Jessica Alter, co-founder & CEO of FounderDating, has shared her advice on the biggest mistakes to avoid when choosing your founding team and early advisors. Jessica founded a "dating website" for cofounders. One that actually works. It became the largest network of its kind, and created so much value that it was acquired earlier this year by OneVest! Jessica is also a badass speaker and a very cool gal ;) You can watch all TheFamily videos here: https://www.youtube.com/startupfood

5. THE ART OF FINDING COFOUNDERS AND
ADVISORS

6. PLEASE STAND UP
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7. WHAT DON’T YOU KNOW?
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… there's a lot you don't know
You are here

8. WHO CAN BEST FILL THE GAPS?
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X

9. PARTNER NOT PANDER
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10. COFOUNDERS: FOCUS ON THE PERSON, NOT THE IDEA
▪ Hard selling an idea never works
▪ Fall in love with the person…not the idea –
the idea will change
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“ When I get an email pitching me an idea, I hear ‘I need someone to build my idea. I can't
pay you in cash, so have some equity.’ That's not attractive to me. I have a LinkedIn
account full of spam from recruiters, developer groups I belong to get spammed by people
like this as well. This is why FounderDating exists. I don't want to work on a wine app. I
want to work with awesome people, and if the idea we pick is a wine app, so be it.”
Jimmy Jacobson, FD Member

11. IMPORTANT ACRONYMS
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GSD
FSO
Get Sh*t Done–
Figure Sh*t Out–

12. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE
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Closing a Cofounder is your
first sales/marketing challenge.
Every new hire is another one.

13. WHERE DO I START?
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Work Together Ask Questions Fight & Make Up

14. WHY DO I NEED AN ADVISOR?
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Consigliere ConnectorsSMEs

15. ADVISOR HOW TO
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Reaching Out AND Working Together
1. Get an intro – social proof
2. Why me? – tell them how they can help and that you’ve
been thoughtful
3. Value me
▪ 3 meeting rule
▪ Come prepared
▪ Follow up on what I suggested (even if you don’t do it)

16. EQUITY
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Cofounders
▪ Don’t be stingy
▪ Execution > Ideas…7-10 years to build a
company
▪ Cofounder ≠ 50/50
▪ Resentment breads failure
Advisors
▪ Don’t forget
▪ Align incentives
▪ Fairly common to do .1 to .3% depending
(see chart on our site)

17. HOW CAN I BE SURE?
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18. PLEASE REMEMBER…
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“Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need
colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things
go wrong.”
– Paul Graham, Y-Combinator
“Comparison is the death of happiness.”
– Unknown

19. @founderdating or @jalter
info@founderdating.com
http://www.facebook.com/FounderDating
APPLY to JOIN
QUESTIONS? ASK OUR MEMBERS
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“The network you have may be great. But finding someone that is great in your network, and is ready
to start something serious right now is much tougher than it seems. FD links you with people that you
know are amazing, and gives you an instant bond and connection with them, allowing a lot of other
time-wasting steps in the process of finding a cofounder or a meaningful project fall by the wayside.”
– Adam A. (NYC)
“There's no way I would have met my co-founder without FD. Sometimes 6 degrees of separation is
too many and non-competes cut off a lot of your natural co-founder market.”
– Tom Leung, Yabbly (Seattle)