YC's Startup School launched a co-founder matching feature to help solo founders find partners for their ventures. It allows founders to create profiles, specify requirements like skills and time commitment, and review screened candidates. This service is free and aims to address the difficulty many new founders face in finding suitable co-founders, especially those outside traditional startup hubs.
A starter prompt for Claude Code, what you'll need, and how to reach them.
You are an expert full-stack developer. Create a Next.js 16 App Router application using React 19, Tailwind v4, and Neon Postgres on Vercel. The core functionality is a co-founder matching platform. First, implement a robust user authentication system supporting email/password and Google/GitHub OAuth. Next, design and implement two distinct profile types: 'Solo Founder' (describing their project, needs, skills sought, commitment level, location) and 'Potential Co-founder' (detailing their skills, experience, available time, location, and interests). Create a database schema for these profiles and for storing match preferences and connection requests. The MVP should focus on: 1) users creating and editing their profiles, and 2) a basic search/browse page where users can filter profiles by key criteria and express 'interest' in another user. Do NOT implement a complex matching algorithm yet, just display filtered results. Use the AI SDK v6 with Gemini for any initial profile text generation or summarization. Provide a `build.sh` script to set up the environment and run the app. The build/verify gate is a deployed application where users can sign up, create a detailed profile, and browse other users' profiles with basic filtering.
Operators interested in building and running multiple products (like Lumivara-Forge users) are often founders themselves and might seek co-founders or want to connect with other operators.
globalCanada
Focus on connecting Canadian solo founders, potentially linking with regional incubators or funding bodies, and tailoring skill sets to the Canadian tech landscape.
Hey HN, I’m Kyle Corbitt, and I work on Startup School ( https://www.startupschool.org/ ), YC’s free program to help people learn how to start a startup. Today we’re launching a new major feature: co-founder matching ( https://www.startupschool.org/cofounder-matching ). Interested founders can create a profile, input their requirements (location, time commitment, skills, etc) and quickly review screened candidates. We don’t charge for this or take any equity in the teams formed. Founders face lots of hard problems at the earliest stages—building an MVP, finding users, finding investors—but finding a co-founder can be uniquely difficult. Even if you have a strong network, your friends may not be startup-oriented, and the ones who are may not be available on the same schedule you are [1]. And if you don’t have a strong existing network, the search is even harder. Of course, you don’t need a co-founder to start a company. Many successful startups have started without one, including 4 of the top 100 YC companies. YC does fund solo founders—over 10% of companies in recent batches. But starting a startup is hard, to put it mildly. For most founders, we rec
No direct contact channel, this is an announcement. Engage with the HN community in the comments to gauge unmet needs.
“No clear outreach angle for this specific post, but a future product could be launched as a 'Show HN' with an angle like: 'Built a co-founder matching platform for [niche] based on YC's concept, but with [unique differentiator].'”
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