Finding a co-founder for your company is like getting married: you need a solid understanding of the other person, and often a prenup.
Dreamit Ventures and Capital Factory helped entrepreneurs at SXSW with both elements of the equation at a speed dating event for co-founders this weekend.
“The goal of the three-minute conversations was to identify people you want to have future meetings with,” managing partner Kerry Rupp said. “Afterward we shared everyone’s LinkedIn profiles with everyone else.”
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Finding a partner is not necessarily finding someone you like, she said.
“You have to ask questions like, ‘Do we have the same goals for this?'” she said. “Or, ‘Are we willing to make the same level of sacrifice?’ and ‘Do we have the same ethics?'”
The other critical step in finding a co-founder is documenting everything, Rupp said.
“It’s like a prenup, you have to protect yourself,” she said.
Rupp said Dreamit is thinking about how to facilitate something bigger in the future.
“We were way oversubscribed and had to turn people away,” Rupp said. “What’s exciting is that we are really fulfilling a need.”
In addition to hosting the co-founder sessions, Rupp screened some of the applications from mobile companies for the Accelerator competition today at SXSW.
Co-founders who could code were in high demand, based on Forbes’ Meghan Casserly interview of several people at the session.
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