[us]

I met my previous cofounder for our last startup through a mutual friend long before founding the company together. We were introduced to each other base on the fact that we were both so business oriented and our friend just wanted us to meet. A few years later, an opportunity for a business idea came up and we decided to partner up. The company was later acquired and we decided to pursue different interests after but still keep in touch practically every day .

In hindsight, natural settings of meeting someone who have similar interests to you either through friends, work, college, etc... is much easier to find compatibility as cofounders than actively hunting down strangers at meetups hoping to find a cofounder that will work well with you. I believe PG or someone else mentioned something about how if the only reason you guys are together is to work on this startup idea and nothing else, there's really nothing holding you together and there is a higher risk of failure (not in those exact words).

The other problem you'll be facing too is that you're trying to sell your dream to someone else which is harder than joining someone else on their dream. Most people from what I've seen wants to work on their ideas rather than the ideas of others. Of course there are those that do join on with someone else's idea but for the most part, people you run into at cofounder type events are mostly biz guys looking for a technical guy to execute on their idea. It's really hard to find a compatible "friend" you can call a cofounder outside of just your startup dreams.