Ask HN: How do you find a Business Partner?

On the flip side, I'm a developer looking for someone similar as well. So I'd be interested to know the answer as well.

My luck has been fairly decent - my friends are in some form of graphic design but I haven't truly found someone who can hack it up with me either.

Check out meetup.com for tech and entrepreneurship events. Don't worry if the specific topics don't interest you 100% because the point is to network. Go to as many as you can and introduce yourself to people, join conversations, take their business cards, follow up the next day and get involved.

You don't want to partner with someone you haven't met so get out there and say hello.

You can start with me if you like. My email is in my profile so feel free to drop me an email and stay in touch.

There are enough NY tech-related events and meetups each week that you could be networking just about every single day if you wanted to.

Conferences. I found my current partner at a Barcamp. He was pitching an idea I liked but which had many flaws. I explained him the flaws I saw, convinced him to change & now we're building the product together. He's the hustler, I'm the hacker.

You live in NYC? Go to hacker/startup meetups. Easy.

Most of the comments here are completely right. Meetups are the best way to meet people. Here are a few I'd suggest that I think are good for young people / college students involved in tech: * NY Tech Meetup's NY Tech Student Mingle (posted individually on Anyvite each time; the first Tuesday of every month) * Hackers and Founders NYC

Startup Digest (thestartupdigest.com) is a great rundown of events going on weekly - if you're a student, I'd subscribe to the NYC, Tech@NYU, and Columbia lists to get events that are relevant to students.

I'm building a bootstrapped start-up, and we need a designer with a start-up building mindset. I'm not in NY, but would be interested in at least chatting and seeing what you can do.

contact me @ levi@scoreyard.com when you have time.

Does anyone live in a small town in the middle of no-where (Iowa)?

How do you find people who you can bounce ideas off of?

Is the best thing to do start a blog and build a reader base to bounce ideas off of?

You should probably attend this event in NYC later this month: "Find a co-founder Night II" http://www.eroundtable.net/2010/07/07/find-a-co-founder-nigh...

I launched my company alone. My partner read about it in a magazine article.

If you have the gumption to go it alone, you may be able to attract a partner more easily down the road; traction has a way of turning heads and opening doors :)

Find someone that you can trust. I've worked with family in the past. They tend to be more on the up and up. Friends can be good if you are both committed to the same goal. As for finding a stranger I would attempt to cultivate a relationship first before committing to becoming partners.

Theres a huge NYC startup scene that exists and continues to develop. You should definitely come out to hackers and founders. During the summer we meet up at shake shack in Madison Square Park around 6pm on the last Thursday of every month. The crowd there is mainly people who have startups or want to be involved with one. Really solid group of smart people. A healty mix of business folks and developers. Almost never any media or sales people. I personally have made excellent contacts there and even some friends.

http://twitter.com/hackersfounders

Since you're designer / programmer, you need a great salesman as your business partner.

I don't think you can go searching for your –first- business partner in the sense you are looking for. I would suggest putting together a few ideas (at least 3 very different ideas) of what type of business you would like to start. Once you have a good grasp of where you would like to go then figure out what skill sets are needed to get there and the level of capital resources it will take to do it on your own. After this you will be able to see what you 'bring to the table' and what is missing. Take this information and start becoming a social butterfly at as many entrepreneur style events as possible. To be frank, my first real 'business partner' and I met online many years ago when we were both looking at doing similar things within a large online community. We started chatting and realized that each party had the skills / assets the other was lacking. Do not be afraid to share your ideas with others as that will only help you find those who have similar interest. In the same light do not take rejection, or the inability of one to understand your idea, as a sign that what you believe is wrong.

builditwith.me

you may not like this answer, but working in the tech industry is probably the best way to meet great people. you need to be in a trust relationship with people to start a company.

Here are some of my random ideas:

On your reggi.com site, make it into a blog (Wordpress is simple) about yourself and some aspect of tech that you are interested in.

Add some personal pics to the blog of your workspace, your pets and yourself so people know who you are. Let people add comments to your blog. Maybe add a short video of yourself to the blog.

Go to a tech conference in your area and just try to make friends with a people. You never who will know who, but it never hurts to have people know you.

We know you in here. Maybe if you were more visible online pics, etc..., maybe you will find the business partner you're looking for in here.

One I went to high school with, another I found at TechStars for a Day, another was a designer I worked with on another and the final one I knew through a blogging network from when I was like 12 and we recently connected in the past few years.

Any pointers for people who live in Europe?