“Don't let the search for a co-founder become the reason you never start. At ODF we proved you can find great co-founders outside school and work, but I've also watched too many founders settle for a co-founder of convenience or use the hunt as procrastination. Start solo, make real progress, and the right partner will show up, or you'll realize you never needed one.”
“I think the friend-of-a-friend thing is overrated. For Varda I wrote down almost thirty attributes I needed in a co-founder, then spent months hunting world-class people in completely unrelated industries, not just space.”
“I wouldn't hunt for a cofounder at all yet. After watching ten cofounder car crashes up close, my view is simple: get as far as you can alone, because the person you need at zero revenue is rarely the person you need at scale.”
“Start doing something real together. Don't optimize on a spreadsheet; test by building, and treat every potential cofounder as though they might actually become one. I've watched this work with thousands of founders.”
“The answer is fractional technical leadership, not a cofounder search. Thirty startups in, I've been pitched by founders hunting for a technical cofounder they could hire for free, and every one of them got stuck in that search while their idea sat dormant. Pay someone real money for product judgment and technical leadership a day or two a week and start shipping.”
“I stopped looking in my own network after my third startup and started showing up where the weirdos gather: founder meetups, pitch nights, online communities built around a problem, not a postcode. The co-founders who lasted were the ones I built something small with before we ever signed anything.”
“I knew my cofounder for years before I saw what was right in front of me. Stop searching and start paying attention—the people worth building with tend to reveal themselves through shared work and real conversation, not a pitching process.”
“I've made my best cofounders through accelerators or programs like YC, not through friends of friends. In those settings, you're vetting on the fundamentals—shared values, complementary skills, mutual conviction—instead of winging it on existing relationships. Go somewhere people are genuinely trying to start companies: an accelerator, a founder program, a startup community. Show up where the founders are.”
“Tell people you need a specific skillset, keep talking about it widely, and approach people you already admire directly. Matching people the algorithm found a few hours before asking them to build a company together is way more likely to fail.”