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Nika

How do you find co-founders (and figure out if they’re a good fit)?

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The more visible I become on platforms, the more opportunities I receive (not just sponsored ones).


Quite often, people reach out saying they’re looking for a marketing co-founder.

And practically every month, there’s someone with “another revolutionary idea,” “the next big thing,” “a multimillion or multibillion-dollar business”… but then you never hear about them again.

Maybe something is wrong with me, but so far no one has been able to convince me (maybe because I’m very selective). But also maybe because:

  1. their idea doesn’t really grab me (or it’s outside my field and interests)

  2. they don’t have any past track record or success rate

  3. they don’t present any strategic plan or explain how they’ll execute the vision

If you were getting similar requests, what criteria would you use to decide whether to join?
Maybe a better question is: What do you look for in founders and their idea before becoming a co-founder?

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Aleksandar Blazhev

Great topic again, Nika!

I also get proposals quite often, and I usually break things down into two aspects:

  • what I want to achieve materially from a given project

  • and what I want to achieve beyond the material side

I think both matter. On one hand, you naturally want some kind of financial or tangible reward to feel satisfied. On the other, you also want something more: learning, proving something to yourself, contributing to a community, solving a real problem.

That’s the first question I try to answer for myself. After that, it’s all about the co-founder’s personality. There’s a concept in startup/business circles called a “nutshell agreement” (a short 1–2 page doc), where each person answers the key questions about working together: goals, motivation, how decisions are made when you disagree, how you communicate, your main focus for the next X months, whether the company will be bootstrapped or VC-funded, etc. A document like that helps you quickly see if you’re aligned on most things. For me, it’s important that my partner shares the same values.

Then you look at what each person brings to the table:

  1. intellectual capital

  2. financial capital

  3. who will actually drive things operationally

For example, it’s not great if both of you only bring intellectual capital, but neither wants to handle execution or invest money. A better setup is one person contributing more financially, another being the “brain,” and at least one of you acting as the driver.

So when you’re getting “yes, yes, yes” on all of these, then you give it a shot. In the end, practice is the best test of whether you’re good partners. But if you’re misaligned from the start or can’t answer these questions clearly, the partnership is basically doomed.

P.S. I’m still one of the people who’d love to build something with you. Haven’t given up on us being co-founders yet. xD

Nika

@byalexai I didn't know about the nutshell agreement, so I again learned something new.

And agree on every aspect. With each project, especially my own, I want to learn something new, but when I invest time in someone else's project, I want to achieve results as fast as possible, so in this case, I try to operate with the knowledge and skills I already have.

Mikita Aliaksandrovich

For me it’s the person first - and strong complementarity.
I’d want a co-founder who’s really great in the areas where I’m weaker.
That + consistency and real execution matters way more than just a big idea.

Nika

@mikita_aliaksandrovich This is a w*t dream of every co-founder :D

Ashraf Mahmoud
I'm still new here and figuring things out. I suppose I'm a founder that could potentially use a marketing co-founder. But, a mentor to give me direction or advice would be more helpful. I built my product over the last 5 years. I use it almost every time I open my phone. The product is for anyone that has an android phone. I see it as a product that should sell, not as the seed for a startup. It turns out building is easier than selling for me, lol. I've finalized my latest version of the app for my upcoming launch. But, I've already come up with and started working on the next feature. I'm working on putting together my launch. I'm hoping for the best but feel I could use direction.
David Sherer

@amm8 This is my boat too, I believe in the products I have made, still have some tweaking to do on them, but how do I get beta testers? how do I market? I know it takes time but it seems, if you are not active on social media no one cares what you have to say or offer.

Nika

@amm8 IMO, those who have background in marketing and started building or vice versa will win the market in the upcoming years as solo founders heavily using AI.

Blake
@busmark_w_nika it’s a slippery slope, that’s for sure. Going through a startup phase myself, I’m learning that the biggest factor comes down to passion. If you’re passionate enough, you will figure out a way to work with your colleagues effectively. You’ll spend the late nights building the product or doing client outreach. You’ll take the extra mile when someone less motivated might not. Aligned incentives towards a common goal, where everyone is involved, really can make a special team. Those without their head in the game can deteriorate team quality and execution. That being said, finding founders is also difficult. Ideally, you start with your social circle. Think: who has the relevant skills and who do I know works hard? That breaks the first barrier in finding someone you trust and know. Then, you have to gauge their work and competence on the issue. Do they have experience in the industry? What unique insights or value could they provide? Lastly, judge their character. Are they flexible and willing to morph to the challenge? Or are they rigid and only work one way? It’s a tricky problem, but can be really lucrative if it works out.
Nika

@blakeskrable Described well, but what I am missing in most of those founders is like... they approach me just because I have some following, and each of them thinks that their concept (topic) is really what I am interested in.

E.g. one guy wanted to build a tool for music. But I know very little about music, so this topic is not something I would be very passionate about. He was trying to convince me that the topic is my passion. LOL. Maybe I should sing, he would change his mind then.

Moh
I’ve actually tried quite a few of these routes, YC cofounder matching, CoffeeSpace, a couple of other platforms, and to be honest, most of it felt like surface-level “connections” rather than serious founder alignment. You get a lot of conversations, but very few people who are actually committed to building something long term. Either the idea is still very vague, or they’re still in exploration mode, or they disappear after a few chats. It feels like a lot of people are excited about the idea of startups, but not really ready for the grind that comes with it. For me, the biggest gap isn’t discovery, it’s filtering for seriousness and execution. Almost everyone can talk about ideas, very few can clearly explain what they’re building, why now, and what they’ve already done to de-risk it. Even fewer can show consistent effort over time. At this point, I’ve started to think that finding a co-founder through platforms alone is probably the hardest path. The stronger signal seems to come from seeing someone actually building in public, shipping things, or working together on something small first before committing to anything bigger. So instead of asking “how do I find a co-founder”, I’m leaning more toward “how do I work with someone first and let that evolve into a co-founder relationship if it naturally makes sense”.
Nika

@moh_codokiai Would say that finding a business founder is almost as important as finding a romantic partner. You just need to find someone with whom you like to suffer.

Bengeekly

I consider myself a Solo founder, but I have multiple co-founders in multiple project.
I m clear about the limitations, and that I work on multiple projects.
When I start a project with someone we don't define heavy rules, we just start, having calls discussing project, and we see how it goes. We find a deal after it goes well after some time.

Nika

@bengeekly fffuuuu, you opened another subtopic for me, because I am involved in many projects and I like the idea to be in a team for knowledge-transfer, some accountability, but also being a solo is good for me for having some autonomy, own decision-making, etc.

The thing is... I do not want to spread myself too thin, because time investment also reflects in mental investment and then I cannot distribute my attention to my own projects because I am "busy to babysit dreams of other people".

Bengeekly
@busmark_w_nika i get exactly what you mean. I transformed the “baby sitting other projects” to one of my main projects, an accelerator, with organization, rules, filters… It’s still work in progress, but I already feel better sharing/“baby sitting” For the rest, I understood that I like working on multiple projects, so I accepted it and I try to organize accordingly. How do you end involved in multiple projects? Is it your ideas? Or are you helping others ?
Nika

@bengeekly I usually manage the marketing part, and growing personal brands of other people. But at some point it started to be too much for me, so I started asking for bigger compensation to regulate demand :D

Nayan Surya

Really interesting. Selecting a co-founder is not really an easy task. We have to look at a lot of things but the most important for me is if you can trust them. If you can't trust then nothing else really matters.

Nika

@nayan_surya98 But... how can you double-check the trust? :D Especially in people who are thousand kilometers away?

Arun Tamang

For me the biggest signal is whether something is already moving, even in a small way. When someone is looking for a co-founder but hasn’t tried to get users or put anything in front of the market yet, it usually stays in the idea stage.


The conversations feel very different when someone has already tested something and can explain what actually happened.

Monk Mode

Unpopular take: don't look for a co-founder. At least not right away.

I spent months trying to find the "perfect co-founder" for my last project. Went to meetups, did the YC co-founder matching thing, had dozens of coffee chats. None of it worked because you can't evaluate someone you've never actually shipped something with.

What worked: I started building solo. Launched an MVP. Got early users. Then the right people showed up naturally because they were excited about something that already existed.

The solo founder path has gotten way more viable in 2026. Between AI coding tools, no-code platforms, and one-time purchase tools that replace entire SaaS stacks (I run my whole solo operation with tools like TokenBar for tracking AI costs, Plausible for analytics, and a $5 VPS), the overhead of being a solo dev is almost nothing.

If you do want a co-founder, my biggest advice: build something small together first. A weekend hackathon project tells you more about compatibility than 50 coffee meetings.

Astro Tran

The co-founder question is something I've thought about a lot. My honest take after building solo for a while: the fit question is less about skills and more about how you handle disagreement and slow periods. Most co-founder breakups aren't about capability, they're about tension when things get hard.

The best test I've seen is working on a real problem together before committing, even just a weekend project. How does the person handle being wrong? How do they respond when you're stuck? That tells you more than any values conversation.