Co-Founder Networking September 2021: How to Find a Business Partner Online

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for joining a lovely Founder Institute event. My name is Martin Martinez. While we're waiting for everybody to file in, y'all already doing it, y'all already doing it. So let us know in the chat where you're coming from. Founder Institute is a global organization in about 200 cities and over 90 countries around the world. So we want to see where you're getting represented. Oh, hello from Las Vegas, coming in from Dubai, London, France, the San Francisco Bay Area, Brazil. Ah, we got a global community and you are represented well. Thank you all for coming. I hope wherever you finding us, uh, you are safe and well, and hopefully, um, you got something that you're trying to build and you're hoping to find somebody that might help build it with you. So if you're here for the co-founder networking, I Find a Business Partner event, you are in the right place. So let me get right into it because I have a little bit I'm going to share with you. Once again, my name is Martín Martínez. You can call me Martín, it's easier to say. I'm coming to you live from Austin, Texas, in the Lone Star State. I've been with Founder Institute since 2017. I originally served as the founding director, helping launch our very first program in Texas, back in Austin, Texas. Since then, helped expand into Houston as well as Dallas, Texas, and now serve as the executive director for the program in that state. Just recently joined over from the community as entrepreneur-in-residence. Now I get to meet all of you amazing people from around the world. It's— I'm really excited about that. Really, I get to talk to all you smart people and you tell me about the future. It's one of the best jobs I think I could ever have. Oh, we're coming in. We got people from Amsterdam, Angola, more people from London. Oh, we do got somebody from Dallas. Howdy. I've got some more people from Netherlands, Nigeria. All right, y'all are gonna meet each other soon. Keep dropping that, I love seeing that. Welcome to Airmeet, by the way. If it's your first time on Airmeet, it's a fun time. It's one of the best tools we've been able to, we've seen that allow people like you to still meet each other and network and find connection in these weird, interesting times. So I'll tell you a little bit about right now, but let's do a little exercise. If you notice right down here at the bottom, there's a little emoji button. Click that, see those little emojis pop up? Just give me a wall, give me a wall of emojis. Ah, beautiful. Y'all know how to pay attention. I like that. Don't get too crazy with it during the presentation. Might get a little distracting for your fellow audience members. But I just wanted you to exercise a little bit of your rights and show me how you're feeling today, ladies and gentlemen. All right, for those of you that might be watching the recording in the future, hi from the past. You don't see these emojis. Uh, so come do an event next time and then you too can have fun with everybody in the audience. What's going on? Uh, what's going on from Seattle? Oh, we got a ton of people out there. All right, let's get started, ladies and gentlemen. I got a light presentation I'm going to show you. It's going to give you a breakdown some of those co-founder dynamics. I'm going to do a little magic and then go straight to that. Um, so again, if you are here to find your co-founder, understand what it means to have a co-founder, you are in the right place, ladies and gentlemen. So let's get into it. Um, first thing, this event's broken down into two parts. The first part you're watching right now, obviously. I'm gonna break down very quickly just basic co-founder dynamics. How does one formalize a relationship once you've found and established, um, a working relationship with a co-founder? And then of course, how to find one, because that's really one of the hardest things, right? Um, the second part, It's gonna be all here on Airmeet where you're gonna get to sit down at tables, do some quick one-on-one matchmaking. It's a lot of fun. That's why we love this tool. And that's why people in the audience love showing up and meeting new people. I've certainly met dozens and dozens of new people on this platform. Some of them I've actually met in person after the fact, but otherwise just sit tight. I promise I'll get through this quick. And then while you're at it, feel free to download that worksheet, the co-founder worksheet, bit.ly/co-founder-worksheet, and hold that in your back pocket once we get into that second part of the event. All right, y'all cool with that? Give me some thumbs ups on the emojis if y'all are cool with that. Thank you. Y'all are good crowd. Y'all are great crowd. All right, so let's dive in. What's the standard co-founder team that everybody thinks about when you think of the Silicon Valley model. It's right here, ladies and gentlemen. It's right here. Breaks down into 3 basic functions that most people recognize when you hear those co-founder original starting stories from like Facebook, Google, and all these other things, right? The hackers, the hustlers, and the hipsters. Hackers effectively just build the product. They're putting things together, They're in the weeds, technically speaking, just building this product, getting it out, iterating, making it better based on how the users or the customers are responding to it. The hustlers essentially are the ones going out there. They're getting the customers, they're raising the funding, they're trying to be the face of the product, the company, so they can get that company into what essentially is gonna be that unicorn territory. And then finally, there's those hipsters. It's the people aesthetically building this product. They're marketing it, they're figuring out how it sounds, what the customer's looking for, for, they're talking to those customers and then providing that. And it works in this beautiful little overlapping that, as you see right there, you got a dabbing unicorn. That's what you are all aspiring to be, right? But it's not as simple as this classic model. It's hard to find a lot of these people in certain areas. You might see them a lot in Silicon Valley and you might hear the stories of how magically it all came together, but it's a lot tougher than what the stories might dictate. It's definitely not like the movies, but ideally the basic composition of a team in the very beginning should have the fundamental characteristics of these archetypes. It may be multiple people. You may have a couple hustlers, you may have a couple hackers, you may just have one hacker, maybe one hipster, but essentially try to identify these skill sets, and those are the teammates you wanna build early on to establish that founding team. Let's keep moving, y'all. Um, so here's a big problem I normally find when I talk to, uh, entrepreneurs that are trying to build products, especially founders that come into our core program. They're like, Martine, I need to find a person that does email marketing. Martine, I need a coder. Martine, and it's like, don't just look for somebody that can do that. There's so much more that goes into a working relationship with somebody that you might effectively be having a long-term, decades-long relationship with. It's very much like a marriage, and I'll emphasize that as we get further on into this presentation. Don't just look for skill sets. You are doomed, you're destined for failure if you're just only looking for somebody that can code, if you're only looking for somebody that can use MailChimp or knows how to social media market. There's so many other personality traits and working styles that you really have to understand. Which leads into my next point, which is align working styles. So, for example, our co-founding team, Adeo Ressi, a lot of people know Adeo, but not a lot of people actually know Jonathan Grecian as well. Jonathan has complementary working styles with Adeo, but their personalities are very different. Adeo loves to be on massive stage talking to founders all around the world. He's a very extroverted guy. And really focuses on vision and evangelizing what Founder Institute does. John, however, is very much an operator. He loves marketing, he loves building the core product. He usually hosts this event himself, and he's more comfortable kind of looking into a camera versus being on stage in front of thousands of people at, say, South by Southwest. However, even though their personality types are very different, their working styles are very much the same. They work at the same hours. In many cases, they can be on at 3 o'clock in the morning, wherever they are in the world, on Slack, communicating with each other. They really understand how each of those personality types balance the work that they have to do, which are not necessarily competing work, but it's work that fulfills the mission of what Founder Institute does. So when you're looking, again, as I mentioned, don't just look for somebody that codes. If somebody just codes, only codes for 2 hours a day, but you need somebody that's gonna work for 8 hours a day, especially on your time slot, that's going to be an issue, right? So think about that. Less about the— less about the skill sets, more about how you're going to be able to work with this person. Because inevitably, as I mentioned, it's a marriage. You're gonna be working with this person a lot for a very long time. So be mindful of that. If, if the working style isn't working, then this person might not be a good co-founder. So think about that. We're going to get real existential with you here in a second, so Just hold on to your seats. So this is another thing I love. Early on, you have to do everything. You're strapped for staff, you're strapped for cash, and what we like to call in the industry is try to find FSO people, which in short means figure shit out all the time. You want to avoid people that just say, that's not in my job description. Oh, that's just how it's always been done. Bullshit, y'all. You have to go out there and constantly have to push yourself and learn more. Yes, you might be dedicated to a few subset tasks, but if things go on fire, you're gonna have to figure out how to get it done. If you have an angry customer and you still don't have anybody that really is good on the sales and account management side, you're gonna have to step in there and do that. So being resourceful, understanding those lean methodologies early on as well, And leaning on each other as co-founders to leverage those strengths based on what needs to be done is going to make a very successful co-founder relationship for you as well. So again, avoid people that say, I only do what's in my job description. I only do within the standard working hours because that's just not how startups work, right? Startups are an all-day thing. And until you can get to a point where you can hire those people out, and I hope you will, I hope you will get to that point. You're gonna have to get shit done in any way, shape, or form. So another thing that's gonna help you really identify both working styles outside of skill sets and also the personality types that you're gonna want to really work with, okay? Give me some emojis if you're okay with that. Sorry, I apologize, I swear sometimes. So let's talk about how do you formalize a co-founder relationship. And I've made this mistake too, ladies and gentlemen. I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've had, I've had companies that have done okay. I've had companies that failed, but it all came down to the relationship I had with my co-founders. And, um, and I'll say this right, right now because I've made this mistake, y'all. I've made it myself. Their, uh, friendships don't equal great business partnerships all the time. It's not necessarily always true, but in many cases it is. Um, try not to start a business with your friends, uh, because the expectations and the communication are going to go to another level. Again, as I mentioned, a marriage, you know. Do you want to marry your friends? That's, that's saying something else. That, that's for another event. But right now you want to really focus on all those first 3 things I said. Yes, it might be low-hanging fruit. You might have a friend that really works with you well. They may be a colleague from a past job, but that's not necessarily going to seal the deal and say, hey, just because we're friends means we're going to be great business partners. They're going to be a lot more communication and expectations. The relationship will change. Fundamentally, permanently. So be mindful of that. Um, and another thing too, uh, people just immediately dive in with the paperwork. They immediately put you on the cap table. Don't do that. Start small, okay? Start in 30-day, 60-day, 90-day test projects, all right? Really understand what— based on those 3 things I already, I already explained, on the, the less on the skill sets, more on the working styles, okay? More on those dynamics. Uh, so a test drive is mandatory, uh, and that's going to give you a good basis on how you and your co-founder are going to operate moving forward in this relationship that you're going to be pursuing together as founders. All right, um, what's going on from Portugal? Sorry, I'd have to go check the chat. There's people from all over the world. Y'all should have some fun later, okay? 250 people in the house right now. Welcome everybody. Um, so Won't hammer this too much, but actually I will hammer it. I will hammer it a little bit more. Test drive, always test drive. Do them in those cycles as I mentioned, and then you're gonna have a good idea on how this person's gonna operate moving forward as you build this company together. So let's bounce back over. So ensure that compatibility. So now how do you do that? As I mentioned, you gotta get a little existential, all right? It's very much like dating. And we say the same thing for founders that are ready to start going to find investors. Those relationships are long-term and they very much feel like marriages. So you have to understand what is going to be driving this co-founder that's going to be working in the trenches with you for 40, 60, 80 hours a week on end for the next, what, 5 years, longer. So understand what those motivations are, what are their priorities in life, because that's going to dictate a lot about their working styles with you and also the expectations they're going to have of you when they need you to step up and figure shit out, right? See how those things are connecting? Understand those financial and life planning situations. Do they wanna immediately start a family and buy a house? Well, they might not wanna start a startup right now. So understand what is gonna be those key north star drivers for them for the next year, 3, 5, 10. And if it aligns really with what this mission that you both are trying to build, then this might be something to move forward with, okay? On top of that, really explain, really outline these things, especially on paper. What are going to be the roles and expectations of each person that's going to be coming in? As I mentioned with our original co-founders, Adeo and John, they have distinct roles and responsibilities. Adeo's the front facer. He helps guide the mission of FI. He gets to speak in public. He helps with recruitment and evangelizing more people to join. Our mission to help build enduring companies. John focuses on the operations, on the marketing, on the core product and refining those things. And they have those distinct roles very outlined. Back in the beginning, they were both having to figure shit out. They had to figure that stuff out. Now they've gotten to a point where we will hire all people to fill out all these other roles and responsibilities. You want to get there, but you got to figure out how to do that first. And how you're gonna work with those co-founders. So put this down on paper, be very explicit on what those expectations are. And a great example, download this worksheet we have right here, bit.ly/34-questions. It's gonna do everything you need in a very data-driven way to outline what those roles and responsibilities are, what those expectations are. And also finally, how are you gonna compensate each other? Equity is always a sticky thing, and this is another thing I have personally had to deal with, ladies and gentlemen, is what does that equity split look like? On that worksheet, it'll help you really finalize that. But at the end of the day, there is no such thing as a 50/50 split. Just take that out of your lexicon. Take that out of anything that you think is standard, because that's just not how those things work either. It also really complicates situations. Let's say if the co-founder relationship doesn't pan out to how it's meant to be So you'll look at this other worksheet, also very existential, very data-driven, uh, bit.ly/equity-split. It's going to allow you to input a lot of those roles, how long you're gonna do time commitments, and really measure out what is going to be a true split. I've seen a lot of co-founder relationships go where it might be, um, a 30/70, it might be a 40/60, but at the end of the day too, especially if you're raising money those, that equity is going to dilute. And, uh, and based on what, what are those other things that you were talking about, those career paths, those financial goals, those long-term things that you've been trying to do, um, that's also going to dictate how long a co-founder may stay with the company. So this is the only thing on that worksheet that will not, that will break the worksheet. There is no 50/50 splits with founders. Um, it sounds, it sounds a little jarring, but that's just the state of the thing, and startups wouldn't be as successful if they're operational at this level. So if y'all are still with me, throw me some emojis. I'm almost done, y'all. I'm almost done. So how to find co-founders. This is Jonathan, as I mentioned. Everybody say hi to Jonathan in the chat. How to find co-founders. The first thing is exactly what John is saying. The lack of a co-founder is an awful excuse. It's terrible to not start a company right now. And again, as I've mentioned, as I've talked to many aspiring entrepreneurs and company builders, like, oh, I'm not gonna start this till I have a marketing co-founder. Oh, I'm not gonna start this till I have a CTO. Nonsense. Nonsense. You can start building this thing right now. There are tons of things off the shelf, no-code solutions, simple websites that you can use right now. And here's a bunch of them. Here is a bunch of them right here for you. You can take a screenshot if you want. Or you can wait 48 hours and watch the video later in the future. Um, from app builders like Bubble to databases like Airtable, uh, and process management connectors like Zapier, marketing e-commerce platforms— all of this you can set up individually in a matter of hours to just prove that this, this product that you're trying to build can actually work and that customer demand is actually there. You don't have to wait until you find that CTO co-founder so they can build this thing from scratch? Because again, you're going to have to put them through 30, 60, 90-day mandatory tests to see if it's going to work. Are you going to wait that long? You're going to spend that much time and effort and money to build something that nobody wants? No. Validate this stuff first. You can do this right now. You can do this right now. As soon as you finish the networking thing, you can stay here for all day if you want. But if you're ready to build the next thing that hopefully will generate a great amount of wealth and value to your community, whoever that is, wherever they are. Look at this sheet right here, look at this table and start getting to work, start getting to work because we can't build the future without you. As I mentioned, and also don't just sit there and watch, engage into the communities that drive you. In very many cases, you might find your co-founder in these communities and it's all over the place from LinkedIn, Slack, Discord, Facebook groups, join events, come to more of these Founder Institute events on Airmeet. There's tons of places and resources and communities that wherever it is and whatever it is you're trying to build, there are people there that can help you, that can provide you feedback. Inevitably, they might be your co-founder. For many people that join the Founder Institute program, they sometimes meet their co-founder. I've seen it firsthand, ladies and gentlemen. So that's why we love to do these kind of events. But find your community, don't sit there and wait, start building the future now and surround yourself with people that also share those values, 'cause that's where it's gonna drive a lot of that collaboration and hopefully find that somebody that's gonna help you set up that relationship that will become the co-founder way. So told you I was done very quickly. So now we're getting into networking, ladies and gentlemen, what you're here really for, less about me, more about you. Co-founder networking. So as I mentioned, we are on Airmeet. It is a browser-based event networking tool. Um, so for optimum experience, I wish I could do something better. I'm not, I'm not the CEO of Airmeet, so I can't tell you otherwise, but the best experience for Airmeet right now is going to be on Chrome or Firefox on a desktop or a tablet system. It's just you can watch me on your phone, and maybe some of you are, but there's a delay and you can't do the networking, unfortunately. As you've noticed, probably when you came in early, if you just showed up late and you see me, don't worry. Once I disappear, this is what you're going to see. You're going to see these networking tables in the back. If you click around on your right side, you can see all these awesome people, 261 people in the house now. Howdy. You can hover over and see where everybody's coming from. Obviously, y'all are just crushing the chat. But once I disappear into the ether, you can see all of these tables based on different things. Thank you to our production team, Felicia and Beta in the back who came in early and set up all these tables. Based on the topic, based on just common interests, you can sit down in there and you can talk to people that share those same things. But I'll give you some basic structure on how y'all should communicate too, because again, we are community. We do have some basic ground rules on how you should operate in our community and want to ensure that everybody else in our community is having a great experience. So be mindful of each other, hold each other accountable, because I personally can't go to every table. Our team can't go to personally every table. So we trust you. That's why you're here. Okay? So on top of that, last but not least, you can also do these one-on-one things. So after the tables, let's say you just don't want to talk to too many people that might give you too much anxiety, head up to the top. You'll see these bubbles popping up of different people for speed one-on-one networking. You click that, and also of course make sure your camera ready. You click that and then, well, you'll be automatically paired up with somebody for about 5 to 6 minutes, and then you can just have a straightforward one-on-one conversation. So what happens? Maybe you sit at one of those tables, maybe you click that one-on-one button. What do you do next? I'll tell you. So introduce yourself. That's usually a good start, right? But as I mentioned, have that co-founder worksheet in your back pocket. We're dropping it in the chat again just in case you are coming in late and still don't have it. You also should have been emailed it as well. But make sure you have that open and ready to have a conversation. Briefly describe the business that you're working on, the idea that you're working on. So simple one sentence, my company, X is developing a website to help first-time mothers get baby food on a weekly basis with an e-commerce website, something like that, okay. Be very clear and direct. If it takes more than multiple sentences, you haven't been as concise as you should. You're probably gonna be dropping off in terms of attention spans for people. Try to avoid the use of any jargon. Don't say like AI-powered algorithm, just say a website 'cause that's what it is. You know, it's a mobile app, say that. Avoid all of the jargon. You don't— you want to be as simple as possible. Pretend you're talking to a 5-year-old. Believe me, it's going to be helpful. Provide insight into why you're building this company, what's driving you. Again, talk about those shared values, y'all. Be sure to talk about what you're looking for a co-founder. Again, if you have certain skill sets and you're looking for somebody that has other complementary skill sets, try to avoid people that share the exact same skill sets, right, but also the same kind of work styles. And I have a tendency to sleep late but work late, and I ideally would like to have somebody that probably operates on a similar schedule so I'm not too— I don't feel too bad if I'm sending Slack messages at 3 o'clock in the morning because I know they're probably also working as well. Last but not least, Don't be a jerk. Just don't do that. Again, we try to filter those people out fairly quickly. We do have some moderation tools if somebody is being too rowdy, but y'all are responsible adults. I'm sure y'all are going to be okay, but don't be a time hog. You know, just try to listen as much as you are talking in this respect. Stick to about 3 minutes apiece. Again, if somebody is going way over, they're not having a sense of time, it's okay to interject and just say, hey, out of respect for the room, we gotta keep moving on, thank you for sharing. And maybe provide some insights and feedback if you have some time to do that. Same goes for the networking, the one-on-one networking. You only have a set amount of time, about 5, 6 minutes, so try to balance out that time, be mindful of that. Heck, if it's even easier, get your phone out, pull out your timer, and really hold each other accountable on 3-minute cycles, okay? We are adults here. I'm just saying that. Don't be a jerk. Nobody likes jerks, right? Nobody does. Nobody likes jerks. All right. Last but not least, I want y'all to have fun. That's why we're here. Hopefully you get to meet some really interesting people. Connect with each other. Finish your profile on Airmeet. Get your LinkedIn up, get your Twitter up, however you love to be followed and connect with each other. That's why we're here. Okay, we want you to build the future. And, and through programs like the Founder Institute, where we have again scores and scores of cities all around the world, check us out, keep coming to these events. We're going to keep having them because you keep showing up. And, and most importantly, if you are interested in really turning this idea or taking this company to the next level, check out some of our programs coming up in the fall. We have applications going on for, I think, about 50 to 60 cities globally. Some of them are very regional and, and others are connecting different cities together so that you can start to expand your network beyond what you immediately have. But at the end of the day, it's all about you. It's all about you, the founders. And hopefully through what you just saw today, through this quick little presentation, you might learn a little bit more about what you need to look for for when you're jumping into that. And last but not least, thank you all again for attending. I'm about to disappear and head out into the ether, ladies and gentlemen, but it's been a pleasure being able to spend some time with you this morning, evening, afternoon, wherever you find yourself. And again, keep building the future, keep doing the things that everybody tells you that's crazy, because that's more of what we need. Be sure to take care of each other wherever you are, take care of yourself, And as always, we'll catch you next time. Thanks, y'all. See how you're doing. And hopefully you've met a couple people, maybe more, that might be pretty cool to keep connecting with moving forward. This is just a friendly reminder, don't just stick around that one table, move around. We got a whole lot of people, we still have about 200 people still in the room. Check out that one-on-one networking tool, maybe hop on a table that you're not too familiar with in terms of the topic and just listen. Learn some stuff. But either way, keep moving around, y'all. We might be back in a little while just to check on you again, but thank you again for joining us and keep connected. Cheers.