News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Ask HN: How to find co-founders by jonnathanson on Monday July 28, 2014 @10:19AM (#8096810)
There's a mental hack I would use in situations like these. Essentially, stop looking for a "cofounder" and start looking for a "collaborator."

Right now you don't have a business, per se. You have a concept. It's an interesting concept, but it doesn't need a cofounder just yet. Turn the concept into a project. Work on any bits and pieces of the project that you can. Go to meetups, bring your idea to a hackathon, and maybe do a Show HN when you've got something tangible. (Something tangible could even be a really interesting blog post about the topic.) All the while, look for collaborators to help out.

The "collaborator" mindset frees you of the mental bottleneck of having to have a cofounder before making progress. It also allows you to work with, and to vet people instead of having a shotgun wedding to the first would-be cofounder you think you get along with.

PG once wrote that a sign of a good team is one that's worked together and knows each other. You can't push a magic button and add five or six years of shared history to any cofounder you meet. But you can get some work experience with collaborators before cofounding a business with one of them. You're looking for someone you can click with over the next five or more years; it's worth a few extra months of scramble in the beginning to find someone great.

Re:Ask HN: How to find co-founders by bbulkow on Monday July 28, 2014 @03:10PM (#8098752)
I also use the "turn it into a project" mental hack. Use your engineering mentality to "break it down" and do one step at a time.

Don't shirk the "who can I sell it to for how much" question, though. That's the common fear/concern of technical guys.

Re:Ask HN: How to find co-founders by meowface on Tuesday July 29, 2014 @09:17AM (#8102021)
I suspect the majority of people who see their startups as a "business" before they see them as a "project" tend to fail, or at least not be very successful.
Re:Ask HN: How to find co-founders by valarauca1 on Monday July 28, 2014 @10:34AM (#8096933)
Understood, this route seems the easiest as it lets me get my feet wet slowly.