
Show HN: FoundersList – Looking for a cofounder or a new startup to work on? - philipcamilleri
https://founderslist.com/cofounders
======
Taek
Question for HN: I cannot imagine starting a company with a stranger. There
are so many intense moments, points of extreme trust, and ways for things to
go wrong, so much passion, and so much blending of self and company, that I
wouldn't ever feel comfortable embarking with someone that I didn't know
incredibly well as a cofounder.

Are there reasons to believe that starting with a stranger as a cofounder will
generally work out well if you can pick the stranger carefully?

~~~
tmpz22
Devils advocate, Tinder ends with plenty of long term relationships.
Ultimately much of founderdom is a crap shoot because you never know what your
partner will turn into three years from now with money on the table. Truly
obvious good founders who have lots of experience or proven connections are
few and far between such that for the average startup rolling the dice may be
just as effective as picking your best friend.

~~~
eloff
This is more like if you married the first person who agreed to go out with
you on tinder.

Which is probably a petty lousy idea.

I don't see how starting a company with a stranger is going to have better
results. There will always be exceptions, but it seems like a bad idea.

~~~
lukifer
I don't think the idea is to pick someone at random; it's more like speed
dating, where you check for initial chemistry and aligned interests, and then
decide if you want to take it further. Maybe you even do some due diligence
and check references.

You're perhaps incurring more risk, compared to a friend/colleague you've
known for 10 years; but then, there may also be a reward in connecting with a
talented mind who you wouldn't've otherwise. (And it's not as though startups
with close friends can't also go south in very ugly ways.)

~~~
eloff
I'm not saying it can't work, or that starting a startup with an old friend
can't fail. But I know which one I'd bet on. So do VCs.

------
synchronizing
Interesting idea with likely unwanted consequences. Browsed it for 10 minutes
and it seems the vast majority of posts are "looking for technical co-founder
to program my idea."

~~~
generalpass
Similarly:

Cofounders looking for salesperson to work for commission only.

~~~
gnicholas
I think this idea actually has a better chance of working, for a couple
reasons:

• There is less risk in starting the relationship. You're not divvying up
shares in a company or even paying a fixed salary. The only thing you stand to
lose is the time spent figuring out the comp structure

• Founders don't have to open up quite as much about the business, and worry
that their idea will be stolen/copied. This is partly because founders seeking
salespeople will be further along (alpha version or later), and partly because
there's less of a fear that a salesperson will start a copycat company than an
engineer (because of skills, not intrinsic honesty).

~~~
generalpass
> I think this idea actually has a better chance of working, for a couple
> reasons:

> • There is less risk in starting the relationship. You're not divvying up
> shares in a company or even paying a fixed salary. The only thing you stand
> to lose is the time spent figuring out the comp structure

> • Founders don't have to open up quite as much about the business, and worry
> that their idea will be stolen/copied. This is partly because founders
> seeking salespeople will be further along (alpha version or later), and
> partly because there's less of a fear that a salesperson will start a
> copycat company than an engineer (because of skills, not intrinsic honesty).

For a salesperson you want to work with, they are making minimum $15k per
month. Why are they even going to talk to you when you aren't offering equity
or money? Do you think that cold-calling is fun-time?

~~~
gnicholas
It's not about cold-calling, it's about monetizing your network. If you have
experience and contacts in an industry, and a startup offers you 30%
commission on the revenue you bring in, it could be worth the time to see if
you can make valuable connections for them. This is especially true if you're
not tied to a full-time schedule with them — you could literally do this while
still working another job.

~~~
generalpass
> It's not about cold-calling, it's about monetizing your network. If you have
> experience and contacts in an industry, and a startup offers you 30%
> commission on the revenue you bring in, it could be worth the time to see if
> you can make valuable connections for them. This is especially true if
> you're not tied to a full-time schedule with them — you could literally do
> this while still working another job.

So, the salesperson should risk losing a contact (and an account) for...
nothing?

~~~
gnicholas
How do you lose a contact by seeing if they’re interested in a new
product/service?

~~~
generalpass
> How do you lose a contact by seeing if they’re interested in a new
> product/service?

From the perspective of the prospect, the salesperson is making a
recommendation. If the startup fails to deliver, then it can cause a lot of
problems in the relationship.

~~~
gnicholas
Sure, you'd want to make sure you don't over-promise, and of course the buyer
would realize they're buying from a startup (and presumably getting a discount
as an early adopter). Anyway, my point is just that this sort of matching
service could work out in some circumstances, and it is in some ways easier
than trying to match founders who are sharing equity.

~~~
generalpass
> Sure, you'd want to make sure you don't over-promise, and of course the
> buyer would realize they're buying from a startup (and presumably getting a
> discount as an early adopter). Anyway, my point is just that this sort of
> matching service could work out in some circumstances, and it is in some
> ways easier than trying to match founders who are sharing equity.

The point of parent of this thread is that developers tend to receive very
unreasonable requests from people wanting to start companies and are not
developers, and I am demonstrating that there are other professions that
receive the same treatment from the developers.

------
werber
Does anyone know of something similar for matching technical people with non
profits? I’m suddenly filled with free time and want to find a non profit with
short term technical needs. Ideally looking to help lgbtq organizations if
that helps

~~~
kristopolous
At least before its acquisition, grindr had its hand in a bunch of non-profit
tech stuff.

I don't know if they consolidated it to a specific website. The times I ran
into them, they were focused on homeless lgbt (they thought some app would
help) and other kinds of public health initiatives involving racism,
transphobia, safe spaces, all that ... don't assume the attitude of the users
on the platform reflect that of the company, they seemed to be pretty
upstanding. [1]

It looked like they had an extensive network. You could probably reach out to
them over a general email address ...

\---

[1] this isn't uncommon. LA Weekly and Village Voice used to do good, well
financed local journalism but most of the funding came from backpage, a site
where sex workers advertised. Browsing for a night a thrills financed
reporters covering city council meetings, really.

~~~
anticsapp
I never knew grindr did that, that's awesome.

------
davedx
Well I think this is great, and some of the posts are from startups that
actually have a MVP already built, with founders who have decent credentials.
There's also some fun moonshots in there like this one:
[https://founderslist.com/cofounders/view/80](https://founderslist.com/cofounders/view/80)

If you're in SF or already part of the startup/VC community this website
probably isn't for you. But for thousands of entrepreneurial minded,
experienced people who just need a partner, this is a great resource. (Of
course caveats apply! But don't they always? If you're joining/founding a
startup nobody will do your due diligence but you!)

Thanks for posting, and I will be going through some of the posts with great
interest.

------
lend000
If you are fortunate enough to have some capital in this crisis, what better
opportunity will you have in your life to start a company? A significant
amount of incumbents (a.k.a. your competition) will be wiped out or have
reduced market share when the economy starts back up, and there will be unique
challenges and opportunities in the post-covid world.

------
briggsly
This feels more PlentyofFish rather than Tinder.

Is there more of a tinder version? Just dump two people into a shared video
chat and pair programming session to just start building something with
someone?

Not code-roulette, but paired like founders list here. Just less reading and
more connecting.

Or a shared repl, Jupyter notebook, or Google doc/sheet/slides for collab.

Anything closer to something like that exist?

~~~
wegymoo
theres shapr [https://shapr.co/](https://shapr.co/) which is sort of similar
to what your describing (the tinder part not the code notebooks)

------
darekkay
Something similar [1] (but rather for side projects) was posted here on HN a
few days ago.

[1] [https://redsand.io/](https://redsand.io/)

------
gatkinso
Founder seeking co-founder to found founding funding finder for other
Founders. Have found several other promising Founders but still have not found
what I'm trying to find.

~~~
quickthrower2
Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

~~~
david_w
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Bisons hailng from Buffalo, N.Y. confuse confound and befuddle more of their
own kind.

~~~
quickthrower2
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.

Those bullied N.Y. buffalo take their rage out on the general buffalo
population.

Did you set me up for that? :-)

~~~
david_w
Not parsing it quickthrower2. I get two possible parses:

Bisons (Buffalo) bewilder (buffalo) Buffalo bisons (Buffalo bisons) confuse
(buffalo) annoy (buffalo) and vexate (buffalo) other bisons (buffalo).

But that is not grammatical.

Neither is my second parse:

Bisons from Buffalo (Buffalo buffalo) Bisons from Buffalo (Buffalo buffalo)
confuse (buffalo) and vexate (buffalo) other bisons (buffalo).

Am I missing it?

You can do this: Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Which is like my first post except each alternative definition of buffalo
(confuse, annoy, vexate) is included using the word buffalo in its stead.

But that's just gratuitous.

