Karkhana!

An interesting article in Wall Street Journal, about Bringing Y-Combinator’s Incubator Model in India.

I’m impressed by the business model of Crederity and implementation of CommonFloor

Building a startup is a tough and long endeavor. Most folks have found a lot of value in having a co-founder(s) to share ideas, pains and keep each other motivated. Paul Graham has a good essay about co-founding, and Y-Combinator’s emphasis on having a co-founder.

Finding cofounder is a hard task. Sometimes you are a technical guy looking for a business person or a business person looking for a technical guy. What is important is a good fit of complementing skills and a decent overlap of ideology!

In my personal endeavors I have found cofounders mostly through a personal network (friends, social network and co-workers) and a bit of e-mail list based recruiting. In case of WiseVoter, I had a mix of people helping me and in case of WalkMe I became a co-founder with a colleague.

In an effort to crystallize a set of tips to help you find co-founders, I would definitely list:

1. People you have worked with: Most of the times people you have worked fit the best bill in being your cofounders as the work experiences with them are most revealing than the social context.
2. Personal Network: You should definitely tap your personal network and find if any of the folks in the network would be good candidates for co-founding. Cofounders are not only about skills but also motivation and perseverance.
3. Entrepreneurial Organizations / Events: In many instances folks have found it immensely useful to connect with the right people through volunteering at Entrepreneurial organizations (like various startup groups, TIE etx.) and attending entrepreneurial events (Startup days etc.).
4. Advertising on Craigslist: I haven’t tried this but a most people I know have had a surprising success rate from advertising on craigslist!

What else would you add? Comment away!!

Every founder goes through a big question – “What should I build and why?”. A big part of what is ideation. Ideation is an interesting exercise where you can focus on all the interesting ideas people are putting their money on, its a great goals to scurge through current ideas, do several of dark room with a bulb sessions and eventuall come up with an idea list.

Here is a small list of resources to look at current interesting ideas.

• Y-Combinator : http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html
• Look at delicious tags
• Mark Cuban Ideas
• Buzz words : Cloud Computing, Internet Devices, ..