- I'm not just looking for someone who can code, I'm looking for a person with a passion for startups and great products, that can perfect the concept with me. Also someone I'll enjoy working with, as it is a crucial component of any partnership.My idea is fairly interesting (I hope) as it is an all-in-one product management framework centered around helping startups validate product ideas to reach product market fit. Pretty much a startup that helps startups, I know, very meta!- For anyone interested (if I may share the link, if not, no problem I'll delete it ) the concept can be found on https://pinbin.io- And generally any advice would be helpful. Wasn't expecting to be searching for a co-founder, but here I am. :)

Monisha·Apr 01, 2021

Hey Ena,I work as a software engineer with one of the FAANG companies 😉and also I am a co-founder.So, I work with a lot of early founders. I would suggest going for a technical partner first and then eventually turning it to a technical Co-founder if things go well. Because having similar values and sharing the same mission and vision is equally important.We often help clients hire and vet technical talent when the time is right because we know how important those first few hires are for startup culture and success.Hopefully, that helps? Happy to candidly chat about agency tradeoffs if you have more questions .! 😃We can have a talk about it at [email protected]

neen·Nov 23, 2021

Hi Monisha, thank you for your answer. We are currently also looking to find a technical co-founder or CTO.I am wondering what the difference between a technical partner and a technical co-founder is? Why would someone want to partner if they don't get founders benefits? And maybe, since you seem to be very familiar in the matter - since we are creating a SaaS platform, we assume we should really have a founding member to be a software engineer - but I read in different posts people talking about "technical advisors". I am not so sure if this means software programming or what skills this implies. Thank you so much for your help. Nina

brennastuart·Mar 19, 2021

How has the process changed for EF since COVID? It looks like they typically require people to relocate to large cities which seems more difficult during the pandemic.