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Ask HN: How to find a woman technical co-founder?

11 points| AltonWells | 4 years ago

My partner is brilliant woman who’s taken an MVP pretty far. She’s looking for a woman co-founder because it’s a platform primarily targeted a women and wants the synergy/empathy that comes with that. She tried co-founder matching but to little success, does anyone have any ideas???

27 comments

giantg2|4 years ago

Sounds a little sexist, maybe with good intentions. Maybe it's time to look for the best qualified candidate regardless of sex?

Edit: Why downvote? Isn't this the same logic touted by equality organizations?

AltonWells|4 years ago

That’s a fair question. If she can find a male who is interested in building a woman’s wellness platform for women then I know she would go for it. However, there are some gender bias barriers she’s faced when sharing her idea and it doesn’t always “click” with men.

jimmyvalmer|4 years ago

The "best qualified candidate" is not generally an objective measure -- if you can be more productive with someone your own gender and race, then that's all to the good, the largely American taboo of racial and gender sorting notwithstanding.

FranksTV|4 years ago

There are a million reasons why women prefer to work with women.

Also with women being systematically excluded from many opportunities in tech, this is hardly going to deprive some man of an opportunity.

unknown|4 years ago

[deleted]

bsldld|4 years ago

I think https://elpha.com would be a place to look for help.

memset|4 years ago

YC itself has a service for finding cofounders. I myself have not used it, but if she hasn’t taken a look it’s worth a mention: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27750298

softwaredoug|4 years ago

Is there someone from the customer base that really believes in the startups mission she could hire? Someone that's really technical?

AltonWells|4 years ago

It’s consumer facing so highly unlikely :/

ipaddr|4 years ago

What is the story of pretty far? Did she find market fit and needs to scale? What kind of challenges is she facing?

AltonWells|4 years ago

She’s found a bit of traction. Ads convert to customers but the CAC is high and not “uniquely defensible”. It’s low/code no/code website but the idea is there and she’s proven the marketability of it

danhackerino|4 years ago

Sounds great.

I'm currently also seeking a technical co-founder for my start-up, I'm looking exclusively for white men.

AltonWells|4 years ago

Sounds like you don’t understand gender bias