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

11 points by AltonWells 4 years ago | 27 comments

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???

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.

giantg2 4 years ago | | |

That makes sense. I would hope that most people who it doesn't click with just wouldn't apply.

Maybe post on forums or reddit subs that are pertainate to women's wellness. That's the niche - not the technology side. So you should be able to find individuals on those pages who also have the technical skills. It's more like finding a needle in a haystack looking in the technology forums for any resources who are passionate about a non-technology specific niche.

egfx 4 years ago | | |

I’d like to hear the idea. What’s the overview?

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.

giantg2 4 years ago | | |

Not just taboo, but laws against discrimination.

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.

giantg2 4 years ago | | |

"Also with women being systematically excluded from many opportunities in tech"

Do you have some sources for this?

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

And the same is true for men wanting to work with men.

"this is hardly going to deprive some man of an opportunity."

If one is actually excluding men, then this by definition deprives them of that specific opportunity.

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 :/

softwaredoug 4 years ago | | |

Ah what about investors? Are there current investors/plans to approach investors? They can be a great resource with their own extensive networks.

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