I'm not convinced the model of online cofounder matching works at all. Cofounding is like getting married, a website for finding cofounders is like a dating website for people who want to urgently get married.
You're much better off developing these sort of relationships organically. A good place to start is at events like Startup Weekend / Launch48.
There's great value in the startup weekends, but they're mostly for brand new ideas.
Agree about organic matching, but think most people are in full time jobs or freelancers needing payment, so it's very difficult to pitch to everyone - especially if you want non-tech people onboard i.e. one of my ideas requires someone with events management/promotion experience, another would benefit from someone in estate agency.
I think it's always going to be a hard process, and may involve quite a bit of collaboration as well as the initial cofounders. And perhaps even a change of cofoudners as people's situations change later down the line.
The value of Startup Weekends isn't in build a new startup from scratch (very few startup ideas that originate at SW last past the weekend), but rather from the fact that you spend a weekend working closely against a deadline with people who are potential cofounders. You get a much better feel (both at a personal and at a professional level) of someone from working with them over a weekend on something random than from a networking event.
Comments
I'm not convinced the model of online cofounder matching works at all. Cofounding is like getting married, a website for finding cofounders is like a dating website for people who want to urgently get married.
You're much better off developing these sort of relationships organically. A good place to start is at events like Startup Weekend / Launch48.
There's great value in the startup weekends, but they're mostly for brand new ideas.
Agree about organic matching, but think most people are in full time jobs or freelancers needing payment, so it's very difficult to pitch to everyone - especially if you want non-tech people onboard i.e. one of my ideas requires someone with events management/promotion experience, another would benefit from someone in estate agency.
I think it's always going to be a hard process, and may involve quite a bit of collaboration as well as the initial cofounders. And perhaps even a change of cofoudners as people's situations change later down the line.
The value of Startup Weekends isn't in build a new startup from scratch (very few startup ideas that originate at SW last past the weekend), but rather from the fact that you spend a weekend working closely against a deadline with people who are potential cofounders. You get a much better feel (both at a personal and at a professional level) of someone from working with them over a weekend on something random than from a networking event.