CoFOUND
Not the one you would get on with best at a meetup. CoFOUND matches on the gap first: the role your company is missing, and the role you fill for them. Then on the things that end partnerships early when nobody asks: commitment, place and equity.
Make your profileFind your gap first
Free. Members only: your email is shared only when you both say yes.
The gap finder
Pick the role you play. The answer is the one investors look for beside it, and why.
You need
Most technical founders can build the product. What stalls them is selling it, and knowing the buyer well enough to build the right thing.
Find a commercial co-founderYou need
Product without someone who builds it is a specification, and without someone who sells it is a hobby.
Find a technical co-founderYou need
A commercial founder without a builder pays an agency to find out what the product is. Investors notice who owns the code.
Find a technical co-founderYou need
Design wins customers once there is a product and a way to reach them. Find who builds it and who sells it.
Find a technical co-founderYou need
Operations makes a working company run well. Early on there has to be a product and revenue to run.
Find a technical co-founderYou need
Knowing the industry is the rarest part and the hardest to hire. Pair it with someone who can build, and someone who can sell to people you do not already know.
Find a technical co-founderHow a match adds up
They play a role you need, and you play one they need. This comes first, because two people with the same skills is a team with a hole in it.
Full-time now, within three months, or part-time to start. Mismatched commitment is the quiet reason most co-founder pairs split.
The same city, the same country, or both happy to work remotely.
A sector in common, or one of you open to any.
What the founder would offer against what the joiner expects, as ranges that overlap or not.
Before you commit
What would make you walk away in the first year?
What does success look like in five years, and in one?
Who decides what, and who breaks a tie?
Who is CEO, and does that change if it is not working?
When does each of us go full-time, and what if one cannot?
How long can each of us go without a salary?
How do we split it, and on what basis?
Four-year vesting with a one-year cliff, for both of us?
What happens if one of us leaves, or wants to sell?
How do we disagree, and how have you handled it before?
The equity split
Score each founder from 0 to 5 on what they bring. The split follows from the weights. A starting point to argue about, not an answer.
Suggested split
YouCo-founder
Close to equal, which is where most full-time founding teams land. Vest both over four years with a one-year cliff.
Ten minutes to a profile. Your first matches show the moment you save it.
Only signed-in members, and only as your first name and initial with your headline. Your email is shown to one person at a time, once you have both said yes to talking. Profiles are never on a public page or in search engines.
On the gap first, then commitment, place, sector and equity, out of 100. Every match shows each part and the reasons, including where you do not fit, so the number is never a mystery.
Nothing. CoFOUND is free.
Yes, at any time. A paused profile disappears from everyone's matches until you turn it back on. Profiles with no visit for four months stop being shown.
Report them from their card. They are hidden from you straight away and an editor looks at it.
No. It is a way to start the conversation from what each person brings, rather than from a number someone heard. Agree vesting, and take legal advice before you sign anything.