Startup Sales — 5 Common Sales Mistakes by Founders
August 12, 2025
Founders are responsible for the first sales a startup will make. For many founders, this is one of their very first experiences of sales and mistakes are often made.
Today we’re talking about the channels and tools you can use to find a co-founder.
In general, this is such a hard and consequential problem you’ll want to test every opportunity you have.
1. First Networking — the most effective but hardest to master. Mostly based on showing up and social skills. However, most founders limit the networks they explore when actually you should try as many as you can. Local — your hometown, your current location, any places you have lived — tap any that have startup communities. Industrial — anywhere you’ve worked, any trade associations. And Alumni — this one is the most important — you can go back as far as high school, reaching out to both old friends directly, mailing lists, and sub-organizations like departments or clubs.
2. Software Tools: Y-Combinator has a co-founder matching platform, CoFoundersLab claims a network of over 500k founders. There’s even quite a lot of activity in groups and forums on LinkedIn and Reddit.
3. Accelerator Programs: If you’re looking for a more structured approach, then you can now get help finding a co-founder, and even an idea, from dedicated accelerator programs, e.g., Entrepreneur First and Antler. These programs usually require significant time and equity commitments, plus not everyone makes it. But they are effective.
Best of luck out there.
