I've watched what I could find on YC's take on this - I have a potential cofounder who :<p>- Has deep domain experience
- Balances the startup's roles: He sales/marketing/networking vs me as technical/designer
- Both share same profession & passion to solving this problem.<p>I'm fine with giving equal or near-equal equity (though I'm still looking at the 1 year cliff/4 year vesting concepts).<p>Mainly, what I have is a fear of commitment. I've been working on this solo for so long and that has been a mistake of mine. However, I can't make one mistake push me into making another and choose a bad co-founder.<p>Are there any other resources you recommend me check out? Risk redundancy and share with me something that might have slipped through the cracks.
A couple recommendations...<p>1. Get References: ask for references for previous employers/managers and coworkers. You'll want to focus those conversations around the potential co-founder's skills, work ethic, style, motivations and attitude.<p>2. Fear Setting: if you're not familiar, lookup "Tim Ferris Fear Setting." It's a good exercise to get all your fears and doubts and worst case scenarios down on paper so you can work through addressing them.<p>3. Operating Agreement: define and document a clear set of operating agreements outlining roles, expectations, separations procedures, etc. Hash it all out now so there's no confusion or guessing if things do fall apart.<p>4. Temp to Perm/Sweat Equity: if this person's truly motivated to be a cofounder with you, consider a short term trial period that's unpaid and non-equity with a clear set of tasks and goals. If they agree to it, and complete it successfully, they may have proven worthy to join.