[HN Gopher] Ask HN: YC co-founder matching is bad
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Ask HN: YC co-founder matching is bad
I'm wondering is there a monthly or periodically post on HN where
we could actually learn about other people's ideas or people who
are just in development phase or maybe just researching and are
looking for co-founders. I'm wondering what everyone thinks.
Author : amir734jj
Score : 65 points
Date : 2023-02-21 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago)
| todd3834 wrote:
| The idea of co-founder matching feels like a dating app for
| rushing into marriage. It is definitely possible it can work out
| but it seems like a long shot. If I were going to start a startup
| today, I'd want to do as much as I could to validate the idea and
| use that data to persuade some people whom I've had great working
| relationships with. Whether that's in school or the workplace
| etc... If you are unable to do that, you're going to have a
| really hard time recruiting good talent. You also want to know
| what it's like to have a disagreement with the person you're
| going to be in kind of a marriage with. Don't have your first
| fight after marriage.
| shrimpx wrote:
| There's no reason to emphasize "rushing". Lots of people who
| meet on dating apps end up married. A high percentage don't
| work out. After they go on a few dates, they move on. Similar
| dynamic with cofounder matching.
| snowmaker wrote:
| Hello - I'm one of the people at YC who work on YC's co-founder
| matching site (which, if you aren't familiar with it, is at
| https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching).
|
| It's not totally clear to me if OP is referring to that product
| specifically or something else, but I figured I would take the
| opportunity to get feedback anyway!
|
| We are very actively working on the co-founder matching site and
| would love to hear from people who have used it - what your
| experience was and how we could make it better.
|
| We've been running the site for about two years now, since we
| launched it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27750298.
| Coincidentally, the idea actually grew out of open threads just
| like the ones OP suggested. We started by experimenting with
| those threads on HN and our Startup School forum, but nobody ever
| found an actual co-founder that way.
|
| So we decided to build it as an actual product. Since we
| launched, over 20 teams that met on the site have gotten funded
| by YC, and many of them are doing quite well. So we think the
| early results are overall promising.
|
| That said, co-founder matching is a very hard problem. It's a
| multi-sided marketplace with complex dynamics, and we know we
| have a lot of work to do to make it work for everyone. We'd love
| your feedback if you've tried it.
| cwcw wrote:
| First of all, thanks for building it and as a user, the product
| is solid that matches the needs well. Note that I used
| 'matches' not 'solves' as the problem itself is so messy and
| difficult that a product like this could help but fundamentally
| it requires two people working together, which is super hard.
|
| My way of somehow hacking it is to come in with low or no
| expectation. There are otherwise tons of great people on YC co-
| founder matching site, and almost all conversations I've had
| were excellent. Even if it didn't help me find a cofounder, I
| still rate the product highly.
| joandeg wrote:
| Also chiming in from the CFM team. This point resonated with
| me based on conversations I've had with some of the teams
| that matched & are still working together. The evaluation
| period: asking tough questions, trial projects, equity
| expectations, and setting a strong foundation to work
| together are important steps to add onto any cf search -- CFM
| platform or personal network.
| benguild wrote:
| it'd be great if you could find a way to screen out "lurkers"
| and "shoppers" ... in other words, people who just like the
| idea of having a startup
| analyst74 wrote:
| I wish the same! My first couple weeks on co-founder matching
| were consumed with meeting a wide range of folks, most of
| whom in the "I'd like to start a company if the right co-
| founder / idea / other criteria present themselves" stage.
|
| One thing that seems to reduce the noise is selecting "I'm
| working full time on my startup" and make that a requirement
| for co-founder. But it would be nice to also meet those who
| are not actively working on an idea but very committed to
| finding a co-founder to start something.
| BadassFractal wrote:
| Yes! YC calls them "scenesters", but the reality is that
| often you don't know if you're cut out for the gig until you
| actually do it, so lots of people have to experience it
| first-hand to realize they don't actually want the job.
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| > We are very actively working on the co-founder matching site
| and would love to hear from people who have used it - what your
| experience was and how we could make it better.
|
| I used it a year and a few months ago. I'm a technical person
| with 10 years working in startups. I treated it the way I'd
| treat a job search etc.
|
| I matched with ~150 people. Talked to ~50 people. Got close/did
| trial project with 3. Did a deal with 1. Raised a VC pre-seed
| (similar process) and have had a wild journey since.
|
| Some learnings:
|
| * Met some really cool people, some amazing talent on the
| platform.
|
| * Know what you're looking for (e.g. complimentary skillset,
| company stage). Matching experience was key - didn't want too
| little (still making mistakes) but not too much (wanted an
| equal relationship, not a minor founder role).
|
| * Co-founding is a relationship IMO. 'Matching' is just dating,
| 'trail project' is moving in together, and 'cofounding' is
| marriage. Expect to argue about curtains.
|
| * It's hard to do and complex, this isn't handed on a plate. On
| the flip side, that's how business is, so builds skill sets
| that come in useful later.
|
| Some ideas, if I ran this program:
|
| 1) Experiment with different interaction forms. E.g. 60 second
| video bio's to see if that helps people match faster.
|
| 2) Do a 'YC-lite' incubator program. We were never interested
| in the time or equity of a full YC program, so DIY'd
| fundraising, company formation etc. There's room to build
| community/support that's less intensive than YC's incubator,
| more suitable for founders who have matched and are building
| _now_... not waiting for incubator. I note that 20 match teams
| got YC funded... how many are doing well that YC knows nothing
| about?
| BadassFractal wrote:
| Similar situation here, thanks for sharing your journey this
| last time around, I'll have to reuse some of those ideas
| myself.
| joandeg wrote:
| This is cool to hear (as another member of the CFM team!)
|
| We have admittedly less insight in this type of 'success' (we
| talk to all of the teams that end up in a YC batch) but if
| you stopped actively using the platform and paused your
| account, you would have told us you met someone you were
| working with.
| amir734jj wrote:
| Thank you so much for the reply. Can you please add a search or
| filtering? I don't want to keep clicking "next"
| danvoell wrote:
| This. Also could you add a not interested in matching up
| _because_ field option when someone tries to connect. And /or
| if you want to _poke_ someone by letting them know you like
| what they are up to but you wouldn't be good co-founder
| material.
| snowmaker wrote:
| Yes, this is one of the things we're working on next.
| BadassFractal wrote:
| Excellent, thank you! The swiping model didn't feel like an
| ideal solution for the task.
| justinzollars wrote:
| One thing that could improve is that it seems to filter on age
| and location. It should filter on specific skills.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| I've used it and met some interesting folks; some whom I still
| chat with. One whom I seriously considered working with.
|
| But ultimately no co-founders.
|
| I think that there are different modalities for the folks on YC
| Co-Founder Matching and that's OK, IMO.
|
| Like andrewfromx mentioned in a comment below, it would be
| great to be able to somehow identify and filter by those
| modalities. My sense is that there are some folks on there who
| would make great "first hires", but not necessarily "co-
| founder". There are some users on the platform who seem
| interested in joining a startup in the early stages (who should
| probably instead be on workatastartup.com instead) rather than
| actually co-founding a company.
| sdrinf wrote:
| Hi, I have been using it since launch, have reviewed
| ~100s-1000s of profiles, have talked with ~50-80 people, did a
| try-out with 2, for 6 months each. (Background is: I am a
| technical founder with 6 prior startups, 2 of which were
| successful; still want to build something, looking for good
| ideas, and great execution people)
|
| I'm still actively looking for high-quality cofounders to join,
| and will take anyone who jumps the (high) bar I've set that is
| required to make a startup a success. However, it is extremely
| frustrating to work with the site for a mix of cultural, and UX
| issues reasons.
|
| Specifically:
|
| * Establish a culture of people sharing both their ideas, and
| the progress they made so far on the project. If the "idea"
| section is empty / "will discuss on a phone call" / NDAs,
| that's a no-go from the start. You might want to add a text in
| the "idea" section of the profile builder, that _not sharing
| their idea_ is very very bad, and they will get passed on for
| that reason.
|
| * Search, and a way to look at "everyone who wants to work on
| X". There are several usability issues with browsing people
| one-by-one: for one, there are some startup ideas that are very
| timely right now, and I want to know everyone who wants to work
| in that area. For another, I can't know if a person I've passed
| on ~10 months ago haven't pivoted into something more
| interesting. This is not a sector-specific selector, rather a
| full-text search for every profile who has specific keywords;
| with results displayed in a list, similar to cofounderslab.
|
| * Having a profile checkbox, and ability to filter for high-
| quality founder signals: have built a startup before, have made
| it profitable, have sold things in the same product category
| he's thinking on launching a new thing in.
|
| (These are off the top of my head, will edit, if other things
| come up)
| BadassFractal wrote:
| +1 on the site being lower value than it could be for repeat
| founders with previous successes, but who still want to build
| things with other people with extensive experience and a
| track record.
|
| You could argue that if you're in that situation you should
| be relying on existing networks to propel you into your next
| thing, but sometimes you want a new start or things just
| aren't aligning time-wise with your former allies.
|
| The majority of folks on the site have never done a startup
| before and are entirely unproven in a startup context, or
| have a couple of short stints that they unfortunately didn't
| learn much from because the thing never gained any traction,
| so they did "1 year experience 3 times over". Doesn't mean
| they're not potentially great startup material, it's pretty
| hard to get something to take off. But, it's still a pretty
| risky bet for someone who wants to derisk partners a tad
| more.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Could be fun to try matching with a large language model, using
| some technique like cross encoders
|
| https://sbert.net/examples/applications/cross-encoder/README...
| grepLeigh wrote:
| I've met some pretty cool people through YC's co-founder matching
| tool.
|
| The people I've met helped by making intros inside their network.
| I've provided similar intros, referrals, and a bit of technical
| advice.
|
| I don't have any expectation that I'll meet a co-founder, but
| it's nice to chat with people who really "get it." Most of my
| friends, family, and former colleagues think I'm batshit for
| trading a cushy salaried gig for my own startup.
| glass3 wrote:
| It would be helpful if the ideas are clustered. Only non-focused
| founders will spend their time on reading all ideas, which is
| needed to find matches in specialized areas.
|
| YC could offer hierarchical subreddits for business sectors. It
| would be possible to collaborate with founders who are attracted
| to the same topic and it would be possible to offer opportunities
| to people who want to work in the broader area.
| codazoda wrote:
| Is there a place to match with microfounder types? I'd love to
| build a business but I don't want to build a billion dollar
| business. I also have no plans to quit my day job anytime soon.
|
| I don't really know what the best idea is and need someone who
| can brainstorm the right idea and then keep me grounded on it.
|
| I can build MVPs and launch. I lean toward absurdly simple,
| launched too early prototypes. I'm a web developer with 25 years
| of professional experience. These days I'm a director, mostly
| managing other devs, but I still love to get my hands dirty.
|
| Anyway, I always thought the YC stuff was for people with bigger
| ambitions than mine. I have tried YC founder school, which is
| cool.
|
| Reach out if you wanna chat.
| altdataseller wrote:
| The best micro-founder partnerships are where both people have
| some knowledge of the industry they want to build a product in.
| But one of them is an engineer and the other is into sales.
| dewey wrote:
| I also believe that and it's something I'm looking for in
| general (as a technical person), even if not actively at the
| moment.
|
| There's always the trope about the "ideas guy" out there that
| wants someone to build them the tech for free or for equity.
| So far I have yet to meet such a person, but if the idea is
| good and interesting I'd be more than willing to give it a
| shot.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| This might be one of those "MBA grads always think of startups
| that would help MBA grads" things but it might be fun to dip
| your toe in the water with a website that collects
| microbusiness ideas that people don't want to do, but might
| like to see
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Might have a hard time, finding that, in this venue.
|
| Most VCs are betting for The Big One, and microstartups are
| probably not gonna deliver that.
|
| I would be a "microstartup" kind of guy. I hang around here for
| the community, not the opportunity.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Rather than chase the VC money, why not just focus on first
| building a profitable business and product that people want?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That would be my approach, but this is a VC site. I suspect
| most folks here, are looking for big breaks, and sweet VC
| funding.
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| > That would be my approach
|
| Is there a place for such like-minded individuals? Haha.
|
| I'm lean more pragmatic; there are only so many billion
| dollar ideas. In the post ZIRP era, I think that being
| able to demonstrate a viable business model might
| (hopefully) carry more weight.
| andrewfromx wrote:
| You mean like the "Who's hiring?" posts but instead "Who's
| building and needs co-founder?". I like it.
| amir734jj wrote:
| Exactly
| personjerry wrote:
| It's a harder problem to solve than you might think. Because the
| success metric is difficult.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| That's an accurate point in my experience.
|
| My suggestion is to prioritize the quality of partners over the
| specific idea you are working on. Someone capable of moving
| mountains and chewing glass is a truly rare ally, and there are
| countless people who pick sexy startup ideas and are incapable
| of executing at the level that a startup requires. You'll
| likely pivot anyway, so the idea doesn't matter too much to
| begin with, but you'll be stuck with someone who's either
| incredible to work with, or not. Most people aren't cut out for
| the founder role, you learn this the hard way eventually, and
| that's ok. Just don't end up stuck for years with someone who's
| not meant for it.
|
| Unfortunately high potential founders are rare and you have to
| spend a few months working with someone who looks good on paper
| to find out if they're one. Takes a lot of time, and unlike a
| VC you only have one pipe to run experiments with, but that's
| the nature of the game. And there's a non-trivial chance that
| you yourself are not exceptional, meaning that it's unlikely
| you'll end up pairing with someone stellar because they know
| they can do much better.
|
| Overall a really hard problem, but serendipity still happens
| regularly in this space, so it's worth giving it a shot, but be
| prepared for this to possibly take a while. Personal networks
| and vetted connections are a godsend here if you have access to
| them.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I tried the YC founder matching thing several years ago. It was
| terrible. It asked all sorts of irrelevant questions and then
| used the answers to disqualify me from the service.
|
| They overthought the problem. All thats needed is a list of
| people who are looking to connect plus their resume and a summary
| paragraph. Like a dating website basically. To keep it fresh and
| focused it should require you click a"still looking" email link
| once a week. Maybe fields for location/are you technical.
|
| It might have changed in recent years but I never went back.
| billllll wrote:
| I'm curious, how did you get disqualified? I've been using the
| platform and wasn't even aware it was possible to get
| disqualified.
|
| The questions seemed very fair, though I know they've been
| iterating on them so it may be different from when you used it.
| [deleted]
| amir734jj wrote:
| It's terrible indeed. The dating app style doesn't work + its
| full of buzzwords (blockchain and etc.).
| NickC25 wrote:
| I wish there was a monthly post like this! There should be a
| monthly project post "Hey, I'm working on X, I need help with Y"
| or something like that.
|
| Example: _I 'm not very technical, but I'm very much into the
| product, operations, and market-fit/research side of things, and
| have access to funding. I want to join a team where I can grow
| and learn things, but also do cool shit with cool people.
| Currently, I'm running a small business as a side-hustle to build
| a bit of capital, but want to jump back into tech/startups as
| soon as I can._
|
| I would imagine a monthly post highlighting skills and projects
| would be great - would be great for people who need something to
| do, project work, upskilling work for CV building, etc...
|
| I've actually had a few conversations that started from HN posts
| about what other folks are working on, and they were really
| enjoyable and I was fortunate to learn interesting things.
| robust-cactus wrote:
| I've heard it works and it has caused companies to form and get
| funded.
|
| I signed up like 1 week ago and I'm a 2nd time founder. It
| depends on your expectations and how you configure it is my read.
| For me, even though I'm technical, I'm mostly looking for other
| technical founders. Other than that, the thing I mainly want to
| feel when I read a profile is a sense of "oh this person would be
| fun to jam on ideas with" and in addition, "yea I think they got
| the same level of hustle/urgency as I do." Concurrently, I want
| to get a sense of the person's motivations - are they all about
| the $$, I'm a pass usually in that scenario. I just want to build
| something people love.
|
| I think I've already seen a few people who match that criteria.
|
| Aside: kinda worried about how many people are looking to start
| an "ai startup" rather than solve a problem which might involve
| AI.
| salamo wrote:
| > kinda worried about how many people are looking to start an
| "ai startup" rather than solve a problem which might involve AI
|
| My issue is that I am working on a project (I wouldn't call it
| a startup exactly) which does directly involve AI, so I attract
| attention from the exact types of people you mentioned, fair
| weather fans. If you have crypto in your profile and are now
| interested in AI, that tells me all I need to know.
|
| I've been able to scare most of them away by not having a
| functioning landing page and directing them to a repo instead.
| Since I am looking for another technical person this has been a
| great filter.
| threeseed wrote:
| > and it has caused companies to form and get funded
|
| I am far more interested in what percentage fail because of a
| breakdown in the founder relationship.
|
| It's easy to start a company and get funded, when you have a
| great team. It's very difficult to maintain that relationship
| for a decade or more.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I am far more interested in what percentage fail because of
| a breakdown in the founder relationship.
|
| In my experience this happens far more often than issues with
| tech, but less frequently than running out of cash due to
| failure in product market fit for pure software plays.
|
| Hardware companies tend to be rough for the founders, unless
| they are extremely savvy at raising funds.
|
| The longer a start-up remains in the start-up phase the
| bigger the chance for co-founder conflicts due to differences
| in expectations and changing life circumstances.
| [deleted]
| robust-cactus wrote:
| Separating signal from noise is going to be interesting here.
| Startups founded by friends, former co-workers or network all
| fail. Exiting isn't guaranteed, nor is product market fit or
| any amount of success. Most startups fail.
|
| Yes it will be cool when we can see stats like "co-founder
| matching has created X startups, and you're Y% more likely to
| succeed." Those stats take time to reach significance. For
| now, it's OK for it to ride on vision + early indicators like
| "# of startups founded".
| ENadyr wrote:
| So I've matched with 2 cofounders on there. And while I think
| finding a good cofounder is inherently hard, I'd say it's the
| best platform that I've seen. It's similar to relationship dating
| I guess.
|
| One of the questions that I would add though, is whether the
| founder is married to a solution or is in search of a problem.
| First co-founder I worked with was great overall but he was
| married to a solution, that after talking to prospective users, I
| realized nobody really wanted.
| m348e912 wrote:
| Just do what Brian Armstrong did. It seemed to work out pretty
| well for him. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3754664
| shanebellone wrote:
| Now that's a gem. Thanks for the share.
| fortylove wrote:
| What was the outcome of that, did he find his cofounder from
| that thread?
| bmelton wrote:
| The outcome of that was that he went on to found Coinbase.
|
| He did not find his co-founder from that thread, but rather
| Reddit.
| swamp40 wrote:
| Incredible. Looks like he finally found his co-founder on
| Reddit[0] though. Both billionaires now.
|
| [0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/how-coinbases-founder-
| turne...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| interesting, he was 31 at the time, bitcoin did not get
| outlawed by the US government and he got to sell shares of his
| new company after a direct listing at a $100bn valuation for a
| little while hm.
|
| does look like any other pie in the sky idea.
| exolymph wrote:
| Cofounder matching is a market for lemons, much like online
| dating. The best prospects are either never on the open market,
| or get snapped up very quickly. So it's always a problem of
| sorting through many low-quality options to find diamonds in the
| rough (and if you can find one, upgrading a rough diamond to a
| shiny diamond is still a nontrivial process). Point being,
| cofounder matching is inherently a frustrating grind.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I disagree about online dating. Increasingly, my peers who end
| up in long term relationships or married have found each other
| on dating apps. Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring
| and limiting.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Dating only coworkers and friends gets boring and
| limiting.
|
| It's a network problem; this is where you start but not
| necessarily end.
| testTED wrote:
| Read the entire comment you are responding to.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I did, and I strongly disagree that online dating is a
| market for lemons.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Your friends got snapped up leaving the lemons behind
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| they didn't specify if it they were "snapped up"
| (presuming this means rapidly) , or if it was a "grind"
|
| Assuming it's a man and woman, and average experiences
| the guy likely went through 100s-1000s of profiles to
| match with her, and she likely in the high 10s to low
| 100s.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| You're not supposed to make comments like this on here
| because usually what ends up happening is that they _did_
| read the full comment and that you disagree with their
| interpretation of it, but then the discourse grinds to a
| halt because the discussion becomes about reading.
|
| The reason you disagree FWIW is that you believes 'snapped
| up quickly' means near-instantaneous, whereas they see it
| as more of 'with the right strategy you can be the snapper'
| fdgsdfogijq wrote:
| Wouldnt be surprised to find a bunch of "idea guys" looking for
| a programmer to implement their idea, meanwhile they "sell" to
| clients.
| hgomersall wrote:
| As an ideas guy that can program, I super value people that
| want to sell stuff.
| mettamage wrote:
| My experience with Tinder does not match what you describe as
| "lemons". I'm an average looking guy at best. To be fair, I did
| hack the process a bit. I definitely do not have an average
| strategy ;-)
|
| With that said, I did notice that Tinder in the US is just
| utter garbage, even with my strategy. The best places so far
| have all been in Europe (only tested the US a bit and some
| European countries).
| BadassFractal wrote:
| Request for startup: Tinder in the US that isn't utter
| garbage. Maybe you can find a cofounder on this platform :)
| 999900000999 wrote:
| To be fair, I've met plenty of idea guys in real life. I can't
| imagine the internet somehow being worse.
|
| It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X combined
| with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for me in
| exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.'
|
| Then if you do waste a weekend on a POC you'll hear it doesn't
| match their vision. You don't even get a thank you from these
| jerks.
|
| TBH I've given up on starting a tech company completely, I work
| a 9-5 and then make small games afterwards.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I mean you could always disappear to somewhere with nicer
| weather and run away with their idea...
|
| Every time I've been given an annoying "you do all the work"
| offer like this I've entertained the thought. I'm surprised
| you don't hear about it happening more often to be honest.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Because someone else's idea is always worse than your idea.
|
| The only ideas I considered stealing were ideas I had
| previously (or close to that).
|
| There is an upside, you can talk about your idea freely,
| chances of theft are low.
| lagniappe wrote:
| Make the POC your business, call yourself a market-fit
| engineer and "yes, right away" all the way to early
| retirement.
| thecleaner wrote:
| Jesus Christ. This is such an amazing idea.
| itronitron wrote:
| I'm willing to offer lagniappe 2.5% equity vested over 5
| years if they build this for me. Which reminds me of
| something I read once on the internet, paraphrased ...
| "build the thing that you want or be forced to build the
| thing that somebody else wants"
| jacquesm wrote:
| > It's always ' I want Multi billion dollar company X
| combined with multi billion dollar company Z. Build this for
| me in exchange for 2.5% equity vested over 5 years.'
|
| Those are the generous ones.
|
| If you're a tech person and you 'join as employee #1' then
| you have just decreased your chances for a reasonable payday
| by about 90%. So make sure that salary is a substantial one,
| or negotiate for double digits stock. Otherwise: better to be
| a founder. Same risks, more control, better payday if it
| works out.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Oh the idiots I was talking to didn't want to actually pay
| me any money.
|
| It's just equity in whatever far off pipedream they have.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's borderline abusive.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > much like online dating
|
| Interesting that you just called about 40% of the <50yrs old
| population "lemons"
| jrumbut wrote:
| But it's also like dating in that a successful outcome is worth
| exponentially more than the time it takes to read a few dozen
| profiles.
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| This reminds me of the old joke: an economist is walking down
| the street with a friend, and the friend says, "Look! There's a
| $20 bill on the ground!" The economist replies, "Nah, if there
| were, somebody would've picked it up already,"
|
| The real world is messy. There are many reasons why a suitable
| cofounder might be found through a matching service, or a life
| partner, or even just a fun date.
|
| YCombinator was founded in part on the notion that there
| existed quality technical founders that were being excluded
| from traditional venture capital networks.
| itronitron wrote:
| A friend of mine once found a $100 bill on the street, at
| night on a city street near restaurants and bars, which makes
| me wonder if $100 bills are more likely to be found than $20
| bills. Or maybe people under report finding $20 bills since
| it isn't as memorable an experience.
| Zetice wrote:
| Your network is going to help you with this 10x as much as random
| matching would. I doubt random matching is even very successful,
| compared to organically finding a partner.
|
| Ask around, see what people in your network know about folks who
| are building new things. They may even have ideas about folks who
| _would_ build something if the right partner were to help them.
| shrimpx wrote:
| I don't think it's 10x. Your network is likely to be limited.
| Coworkers, buddies from school, friends of family? When you
| filter out all the ones with careers/no interest in starting a
| company, and then the ones you don't want to work with, you
| think you're left with highly relevant matches?
| Zetice wrote:
| [dead]
| ezekg wrote:
| I've thought about this too. I tried YC's co-founder matching,
| looking for a co-founder for my current company. But it's all new
| founders (i.e. no experience running or even building a company).
| It's kind of like Indie Hackers -- it's full of wantrepreneurs
| (nothing wrong with that!), with very little entrepreneurs.
|
| There's gotta be a better way.
| dpifke wrote:
| Is your title, "YC co-founder matching is bad", saying that
| https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching is bad? Or is it
| meant as a general complaint about finding a co-founder for YC?
|
| If you've had a bad experience with YC's co-founder matching
| platform, I'd love to hear why you think it's bad. I haven't used
| it, but I've heard OK things about it from folks who have.
|
| If you're suggesting that HN should do something else, in
| addition to--or instead of--YC co-founder matching, what would
| this accomplish that the co-founder matching platform isn't
| currently?
| unusualmonkey wrote:
| I'm curious why the assertion that YC co-founding matching is
| bad?
|
| Anecdotally, I used it, matched with a co-founder, and now the
| business is doing well. I spent nearly a decade looking for the
| right person, and with YC matching found them in a couple of
| months.
| mtmail wrote:
| Such threads exist, but users don't upvote them
|
| "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Feb 2023)"
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34613562)
|
| "Ask HN: Who is looking for a co-founder?"
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34817765)
|
| "Ask HN: Co-Founder? Seeking Co-Founder?"
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34629357)
| bombcar wrote:
| They apply to a small subset, so they'd have to be artificially
| inflated.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think "what are you working on" is pretty much the widest
| possible thread where you can find a cofounder.
| lee101 wrote:
| [dead]
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