Two founders share how they found co-founders through personal networks and trial. One emphasizes vetting over time before giving equity, comparing it to marriage. They stress networking, continuous team assessment, and holding back equity until commitment signals are clear.
I didn't meet my co-founder through the program, but the program led me to my co-founder. So we talked a lot about do you hire friends and family, and you can network even with your friend circle or LinkedIn and find a co-founder who might work for you. So I found a really great technical co-founder, and he just happened to be in my friend circle. So you never know, like, you know, you have to turn over that stone and find out these, find these hidden opportunities. So yeah, there are ways to get there.
Any other feedback from the alumni about co-founders or team in Founder Institute?
Well, I guess I'll just quickly chime in. Originally, when we first come in, I think with Founders Institute, you originally think when you first start your startup, you have all these original members that might be your co-founders or might be your team members and might be everything else. As you go through the program or as you go through your business, these people start changing. And I think that's one thing that happened with Growth Driver. We originally thought, hey, this would be our original board. These are our original co-founders because we had these 3 friends or people that we've vetted in the beginning. You know, this is almost a year in. These same 3 people, they're not the same people that we have now. You know, these people that we thought were going to be in, their hearts weren't into it. They've changed. Now we're vetting other people. That could be our co-founders. So we're constantly looking and constantly changing, constantly evolving. So that is again the next part to it. You know what, I'm a solo founder, a solo founder, and to find the actual co-founder that you really want to be with, it is a marriage and you want to think of it like that. So it's not something you're going to go half-hearted in, it's not going to go in, you know, you don't want to do this something, just jump on in and just give a bunch of equity. You really want to think about it really, really carefully. So That's the one thing I want to do. I made a mistake once before, never doing that again. So this is why I'm being very careful when I'm going in the next time. And when we first sat down with the first original pool, I made sure not to give the equity. We made sure to hold off everything until we're really, really ready and really secure. And then when we found out the relationship really wasn't there, we were able to pull back and say, "Thank you, but no thank you."
