In response to Rosie Sherry’s question on Indie Hackers:
There are always people here on IH looking to partner up as co-founders. Perhaps some stories would be useful to others who are currently looking.
For those with co-founders, how did you find yours?
I’m working with a co-founder right now and I highly, highly recommend it.
I’ve done a few solo projects where I felt like I was in a mental funk more often than not. It was really difficult to figure out what to do next, decide whether I was on the right track, etc. With a co-founder, I feel like we can achieve 4-8x what I could do a solo founder, simply because I have someone to collaborate with.
With this being said, I have had past business partnerships fall apart for one reason or another. In my experience, it’s really important to make sure you’re on the same page as your partner as it relates to motivations, level of commitment, and willingness to work together. If any of these are out of sync, it’s much more difficult to make the partnership work.
Probably the most important attribute to develop needs to be your ability to overcome disagreements. A business partnership is a highly emotional relationship, just like a marriage or long-term romantic relationship. There’s probably not enough written about managing emotions in business because being a jerk as a boss seems to be the accepted norm. Crucial Conversations is a favorite of mine.
To answer the original question, my co-founder and I were introduced through a mutual acquaintance to do some consulting work at a previous company he worked at. Now, two years later, we’re both consulting + starting our product company.
Patience goes a long way in forming a co-founder relationship. You’ll probably need to meet at least a few times in person, and you’ll likely need some existing foundation to build upon (hobbies in common, live in the same town, overlapping peer group, etc.).