[tikkun]

I have a handful of ideas that I'd be interested in finding collaborators for. I own a few bootstrapped businesses (they're not in my profile, I keep them low profile to avoid competition) and spend quite a bit of money (>$700k USD spent in 2022 on biz expenses + personal expenses). Spending lots of money shows me quite a few product ideas - I'm slowly working on a few of those product ideas because I'd like to a) buy them for myself and b) make them as products/businesses - but I'm kind of spreading myself too thin and would be interested in collaborators.

So, if someone would like to explore collaborating, feel free to email me - email in profile. That said, I'd probably only want to collaborate with someone that's so good that they wouldn't need me, and then that person wouldn't want to collaborate. (I think the profile I'd be looking to meet is someone who has successfully launched 2 or 3 or more tiny software products/apps, so I can see that you can successfully make high quality polished things, and they work well and customers love them and you marketed them solo and made them solo, but they're not huge, because you've been limited to the small $$ problems that you're exposed to, so then hypothetically by building for the large $$ problems that I spend on and large $$ markets that I have some experience selling to, you could make something bigger. People like this are rare and mostly not looking for collaborators, though, because they're already making at least 5-6 figures from bootstrapped businesses already.)

I've also considered making a thing like this to help match co-founders who are aiming to be "million dollar bootstrappers" - 7 figures in profit but bootstrapped, not growth at all costs. The ideal way to monetize it would be to get a percentage of the businesses if they successfully start, but that's tough when things like YC Cofounder Matching are free services, and I think it'd turn people off. 99% of people on both sides won't end up making successful businesses even if they have impressive resumes, so another risk is that it's a marketplace of lemons. Everyone's going to be skeptical of everyone I think - "if you're so good why are you here" - so people will assume that people on there aren't good, and therefore won't seriously use it, etc.

[tikkun]

I think OP you should try more with YC Cofounder Matching! I've decided to sign up and actually explore using it myself to find a co-founder for some of the things I'm working on, I'll report back how it goes, waiting on my profile to be reviewed now. I think there'll be lots of there who are looking for lifestyle businesses, not just high growth startups.

[tikkun]

Other thoughts for OP:

1) I think the best place to find what you're looking for is either YC's matching, or Indiehackers, or cold emailing people

2) Lifestyle businesses are fantastic! And there are many more people doing 7 figures in profit from software lifestyle businesses than people are aware of. (But also, a "measly 1M business" is really hard, and most businesses never get to 1mm/year annual profit)

3) It's very tough! Luck + relationships/access + skill + decades of practice/attempts. (Took me ~17 years of doing side projects before I had 2 businesses that worked)

4) Main skills needed: 1) Building things 2) Selling/distributing things

5) Focus on ideas where it'd be easiest for you to get the first customers. I'm also heavily biased to B2B, so focus on B2B areas where you personally know people who could be your first 5 customers.

6) > management consultants/MBAs who don't want to take the plunge and quit their regular jobs, but would be happy to do a few days a month to get a feel for startups

I'd suggest avoiding those as co-founders! Unless they can get you a first 5 customers. My sense is that most MBA skills aren't useful for getting a business off the ground, they're more useful for management consulting (which - what real value is that anyway).

7) Another option is to start small. Start yourself, build something for yourself. Do that as a side project. After a year, you'll probably have seen bigger problems in the course of building that side project. So at that point, switch and build a product that solves one of the problems you faced while building the first product. Repeat that for a couple years and you'll probably end up at some big $$ problems.

8) It takes a lot of reps to get good. I think the most underrated factor is how much time would you be willing to put into the thing you're working on. My suggestion is to sample many projects. Treat them all as side projects. Work on them for a few days (build product, chat casually with customers). Then ask yourself which one you most enjoy working on and where you could see yourself working on it for 6 weeks. Then work on that for 6 weeks, then scale up to 3 months, then 18 months. Takes time, so the one you'd most enjoy putting lots of hours into for weeks/months/years is probably the one most likely to succeed. And don't pick in the abstract / don't pick based on the idea, actually try working on them and pick based on how it feels to work on it - like taking a bite out of every dish at a restaurant - and then see which one you want to keep "eating".

9) Co-founders are great if a) you are capable enough to do something yourself and b) they bring something gamechanger you don't have c) they raise the ceiling for what the business is capable of. One of my businesses I did solo, the other with a 50-50 cofounder. Both worked out great, I think both paths are good. But the main takeaway from this point is to "be so good that you don't need them".

10) Pick something where you in your "sampling" you see that you enjoy the two critical pieces for that product/side project - building that product and reaching buyers for that product. The journey takes so so long that you have to be able to enjoy it.