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Ask HN: How did you find your co-founder?

10 points by fourstar ↗ HN
Currently trying to find a co-founder for a product that I’ve built and brought traffic to.

Struggling to find a co-founder especially considering all the work and money I’ve invested in it already. Aka: I’d have a hard time giving up half equity to.

21 comments

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p1esk
What are you offering exactly?
fourstar
I mean I built the entire product, paid for content creation and continue to do so, and continue to add features. But I’d like to have a co-founder as someone to bounce ideas off of and generally be around to help grow the business.
p1esk
Well, if you expect them to work for free, on your idea, then I personally would not agree to anything less than 50%. Almost all startups fail, so I'd be buying a (very expensive) lottery ticket. Keep in mind that I could be working on my own idea instead if I could afford it. Very few ideas are attractive enough to persuade me to join.

But if you're ready to offer some salary (even if just 50% of the market rate), then of course 50% equity would be too generous.

dmarlow
Who said you had to give half?
fourstar
No one, but I’d anticipate most would request close to that.
mooreds
Have you actually proven this hypothesis. I know of at least two instances where a co-founder got less than half when joining at a very early stage.
fourstar
What do you recommend? I’ve built the site from scratch and spent almost 20k on content creation.
mooreds
I think you have to find a couple of possible co-founders, evaluate who you want and who wants to join, and have a frank discussion with them about an equity split.

It's really hard to recommend in the general because you might find a co-founder who brings so much to the table (money, skills, relationships, experience) that they deserve 50% or more) and you might find one that only brings technical skills in which case the amount might be much much less (15-35%).

It's really all a negotiation, but you can't figure it out until you know who is interested in joining. Maybe no one will be and all this discussion will be for naught.

fourstar
Thanks for the insight! Reached out to an old friend and I’m now shilling him. Wish me luck ;)
thiago_fm
I have no problem getting <40% if you have traction and a great idea. I bring a loooooot of experience and great things. I also believe there is a bunch of people here that wouldn't mind and think the same way.

Is it a problem really with 50% equity, or your idea/product?

You can as well be meeting the wrong people.

softwarefounder
Why do you need a co-founder?
fourstar
To kick ideas off of, mainly.
mooreds
Pay a coach. That'll be much cheaper.
muzani
I've had both. Coaches are great - the main reason we hit PMF within 2 weeks.

But sometimes you need someone emotionally invested in it. Cofounders are much better. They don't necessarily have to have 50% share. I'd be happy to take on someone whose sole purpose is to be the customer surrogate and give them a 20% share.

My cofounder helped to keep a leash on me doing really dumb things. All good entrepreneurs are relentless, and a cofounder helps to keep it in perspective. Also a cofounder adds their network, and my minority share co-founder landed the acquisition.

mooreds
Totally get that co-founders and coaches provide different levels of perspective. But if, as the parent of my comment said, all you are looking for is "[t]o kick ideas off of" someone, just get a coach or a mentor. Co-founders should help with everything, including execution.
fourstar
Guess I need a few co-founders. A designer/product person and perhaps another engineer so I can focus more on operations.
albertkoz
In that case you might get advisors. Many/most of the startups get advisors, people that get some small % of the shares (usually under 2%) to bounce the ideas with.

If you let co-founder in you are not only sharing % of the company but also vision. Getting co-founder is like getting married, if you struggle to find someone you know and trust maybe it's better to stick with advisor for now.

mooreds
Angelist was how my co-founder found me. It came via an email. No idea if it cost money. She'd been looking for a few months for a technical co-founder to take the idea from PowerPoint/manual prototype to MVP.

There was a vetting process (on both sides, it's like getting married!) including a technical interview.

Equity was a difficult conversation, but better to set it out at the beginning. Lots of calculators out there via Google that can help provide perspective. Make sure you vest over years. (We did a 6 month/6 month/every month for 36 months schedule.)

Also, why do you need a cofounder? What are they going to bring to the table?

muzani
I bought a business ebook from a guy. He added me on Facebook. He was really smart. He brought in a lot of trading experience. I had startup experience which he was interested in. We clicked well.

I still did a lot of the hard work and money, gave him only a minority share. He was okay with that. Later on, I added a much larger share when he proved he could commit.

We made good, ambitious progress. I'm surprised he stuck with me through it all, especially since I didn't really know him that well. There were times he canceled his health insurance and slept on the office floor to keep things going.

Personally, I think partners who are strangers work better than good friends but YMMV.