A n00bs guide to finding a technical cofounder

Hello! My name is Kat, and I left my tech job 6 months ago to try to start a company. 👋

First item in the backlog was to find a technical cofounder. Here’s why:

• I knew I was bad at working alone
• I wasn’t a very good engineer
• I have some skills and decent judgement, but knew I needed someone to help fill the gaps

It took me ~3 months and 62 engineers to find the right fit. Here’s the breakdown:

I followed a fairly rigorous process and spent ~4–6 hours a day on sourcing and moving candidates through the pipeline. Why?

Your cofounder is the person you’re going to be spending 10–14 hours a day with. 10 to 14 hours. A day. Every day.

…Let that sink in.

Your industry will change. Your ideals will change. The fundraising climate will change. But the only thing that is constant in the startup is you, and your cofounder. Finding your cofounder is THE most important thing to get right (at least in the very beginning).

Here’s the process I followed:

Step 1: Source high quality candidates

The best place to start is your own network. Go to the engineers that you have worked with in the past that you respect and enjoy working with. If they’re not the right fit, ask them if they know anyone that is currently looking.

Here’s the thing — you have to be shameless. Just assume that most people aren’t going to be the right fit. And that’s okay — the only way to find out is to ask. It’s a numbers game.

If you’re feeling awkward about asking your network to source candidates for you, try putting a rewards or incentive in place. Trybounty.io has free tooling to help with this.

The second best place to source is via YC network. I sourced over half of my candidates from their cofounder matching platform & in-person events (which you get invited to by being on their cofounder matching platform).

Step 2: Initial conversation(s)

The purpose of a first conversation is to quickly screen people out. It’s very hard to know if someone is a good fit within 30 minutes, but you can typically tell if you don’t “click” and that it’s a bad fit.

Meeting up in person typically gives you more signal in a condensed amount of time, so if the person was local, I’d suggest a coffee. If meeting up in person wasn’t practical, I’d hop on a ~30 minute zoom call.

If there is a fit, both parties will feel it and the call will either go over 30 minutes, or one or both of you will try to schedule more time before the 30 minutes are up.

If it’s not a fit, move on. Don’t be discouraged if you see a lot of dropoff here. The purpose of the initial conversation is to screen people out.

Step 3: More serious conversation(s)

Okay, so let’s say you think there are people you may want to seriously think about as founding partners. Here’s where you have to talk about the fun things — religion, family, number of kids, etc — but startup version, such as: industry, work hours, communication style, runway & finances.

Yes, this feels like a serious conversation way too fast. Yes, it may feel awkward. But here’s the thing — you MUST be able to have clear, productive, uncomfortable conversations about touchy topics with your cofounder. Think of this as early signal on if this is “the one.”

I would recommend First Found Capital’s 50 Cofounder Dating Questions. Some quick tips:

• Spend ~2 hours separately jotting down answers to these questions first
• Plan for ~3–12 hours of live discussion. You may find it helpful to break this out into chunks, if a full day discussion seems too intimidating to start out with
• It’s okay if you disagree! The whole point of these questions is to poke around and find those things you disagree one. Better to find them now (and resolve them, or move on) than to find things out 6 months down the road.

Step 4: Beta test

Think of step 3 as testing the macro — are you guys aligned on the big questions?

Assuming the answer is “yes” the next thing to test is the micro — what do the day-to-day interactions look like? How does this person make you feel?

The best software beta test is the test that looks the closest to a “real release,” so for this stage I highly suggest behaving as if you are already working together, and are actively testing your best startup ideas.

This means putting up websites, getting on users calls, discussing findings, and building.

In this step I look for two things:

• Someone who I enjoyed spending time with
• Someone who I could disagree effectively with

You may also want to spend some time doing non-work things, such as going on a hike or getting meals and really getting to know each other.

Happy cofounder hunting!

P.S. I have options! How do I choose?

Congrats! Click here for an in-depth guide.

P.P.S. What if I don’t make the right decision?

In my short time as a founder I’ve seen 3 cofounder breakups happen. Cofounding is like meeting someone, getting married, and then immediately having a kid (one that screams 16 hours a day and takes all of your income). Of course people break up.

The recommended approach here is still the same — look within your network first. If you feel like you’ve exhausted your personal network, ask your network to take a good hard look at theirs. You never know where you cofounder might be.

Once again, I’d recommend putting some incentives in place. Your network is busy, so thank them for the extra thought they’re putting into finding YOUR cofounder. Finding the right cofounder is worth it.