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Ask HN: How about a Co-founders Search Site?

3 points by alexwyser ↗ HN
Recently, someone on HN started a HN Contractors spreadsheet so that it becomes easy to find contractors who are here at HN.

I was wondering if anyone would be interested in developing a website around that idea. Only instead of contractors, it would be for findingco-founders.

I was thinking that the site would have two sections.

In one, it would allow people wiling to work for equity to post their skills/resumes.

In the other, it would allow people to post their ideas (say a web app they want to build), and put up requests for developers, designers, etc, who have the necessary skills. And also indicate how much equity s/he would be willing to share with each.

The reason I think this will be good idea is because I am a designer and a very good one at that (my portfolio is at www.alexwyser.com), but I dont have any coding skills. My head is full of all kinds of interesting ideas, but I cannot execute them. If a talented developer(s) would be willing to work with me on my ideas, I would gladly give him/her 80% or more of the equity.

I understand that it is best to find co-founders from among you real-life friends/acquaintances, but some people simply don't know anyone with the right skills.

I am sure that a lot of people here have ideas they can't execute because they lack the skill and don't know anyone with those skills, and would find this site very helpful.

So what do you guys think? Would it work? Is it worth trying out? Would anyone like to work with me to build this website?

11 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 30.4 ms ] thread
vital101
I think that it's an interesting idea. But why wouldn't someone just put out a call for co-founders on Hacker News like you just did?
alexwyser
They could, but its only OK if one or two people do it. If everyone looking for a cofounder comes to HN, they would ruin this sites usefulness in terms of getting "news".
david927
People are loathe to register the ideas they're working on, for obvious reasons. Here are a couple sites that I know of:

http://findmycofounder.com

http://programmermeetdesigner.com

alexwyser
That's why the site would have a section that lists all the programmers, so the entrepreneurs can contact them directly instead of posting their idea.

Those who post their ideas will find potential "matches" faster though.

http://programmermeetdesigner.com doesnt have a good userbase to be useful enough.

http://findmycofounder.com seems to be one-half of what I'm talking about. I havent used it so I dont know how good it is.

Somehow I think that a site that is launched by the HN Community would be perfect for this.

bgnm2000
I think you should learn to code. Check out ruby, and ROR - pretty easy to pick up.
alexwyser
It takes way too long to learn a language well enough to make anything decent.

Plus I am a designer, so I use the wrong side of the brain :) While I find the end result of programming very interesting, I find the process of programming (and learning it) extremely boring.

bgnm2000
Thats a ridiculous thing to say.

I know someone who learned ruby, and rails in 6 months, built an app - and was part of techstars boston last year.

I also am personally a UI designer professionally, I taught myself ruby and rails in much less than 6 months, and have also built two apps already.

Its nice being able to bring your designs to life, can't help you with the boring thing, I like math/problem solving so it keeps me entertained.

alexwyser
Can you tell how you managed to learn it in 6 months. What tutorials did you follow? What books did you read? In what order?
symbiotic
You might want to check out: http://builditwith.me/

I posted an idea on there a while back and got several responses from interested developers and designers.

In the end I decided that I wanted to work with someone who I could meet face to face and who I had a previous relationship with. I think it's hard to set this type of thing up through a website.

alexwyser
Interesting...this is exactly what I was looking for, its exactly what I outline, and its design is top-notch as well. I always thought that a site like this would be very popular, I guess I was wrong...
Serene
A few more sites that help to find co-founders:

http://founderdating.com/ http://startupsquare.com/

Why don't you start a meetup group like this one? http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/ Briefings from the meetings: http://aurametrix.blogspot.com/2010/03/bay-area-startups-loo... http://aurametrix.blogspot.com/2009/11/bay-area-startups-loo...

If you want to build something similar to what already exists, you will be able to do it by yourself. If you want to create something like e-Harmony - matching people based on demographic, educational, job history, psychological and behavioral characteristics and their encounters, feeding gigabytes of data into sophisticated models on a daily basis, think about measurable expectations before proceeding.