Ask HN: How did you find your side project partner?
Non-solo founders...
If you're technical, how did you find the business person?
If you're the business brains, where did you find your technical partner?
Who came up with the idea?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2019 where @KennyFromIT convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Participants share raw revenue figures, churn rates, and stack decisions that corporate PR never publishes.
Recurring answers reveal that distribution, not coding skill, is almost universally the rate-limiting step in developer businesses.
Practical recommendations on bookkeeping, payment gateways (Stripe vs Paddle), and freelance-to-product transitions.
Community Debate Themes:
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
CATEGORY Ask HN Roundtables →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 6 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 4 comments
My first business partner was a good friend from high school and college roommate after college I convinced him he could build something I wanted to try, and then gave him half the company :). We worked together for ~12 years and then went our separate ways after a few companies together. It didn't end well but that is a separate story.
New business partner, I found on HN, hired him for some freelance work for 6 months, then pitched him on an idea and now working on it together :).
Non-technical founder here. I found my side-project co-founder by talking about my ideas with everyone who might listen. He was a colleague who had a little extra time.
It's a lot like dating. Sometimes you just pick up anyone who's happy to listen.
I found my last co-founder on CoFoundersLab. Always open for new adventures btw.