burneristoast

I think it's highly likely that you're going to run into problems if you don't know in advance which people are probably cool with it.

The Bay Area is incredibly fucking square. Square square square. An outspoken contingent of people here like to talk a good talk about their openness, but it's a facade that belongs to a constellation of myths people like to believe about themselves.

I would avoid run-of-the-mill hoi polloi "startup founders" and all associated professional/networking events like the plague. Some of them have their heads so far up their assess that they will take zero interest in what you do for a living and never even ask, but a lot of them are nosy as fuck and will make it really hard for you to cleanly maintain the veneer of whatever you've decided you're going to say about what you do. A lot of the nosiness is driven by egoic insecurity and class politics.

Every person I know who I could guarantee would be cool with it is super wealthy-- most of them 8 figures+ net worth. Your priority should be meeting them. They can help you navigate the square waters and figure out where, and with whom, it's safe to be real. If you want an intro to some of those people I could probably help you out. As a last resort-- and I hate to say this-- join The Battery but avoid everyone under the age of 40 or so.

Edit to add: wealth managers will be helpful for making connections to the right people. Networking with them is an easy "in." Most will want to know you even if they don't think you'll let them manage your money.

All things being equal I would certainly prefer to just hire, but beggars can't be choosers. Ironically, I ended up bootstrapping the business because I could not find a technical co-founder in the early days. As a "non-technical founder" in the Bay Area without an educational or product management pedigree it's damn near impossible to find a technical co-founder because no one trusts that you aren't a slave-driving leech. And if you can't assemble a founding team it becomes almost impossible to raise more than 5 figures or be accepted to an incubator.

I am potentially looking for a co-founder but am not entirely sure if it would be a good idea. I own a fledgling revenue-oriented transactional SaaS startup in a niche. Volume is low, margins are high, acquisition prospects are good if we can get rolling. Bootstrapped, started as a side project a couple years ago. Have a web app in production but finding good talent and financing the development has been challenging. Most contractors either price out of my budget or get cold feet about learning their way around the somewhat complex code base. Right now operating without a developer at all. Have some customers and a highly lucrative partnership in the final stages of negotiation (worth as much as $40K/week) but it's unlikely I'll be able to close on the deal if I can't line up some ongoing dev help. On one hand, I'm committed to seeing this through by whatever means necessary. On the other hand I have a bit of a sunk cost problem and am not sure, given the amount of work and money that has gone into the product thus far (and modest angel investment), that I could reasonably part with enough equity to interest a "co-founder." About me: tons of domain experience and contacts, highly product-focused, self-taught developer (have written reasonably large portions of the code base for tasks that I'm capable of coding well).