I've been experiencing the same issue and going at it for 4 yrs so I know your pain. Originally from Canada but am now based in Europe so happy to talk things through.

Finding a co-founder is hard. Finding a good co-founder is even harder. It's less about the product and more about the motivations for wanting to build something on their own. I reckon you'll need to dig deeper into the whys of someone wanting to start a business.

Money. And mission? Probably get some VC investment, build a good demo / website / get some customers and then sell the person on being an employee. For a co-founder, someone reliable from your social circles you met while working in software over the last decade?

Money: at this point whatever I can personally invest. Nothing more, nothing less. And while my paycheck is good by most people's standards, it's nowhere nearly enough to hire anyone qualified.

Mission: there is one. Vision-same story. Despite the treacherous possibility of contributing to an "idiocracy" type of dystopia.

VC is definitely a goal but as I stated, it's too much work for a single man to handle. And most importantly the website is where I would definitely fail: I can write a tacotron 2 implementation from scratch in less than two days. Make any website that looks better than 1998 yahoo(due to my lack of design skills) - possibly months.

As for my social circles - they are all too comfortable in their own world to deal with anything other than their daily jobs. As I said, they would all much rather waste their time on Tinder and Facebook rather than work on something that could benefit them. And it was the same story when I looked for people outside, even when I threw cash at them(understand freelancers).

#1 - Well my first thought when reading this is you sound pompous, full of yourself, and hard to work with. This is a quick read but are you sure the problem is not you?

I ask that seriously and say it harshly to get your attention, have you taken a hard look at your vibe and yourself?

#2 - What skills are you specifically missing to build a product? Design? People? Customer development? If you could build the perfect co-founder what do they look like?

Pompous and full of myself? Not at all. Having high expectations and expecting people to do things right - absolutely. Even if that means taking 3 times as much time. Which has worked marvelously for me and everyone around me. It took me a lot of fights with the top management but eventually they saw the results and are now more than willing to accept longer deadlines. But since I work in the same office as 200 other developers, most of which are presumably the cream of the crop, I am unable to justify the lack of motivation in either of them to engage with anything. I see tons of people who are more than happy to do a small task and waste away 4 or 5 hours a day on facebook. On a personal level that makes me absolutely furious. But a lot of them are happy with it since they get to do very little and get a few grand at the end of the month for it. And it appears to be common with everyone I've ever met.

Skills - at this point I'm definitely struggling with design and UI/UX. The only man besides me has similar experience as mine. As I said, I'm fine with hiring freelancers but my experience with them has been similar: Clear requirements, deadline and name your price and I've never questioned it. 4 people have taken the challenge so far(a single html page, no animations, or anything flashy-clean and simple), I didn't get a single question or feedback from them, 1 month later I go to the freelancer mediator to get my money back. As much as $3500. It's absolutely hopeless.

I agree with the statement that tech people are generally lazy but in recent years it has become worse. I honestly would take anyone that would put a minimal amount of his/her time at this stage. I'm that desperate.

I am not sure if you are hearing yourself :), you basically spit back exactly what I am warning you about. Your attitude sounds like "everyone is lazy and wastes their time and does low quality work... except for me..."

Have you ever dated someone who has that type of attitude? Someone will stick with you for a week and then leave because it is toxic. I don't know you but that is how your messages are coming off.

If all you need is a designer and UI this should be no problem. There are tons out there. Just go on https://dribbble.com/ and find someone you like and hire them.

I am not sure what you are trying to build, but build something that doesn't need UI/UX is an option too.

Of course, this raises the issue that many startup accelerators/programs want companies with multiple founders to invest in, and are more hesitant to invest in individuals (Y Combinator heavily discouraged solo founders in the past for example). So they need money to attract people, but a team to attract money.

So how do people get past this chicken and egg situation?

You are not alone. It is really difficult to find cofounders who are really interested. Most people lack the perseverance required to see a product shaping up.

Ping me on twitter and let's connect!

There’s no contact details in your profile, email me if you wanna grab a Skype call just for intros