How to Find a Co-Founder in College

**David Packard, left, and Bill Hewlett**

Reasons to Start a Business While in College: Co-Founder

How To Find The Right Co-Founder

It would be great if there was a single place to go where you could find an amazing selection of cofounders. These cofounders would all be smarter than you, more motivated, and better at getting things done. They’d instantly make your idea and startup better.

That place doesn’t quite exist, but you’re both in the next best thing if you’re in college! You are both surrounded by smart and motivated people, so the question is figuring out which you want to work with and then making sure that your goals and motivation are aligned. This isn’t easy or fast to figure out, but you can fall back on a set of principles to increase your chances of success.

The most likely place to find a co-founder is within your circle of friends and the people you’ve worked with on projects. Go through each of them and figure out whether or not you’d want to work with them closely. If the answer is yes, go talk to them.

The co-founder you’re looking for will be aligned with you on:

Business goals – Are your goals for the business to get to IPO or bust? Or to target a quick acquisition? Do you want to take venture money, or are you uncomfortable giving up control of your company early on?

Culture goals – How do you want to build your culture and organization? Will it be design-driven (e.g. Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs) or more data-driven (Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos)?

Values – What are the core values that you can’t compromise on?

Alignment around these goals, and the core motivations that underlie them, is critical to the success of a co-founder relationship. In choosing a co-founder, make sure you’re coming from the same first principles.

Your goal initially isn’t to start a big company. It’s to start working on a project together and see what happens (if you’ve never worked together.) Be honest with this new prospective cofounder about what you want and what you think you need to accomplish it. You’ll know pretty quickly whether or not your work styles and goals mesh. You’ll also get a sense of whether or not you think that person is good enough. If that first project goes well, get cranking, and write out a quick agreement on how you plan on splitting the company. This is part of communicating and setting expectations.

Startup Success Secrets

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard met as classmates in Stanford University’s engineering programme. After they graduated together in 1935, they decided to celebrate by taking a two-week camping trip. During this time, they became firm friends and decided to start a business together.

According to legend, they tossed a coin to decide whether they would call one of the world’s most well-known partnership businesses Hewlett-Packard (HP) or Packard-Hewlett.

Friendships can be tested when you introduce business into the equation. But Hewlett and Packard remained good friends throughout their working lives. They had similar strengths and management styles and they both had a very strong work ethic, staying heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the business.

Perhaps more importantly, their easy-going nature and genuine affection for one another helped to foster a social, supportive, and nurturing culture within HP, at a time when these were rare qualities to be found in a work environment.

Together they created an innovative, creative working environment that allowed their employees – and their business partnership to thrive.

If you come across someone on your list that you don’t particularly want to work with, but you think is very smart, go and talk to them anyway. Ask them if they know anyone good that you should talk to about working with.

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