How to find a co-founder or a partner?
It's a common fact that every startup company needs at least one founder to happen. However, it's also known that startups with the only one founder are doomed to fail.
The first reason is simple: if you can't convience at least one more person to do business with you, how would you convience million of your potential customers? You would not be able to get investment for your business and you would not raise any funds until it's only about you.
There is other reason also. Unless you have a lot of capital to hire help early on, you’ll probably want to find someone to work together you from the very beginning. Otherwise, you'll get screwed up and messed to too many things put on your shoulders.
The typical startup company has from 2 to 3 co-founders on board.
Finding a co-founder for a startup can be a tricky deal. Your co-founder will need to share your vision, your feelings, your passion and your excitement about your idea. If it's not so, you are doomed again. Your co-founder needs to have enough skills which will work the best for your idea. Your co-founder has to fit the same communication level with you. You will get a plenty of disagreements in the early days and you can not allow yourself to be engaged into any kinds of personal conflicts.
Deciding who will be your co-founder will be one of the most important decisions you will make for letting your idea come true. Well, this is not kind of a thing that you can not change later, but trust me, you don't want to mess up with splitting your company afterall. I've been there and I don't want to come back for any reason now.
So, again, finding a co-founder for a startup can be a tricky deal. Besides, it is a tought task, especially if your network and social circle is limited, your work agreement has a clause about not hiring away any co-workers, you are too young or too old to be considered a perspective partner.
Paul Graham on his presentation on the Startup School 2007 event (the notes are available at http://www.bosstalks.com/topic/52) spoke about the co-founder issue. Let me quote him:
Not having a cofounder is a real problem. A startup is too much for one person to bear. And though we differ from other investors on a lot of questions, we all agree on this. All investors, without exception, are more likely to fund you with a cofounder than without.
We've funded two single founders, but in both cases we suggested their first priority should be to find a cofounder. Both did. But we'd have preferred them to have cofounders before they applied. It's not super hard to get a cofounder for a project that's just been funded, and we'd rather have cofounders committed enough to sign up for something super hard.
If you don't have a cofounder, what should you do? Get one. It's more important than anything else. If there's no one where you live who wants to start a startup with you, move where there are people who do. If no one wants to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to work on.
In the matter of the fact which is described above, we decided to make an extra step in solving the problem of finding a co-founder. We are creating a separate forum, the Founders Nest on BossTalks.com. This is a specially designed place to look for co-founders. You are never too young or too old for Founders Nest. You are never under- or overqualified for it. It does not matter whom are you looking for, either for co-founder with developer skills or for a co-founder with business skills (well, the developers are more valuable at the very beginning).
How to find a partner or a co-founder?
- Post here.
- Watch the topic.
- You can even subscribe via RSS.
- Get replies.
- Start a startup.
Let Founders Nest extend your social network and become your community. The early days of every startup are very tough and sometimes you do not know whom to share your ideas with. Founders Nest is the right place. And it's free. Free to register, free to post, free to start. You are welcome!