How To Find The Right Co-Founder For Your Business

Every entrepreneur faces the problem of not having enough time, interest, or skills to do everything that is required to establish their business. Of course, they could outsource some of the job or recruit workers, but that would take more time and money, which they don't have. Finding a co-founder with comparable skills is the best solution.

Having two founders on a team rather than one enhances a startup's chances of success greatly. According to Startup Genome, startups will raise 30% more startup financing, develop their client base three times faster, and be less likely to scale too soon. It's obvious that the sum of two totally invested founders is bigger than the parts.

Why Do You Need A Co-founder?

Without a solid team, the concept will remain just that: a concept. Finding the perfect co-founder, on the other hand, can appear to be a lengthy and difficult task. When deciding who to start a business with, entrepreneurs must examine a number of factors, including what to look for in terms of skillsets, compatibility, and personality, as well as where to meet eligible candidates. Below are some key points that highlight the importance of a co-founder for your startup and business.

Support and Partnership Towards Success

If you consider one of the most successful firms in history, such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, you'll notice that they all had co-founders at the outset. In the early phases of setting up a business, every one of these founders had co-founders who they lent on for support and partnership.

co-founder

Remember to communicate in an open and transparent manner. It's obvious that you want to take advantage of every opportunity. Just keep in mind that giving your possible co-founder a heads-up is critical to building a strong and honest foundation for your relationship.

Moral Support

Startups are a gruelling and exhausting experience. It's also nice to have someone to lean on for support when things get tough. And what you'll find about the finest co-founder partnerships is that they have a dynamic where both co-founders are kind of balanced out.

Sometimes you get carried away, sign a customer, and believe that the IPO is guaranteed. You can also utilise someone to help you ground yourself and bring you back to reality. So that's where I think the finest co-founding relationships can help smooth out some of the highs and lows of the emotional rollercoaster that is starting a business.

While you can enhance productivity by recruiting individuals or bringing in your own contractors, you won't get the emotional support that a co-founder can provide. Because, at the end of the day, anyone who works for you is your employer, and they aren't as involved in the startup's success as you are. You can't be as open or honest with them about the firm as you can with your co-founder.

Productivity

If you have someone to divide the task with, you can get a lot more done. And having a co-founder with complementary capabilities who can do things you can't can help you get a lot more work done. And there's someone with whom you love exchanging thoughts. As a result, you'll be able to brainstorm and come up with better ideas than you could on your own.

It also comes in handy when there is someone to persuade you to abandon potentially disastrous plans. As a result, having a co-founder increases both the quantity and quality of work you can produce.

Tips To Finding The Right Co-founder

In a startup, two heads are usually better than one. Rather than just getting paid to execute a task, win or lose, both parties must share the enthusiasm, long-term opportunity, and risk. Investors are concerned that an alone entrepreneur will become overburdened, crippled, or misled if there is no balancing and supportive partner. The problem is figuring out how to locate that elusive perfect-fit companion.

  • Write a Co-founder 'Job Description'. The least probable possibility is your best friend, spouse, or family member, so don't start there. Examine your own business's strengths and shortcomings, and make a list of which partners' skills and experiences might best complement yours. Consult with seasoned investors and peers for advice.
  • Find Someone Trustworthy. Founders must pick a partner they can trust in addition to balancing personality traits. People who run a business have a lot of possibilities to be dishonest. Co-founders can engage in ways that raise questions about a firm's ethics or irreversibly harm the enterprise. It's critical to remember and discover someone trustworthy when seeking a co-founder and someone who can take and handle business processes responsibly.
  • Look For Personality Traits and Characteristics. While there are certain attributes that a founder should look for in a co-founder, there are others that businesses should avoid at all costs. The chart below defines traits that are better if they are in common and certain traits that, the more different and unique they are, the better.
  • Put An Effort To Search The Right Platforms. Using online tools isn't the only technique to find a co-founder for a startup. By attending networking and social events for entrepreneurs and engaging with like-minded people, entrepreneurs can meet co-founders in person. They can also look for co-founders in social media groups; LinkedIn, for instance, has several groups that founders can join.
  • Attract Multiple Areas of Expertise and Strength. Just as a startup should diversify skill sets, personality attributes should be mixed as well when it comes to the co-founders of a startup. Having two people who are frightened of public speaking, for example, will not benefit the startup because they will have to pitch investors, speak with clients, present in front of accelerators, and so on. If one of the co-founders is shy, it's ideal to have a more outgoing co-founder who is comfortable speaking in front of groups. The strengths of each co-founder will complement one another.

Many teams spend weeks or even months getting to know one another. However, by going through the challenging questions early on, you can make things easier. For the first year, will we be working weekends? Are we going to be paid? How do we go about hiring people? How are we going to pay them? Will you spend time with your children or partner? What drives you to start a business? Discuss your personal principles as well as your company's long-term goals. The sooner you get answers to these questions, the better for your company's future.

Importance of A Co-Founder

Few decisions in business are more crucial than determining whether to "go it alone" or form a partnership with someone you may or may not already know. Although there are a few reasons why going it alone can sound enticing, such as owning more of the firm and having complete control over decision-making, there are many more that should steer you in the opposite direction. There are a few reasons why it is important to have a co-founder:

  • Distribute Stress. You'll never feel more alone as a solo entrepreneur, so put yourself in a position to share your concerns with someone you work with every day. Mountains of stress always arise as a result of the massive amount of effort required to begin a new business. Do you know what you shouldn't or can't do? You can't always talk to your employees about it hence why the need for a co-founder comes in.
  • Problem-solving can't be one-sided. You'll need the input of someone who understands your business as well as you do, and that person can only be a co-founder. It's just as vital to have an opposite viewpoint. Hiring a co-founder who thinks and feels the same way as you do isn't much better than having no co-founder at all.
  • Day-to-day Support. Keep in mind that mentors and advisors' role is to provide you guidance "when needed," which means it will usually be for bigger issues rather than those that pop up several times throughout the day. That is where the need for a co-founder comes in, to be able to discuss daily issues and concerns of the business. Your co-founder will be there to get you through the day-to-day runnings and decision making for your business.
  • Split costs and expenses. Starting a business is costly, and collecting funds without a product or prototype is particularly tough. Partnering with a co-founder allows you to split the initial expenditures of having a working product or prototype up and running, allowing you to obtain funding at a higher value. Are you worried about losing your equity and ownership? Which would you prefer to own: 50% of something or 100% of nothing?

This method puts a true shared vision and working style to the ultimate test. Building a startup is difficult and unexpected labour, and people's schedules change, so now is the moment to commit as a team. If you can't function as a team now and agree effortlessly, it's unlikely to happen in the future.

On A Final Note

One of the most difficult aspects of starting a business is finding the perfect co-founder. It's also not a task that should be taken lightly by founders. Founders frequently feel compelled to rush to market because they have a brilliant idea that no one else has thought of. Taking the time to develop the founders and the early staff, on the other hand, will give companies a better chance of succeeding.

Finding the proper co-founder is one of the most critical things a new entrepreneur can do to ensure the success of their firm. A startup has so many hurdles that no founder should attempt to tackle them alone. You'll be working together on your next venture, and the one after that, once you've found someone who works. Success breeds success, and great teams endure.

References

How To Find The Right Co-founder

The Perfect Co-founder

Tips For A Great Co-founder

Related Posts

Subscribe for more right in your inbox!

Thousands of subscribers cannot be wrong! Get Startup insights right in your inbox. 
We will only use your email to send you insights once a month - no spam!
Subscribe To Our Startup Insights

Written by Meerat Qureshi

How useful was this post?

Click on a star to rate it!

Average rating 5 / 5. Vote count: 11

No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Join Malaysia’s Top Startup Investors & Corporate Innovation Event
Register for DisruptInvest Summit Now!
Subscribe To Our Startup Insights
© COPYRIGHT NEXEA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRIVACY POLICY. TERMS OF USE.
OUR STARTUP NETWORK
CORPORATE ACCELERATORENTREPRENEURS SUMMIT
ENTREPRENEURS PROGRAMME