[baddox]

So how do you find a business partner? It sounds like you’re suggesting that you need to already have been personally close to and trusting of your partner for a long time, or perhaps find a partner based on recommendations from very close and trusted friends or colleagues. That’s probably how it happens most of the time. Is that the only viable way to choose a partner?

[rmah]

You partner with someone whom you 1) respect and 2) have worked with well in the past. I really don't understand how anyone could possibly partner with a stranger no matter how stellar their resume or how skilled they are.

[mozumder]

Go with recommendations, seek them out personally, or just take the person most willing to partner with you and use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

There is no “easy mode” in finding a partner. You will have to take some risk here as well.

[afarrell]

> use your gut feeling in how they interact with you.

The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained in environments where you have:

1) The opportunity for lots of repeated trials.

2) Rapid feedback which results from the data you currently observe rather than from

So if you're predicting tomorrow's weather, intuition is useful: your prediction can't change the weather, you can do this 365 times in a year, and you'll get feedback the next day.

Picking a founder (or heck, uni project partner) is unlike this in that you don't have many opportunities to do it and the feedback only comes months later. So, its better to think through a more deliberative and explicit thought process.

That deliberative process might involve a difficult, awkward conversation like "Hey, so if we jump into this, we are going to have to really trust each other for a lot of things. I think its best if we explicitly come up with ways to prove to ourselves and each other that we have the skills to tackle the known challenges we're going to have to face."

I don't know where "easy mode" comes into it at all.

[cirgue]

> The problem here is that intuition (gut feeling) is best trained...

You have had an entire lifetime of trial and feedback in understanding the character, talents, and ambitions of other people. If you don't have that, or if you can't trust it, you probably should not be a founder yet. Wait until you actually have those skills because they're critical for everything else in running a business.

[hkmurakami]

You can have a 3rd person who knows both of you well to make an intro.