A Guide to Finding Awesome Co-Founders

If you're chasing the startup dragon, one of the most important decisions to make will be choosing the right co-founder(s). Here are some extremely valuable lessons that I wish I would've known years ago: Co-founder dating and finding success by partnering with the right people.

• Increase awareness and attract more potential co-founders.
• Reach out to your existing network.
• LinkedIn, former colleagues, existing advisors, etc.
• Join related communities - the more niche the better - and engage with people.
• Explore accelerator, incubator, and startup programs.
• Consideration.

• Open up your DMs and prep your calendars.
• The main goal of this phase is to get a feel for each other and to ensure that you're aligned on what I refer to as hard constraints.
• A hard constraint is a factor which is a must-have for you to work together.
• Soft constraints are factors which are nice to have but not deal breakers.

Only want to partner with co-founders who have a strong intrinsic motivation to work on the same problem, space, and target audience. Ask the following questions:

• How much equity are you both expecting?
• Are you looking to raise VC or bootstrap?
• What's your timeline? What are your expectations on full-time vs part-time?
• Are you open to joining an accelerator / incubator?
• What type of company do you want to build in 5 years?
• Would this person make a great employee or an advisor or co-founder, etc.?
• Does this person have a solid understanding of how the game works?

• You need to trust this person to have your back no matter what.
• Would I be excited to hang out with this person outside of work?
• Does this person have an ego? Is this person genuinely interested in getting to know you? Is there a conflict of interest?

• Soft constraints that are not deal-breakers.
• complementary skillsets.
• good background on paper.
• solid network access to funding.
• geographical location.

Don’t deviate too far from these broad strokes.

Remember that joining hands as co-founders is an important decision.

• Put together and share some initial thoughts & research ahead of time.
• Immediately stand out from any other networking meetings they're having.
• Set the tone upfront that you know what you're talking about, that you care about this space, and that you value their time.

The main goal of this phase is to get a feel for how well you work together in practice, what your respective roles might end up being, and whether you like spending time with this person.

Scoping out a few time-boxed project ideas will give you a sense of the other person's proactiveness. You can ask yourself:

Is this person proactive or are you leading the way?

• The final stage of the co-founder dating process is actually joining together as partners.
• You make a commitment to building a company together.

Are you confident that you can trust them to have your back when nobody else does?

If you can answer this question in the positive then you can take a leap of faith and make a go of things together.