How do you find a co-founder you trust?

Question

I&rsquo;m a former CTO, good at tech and product stuff, but newbie with sales prospection, growth, and many other areas.I think the new idea I have worked on recently could have a great potentiel, but I know I can&rsquo;t execute it all by myself, as it&rsquo;s not an &ldquo;indie&rdquo; project, based on the quantity of tasks and diversity of skills required.I have previous experience as a founder, in which I tried to find a business co-founder after working one whole year on the project. It was a mistake for many reasons, and I don&rsquo;t want to repeat it.For now, I&rsquo;m struggling to find the right way to find the co-founder I need. I&rsquo;m hesitating between two opposite ways of searching for: 1. Browse people I know (friends, former colleagues, etc.) who would accept to create a startup with me. I trust them with human qualities, but most of the time, they are not the right professional profile for the tasks to be done. 2. Go to speed-dating-like events with strangers to find the right professional profile. But that way, I&rsquo;m always thinking I can&rsquo;t know and trust someone I just met.I have a deep feeling it would be a mistake to start a business with someone I can&rsquo;t trust on both professional and personal skills. Do I sound like a risk-averse person? Do you think the problem is that my network is too small? Should I give up my startup idea and find a smaller project to work on, as an indie dev instead? Am I missing other better ideas?All experience sharing would be appreciated, thanks!

codegeek · Accepted Answer

Co-founders are like spouses. You can figure a few things out together as you go along but if you don't have basic trust and mutual respect along with common goals for life/business, you will fail.
I personally don't think it has to be someone you already know BUT it definitely is easier to start there. Sometimes you get lucky and it just clicks with someone you just met but most likely you want to co-found a company with someone you have worked with before IN a professional setting and not just personal.
I have many friends whom I mutually trust and respect and they are even good at their jobs BUT they are not entrepreneurial and they will never be a good fit for me. So there is that also.

boublepop · Answer

The people you know and trust is a largely random sampling with no pressure on the relationship. The &ldquo;a computer randomly assigned us the same room in college&rdquo;-trope is real, and none of your close personal friends have ever been faced with the trolley problem of &ldquo;pull the lever and you friend gets ruined but you collect 10 million&rdquo;We all lean towards hoping the people we know can develop the profile we need, but I wager it&rsquo;s a better bet finding the profile you need, and then accepting that you need contracts in place and can&rsquo;t rely on &ldquo;I trust the person, they wouldn&rsquo;t screw me over.&rdquo;

achow · Answer

Antler kind of VC/Accelerator are there to solve for exactly this..
We select the world’s most brilliant and determined people, help them find the right co-founder, validate their business model, connect them to a top tier network of advisors and experts worldwide, and invest in them. https://www.antler.co/about
There are more such operators, you have to look which are within your proximity.

max_ · Answer

I had the exact same problem until i found a maxim in Ray Dalio's Principles.
The maxim is, "Have good structures in place, and you won't need to worry about the trust of others"
A good "structure" means have a proper legal and adminstrative setup.
Basically, clearly outline the worse case scenarios that your partner, co-founder, employees may display then, make it upfront on how you will deal with it i.e the consequences

joshxyz · Answer

All comments here make sense but check yourself mate if you really need a cofounder to launch this thing (sometimes you just need employees), and it could be anxiety that's hindering you in executing effectively on this. It's a lot of accountability to be a solo founder yes, but a cofounder isnt the only option, maybe a better process or approach is out there.

disrael · Answer

I think you should relax the business oriented requirement for your co-founder and just focus on finding another person, with any skill set, that you trust.It's not that you are risk averse it's that you are learning other areas averse. You need that co-founder because its a big idea but you may also need to get out of your personal comfort zone.

devoutsalsa · Answer

In my experience, you may be having trouble finding some excited about your specific idea. One way to proceed would be to get started as best you can, and set aside a big chunk of the company. When you have a little bit of traction, and someone can see it, it&rsquo;s easier for them to see the company as viable. A friend of mine raised a Series A and later recruited a founding developer who got like 30% or 40% of the company. When I founded my company & was fortunate to find someone of cofounder caliber who was looking for a regular job, I hired them & soon have them 40% of the company and made them my cofounder. In my case, they weren&rsquo;t passionate about my idea because they didn&rsquo;t really get it at first, but that changed after working together.

mooreds · Answer

I'd go with option 1. People can learn skills, especially at the level required by an early stage startup. But trust takes a lot longer to find.You don't sound extremely risk averse, just like someone who's been through a startup and wants to make different mistakes.

BrandiATMuhkuh · Answer

My Co-founder and I met at a startup weekend. The nice things about those events is, you get people from tech, sales, management, etc. into one "room". And during the weekend you can observe their skills and behaviour under stress.

simonross · Answer

If you are interested I'm looking for a technical lead with a project for ready to go. hit me up simonross936@gmail.com