# What do people want in a co-founder?

**Author:** Catheryn Li
**Type:** Essay
**URL:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/Cn-what-do-people-want-in-a-co-founder

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What do people want in a co-founder?

# What do people want in a co-founder?

by Catheryn Li, Katherine Bernstein

YC launched a [co-founder matching platform](https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching) about 3 months ago. There
are now 16,000 co-founder profiles on the platform. Potential co-founders have sent 130,000 matching invites through the
platform, and, with a 25% acceptance rate, we’ve seen a total of 33,000 matches.

We now have enough data to identify some interesting trends among our co-founder profiles and matches.

# Who are the founders on our platform?

- 40% of profiles are from the U.S., with 60% representing another 145 countries.
- 42% identify as technical (i.e. “a programmer, scientist, or engineer who can build the product without outside
assistance”).
- 43% are working full-time (40+ hours/week) on their startup, 22% are part-time (20-40 hours/week), and the remaining
spend <20 hours/week on their startup.
- Of the founders who are not currently working on a startup, 47% plan to start in the next 3 months, and another 21%
plan to start in the next 6 months.
- 13% identify as a woman.

# What do founders care about?

We give founders the option to mark their preferences for a co-founder across several attributes, including:

- Whether they are technical
- Areas of skill ( _Product, Design, Engineering, Sales and Marketing, Operations_)
- Their level of time commitment over the next few weeks (40+ hours/week, 20-40 hours/week, or less)
- Their location
- Whether they have shared interests (e.g. _B2B/Enterprise, Biotech,_ etc.)

Founders also indicate how important each attribute is: whether it’s a must-have, whether they have a preference but are
flexible, or whether they don’t care at all.

![YC Logo](<Base64-Image-Removed>)

# What is Y Combinator?

We're an accelerator that funds startups — like Coinbase, Instacart, Reddit, Doordash — at their earliest stages. Starting a company? Even if it feels early, 40% of our companies joined with just an idea.

[Apply](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply)

The two most important attributes: **79% of founders care that their co-founder can commit a certain number of hours**
**over the next few weeks**, and **74% of founders prefer to have shared interests with their co-founder.** However,
only 15% and 13% see these attributes as must-haves, respectively.

The least important attribute? **50% of founders don’t care where their co-founder is located, perhaps a sign of the**
**(newly remote) times.**\\n\\n

# What industries are founders interested in?

Each founder can select interests from the following list: _Agriculture/Agtech, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented_
_Reality/Virtual Reality (ARVR), B2B/Enterprise, Biomedical/Biotech, Blockchain, Consumer, E-Commerce, Education/Edtech,_
_Energy, Entertainment, Financial/Fintech, Government, Hardware, Hard Tech, Healthcare, Marketplace, Non-Profit._

The top 6 most popular interests:

- _B2B/Enterprise_ (36% of founders indicate interest)
- _Consumer_ (34%)
- _AI_ (34%)
- _Marketplace_ (32%)
- _Fintech_ (29%)
- _E-Commerce_ (29%)

Most founders select several interests; the median number of interests selected is 3. Interestingly, the most popular
interests among founders who pick only 1 interest look different:

- _B2B/Enterprise_ (17%)
- _Fintech_ (13%)
- _Edtech_ (12%)
- _Consumer_ (11%)
- _Healthcare_ (7%)
- _AI_ (7%)

# What skills are founders interested in?

Founders on the co-founder matching platform can claim responsibility in five areas of skill: _Product, Design,_
_Engineering, Sales and Marketing, Operations._

- 65% of founders do _Product_
- 57% of founders do _Operations_
- 52% of founders do _Sales and Marketing_
- 37% of founders do _Design_
- 31% of founders do _Engineering_

Here’s what founders want from their co-founder:

- 62% of founders prefer a co-founder who does _Engineering_
- 42% of founders prefer a co-founder who does _Product_
- 39% of founders prefer a co-founder who does _Design_
- 37% of founders prefer a co-founder who does _Sales and Marketing_
- 28% of founders prefer a co-founder who does _Operations_

Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not do _Engineering_, **80% prefer a co-founder who does**
**_Engineering_**. Even engineers themselves are looking for more engineers: **44% of _Engineering_ founders prefer a**
**co-founder who does _Engineering_**.

Engineers are also looking for complementary skills though: **74% of _Engineering_ founders prefer a co-founder who does**
**_Sales and Marketing_**, and **53% of _Engineering_ founders prefer a co-founder who does _Operations_**.

# Who’s actually matching?

- **Founders** on the platform have an average of **3.6 matches per person.**
- **Engineers** on the platform have an average of **4.8 matches per person.**
- **Founders who aren’t married to an idea** have an average of **5.1 matches per person.**

The majority of matches (68%) are made up of a technical founder paired with a non-technical founder. A bigger majority
of matches (72%) are made up of founders with at least one shared interest. An even greater portion of matches (73%) are
made up of a founder with an idea they’re working on paired with a founder not glued to an idea.

55% of matches comprise founders located in the same country. 69% of matches are between founders in the same continent,
and 61% of matches are composed of founders located within 3 time zones of each other. The rest, apparently, are from
all over the world.

73% of matches contain at least one full-time founder, and 92% of matches contain at least one founder who is “active”
(working on a startup idea now) rather than “aspiring” (plan to work on a startup later).

Finally, it seems that founders on the site are extremely active: 75% of all matches are accepted within 4.5 days of the
initial invitation, and **50% of matches are accepted within 22 hours.** Of the matches where founders indicate having
met up either online or in person, **50% met within 6.2 days.**

**If you are looking for a co-founder, come check out the co-founder matching platform! Sign up at**
**[https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching](https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching).**
