#59: How to Build A Startup Part 1: How to find your startup co-founder
One year later, we're sharing all the grit and not a lot of glamour behind the scenes
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🎉 Happy Birthday Magical Audios!
On January 29, 2025, our startup will turn 1 year old! While the product itself was launched on June 2025, my co-founders and I said YES to each other on January 29, 2024.
Since then many people have asked me how to find their startup co-founder, what steps they can take to find their product-market fit, or find customers without funding.
So to celebrate our upcoming birthday, let me share with you a 3-part story about the practical step-by-step of how we started and how we got here with Magical Audios.
So in this series, I’m writing about:
How to find a startup co-founder - in this issue.
How to bootstrap an MVP - coming soon.
How to find customers - coming soon.
This is not a best practices story nor is it a success story (at least not yet). Just a “this is how we’re doing it in real life” story.
So if you’re looking for a co-founder for your startup or considering being one, then my goal is to share with you some insights to help you decide. 😉
How to find your startup co-founder
Long story short, CEO + main Magical Audios honcho, Katherine Navarro Brand, who is also a product marketing expert, found us.
She found me on Linkedin and sent me a message:
If you’re the person with the idea, let me just be upfront with you that you’re about to embark on a difficult journey. So it’s very important to find people you will enjoy working with.
How did Kat choose?
01 Have a clear WHY and criteria to choose your co-founders
There are pros and cons to having co-founders.
When you’re by yourself there’s so much flexibility:
Full ownership and control
Less time spent on managing roles and relationships
On the other hand, being a solo founder has its risks:
Higher workload when there’s nobody to share it with
It’s unlikely that one person has all the experience and skills needed for the product to build so this can be a limitation overtime
There will be bumps in the road and results are unpredictable. So when things are not looking good, burn out is a risk when there’s nobody there to support you
When she found me, she already found the mental health expert and professional hypnotherapist side of our trio, Andrea Ramirez And she was looking for a product/technical expert to complete her team.
Did she really need a product/technical co-founder? Not really. But without one, it would have taken them much longer to build an MVP.
Also, in the beginning, getting investment was part of the plan. And most investors have a preference for startups that have a technical person in the team.
But she also had her personal requirements:
✅ Somebody who had a women-related advocacy
✅ Somebody open to hypnotherapy or alternative practices that are probably more prevalent in non-western cultures
✅ Somebody who can add to the diversity of her co-founding team.
02 Comb through your network and communities
Kat found me through good ‘ol searching. On Linkedin.
Since she already had criteria, it was easy to narrow down the search.
She looked for people with a Product Management and a startup background.
She looked for people with relevant advocacy.
How did she know if the person was worth talking to? Their personal brand (or lack thereof) spoke a million words.
In my case, I’ve always been loud and proud about my impact and advocacies. I’ve always been open about:
My experience as a Woman of Color in EU Tech
My experience and achievements as a Product Manager and Product Leader in multiple tech companies of varying sizes
I’ve always been active in various Women’s centric communities like AllWomen and I also had experience starting my own.
These made me an interesting candidate for her.
03 Conversations with potential co-founders are pretty much job interviews
Kat asked really difficult questions.
She asked about my experience building things, not just as a Product Manager, but also my entrepreneurial ventures like my coaching business and my old mentoring community, Career Hacking for Women.
At the top of my head, she asked about:
How I built things practically (product speak did not impress her, to put it mildly)
How I created opportunities and grew my business
What else I can I bring to the table aside from my practical skills (e.g. my network)
She also asked me questions that aimed to flesh out how I am as a colleague and partner:
How do I behave in the face of conflict
How do I keep myself and my team motivated in tough times
Did I share their core values and care about the problem they were trying to solve
She was trying to answer two very important questions for herself:
Can I help her and Andrea make the startup successful?
Would I, as a person, be a good fit for the two of them?
🔰 TL;DR: So if you’re a startup founder looking for your co-founders, here are some tips:
1. Get clear on your why and your co-founder criteria - who do you want to work with, what do you need to fulfill in your team
2. Comb through your network and communities - your co-founder might be one Linkedin search, a friend's introduction, or one industry event that's relevant for what you do away
3. Ask difficult questions and stalk like hell - Do a vibe and background check. Ask around about your prospect. Find out their social media activities. And make sure your as much of your requirements are being met🧠 Something to think about: The steps Kat took to find me and vet me are not very different from how a recruiter or hiring manager would look for a potential candidate for a role in their team, isn’t it?
How to say YES (or no) to being a co-founder
I said YES to Kath months after we first started talking. Even though I wanted to say YES immediately.
What were my considerations? Let’s dive in!
01 Get clear on your motivations
Getting asked to be a co-founder is a huge ego boost! It was glorious to be recognized for my work this way.
But soon after the reality of what being a co-founder came knocking in.
It’s a lot of work, huge accountability, and incredibly high risk.
The failure rate of startups is HIGH! 90%!
The time it takes for startups to be profitable can be long! 2-5 years at best.
On the other hand, I’ve always advocated for “building something for yourself” (whenever possible, in whatever shape or form). The problem that the startup was trying to solve was also strongly aligned with the things I cared about. So putting those two together made the pros higher than the risks for me.
02 Find out how serious was the founder
I’ve been in 0-1 environments. I was employee no.1 for a startup a few years back. My boss, who was the CEO/founder rarely slept and was constantly stressed out about revenue, board expectations, funding, and well… everything. The first few years were exciting but extremely tough.
Several of my friends also had their startup stints. Only one of them achieved their definition of success.
On the flip side, I’ve also seen people who wanted to have a startup because it’s 2023 and it was the cool millennial thing to do after avocado toasts.
I wanted to make sure that who I was saying YES to, knew what they were getting into, were prepared for the hard work that was waiting for us, and were not just motivated by a cool title on Linkedin.
Suffice to say, she was serious.
03 Check constraints and set clear expectations
This was 2023 so I was still working full time in my Head of Product role. The demands of that job was high. I was also already a Career Coach for Women in Tech.
This meant that I only have so much time and energy that I can give to this startup:
I wouldn’t be so easily available for meetings
I could be slow when it comes to my end of the responsibilities
And having an MVP could take a long time since this was my primary outcome
I needed to be transparent on these so expectations are clear for all of us.
Why she was still ok with all of these constraints afterward is beyond me 😂
But it was important to be upfront from the beginning because these constraints were a huge factor in our ways of working and our roadmap.
⚠️ IMPORTANT CAVEAT Since I was employed, before I could even consider saying YES I had so many things to triple check with my employment contract. Non-compete clauses, Ownership clauses, NDAs, etc. I also had to clear this up with my manager to make sure there’s no conflict of interest and none of these would blow up in my face later on once we go public with the startup. Having a day job, a coaching business, and a startup all at the same time contributed to my burnout in early 2024. I do not recommend being this overloaded.
04 Courage vs Confidence
When it became clear that I wanted to say YES, my self-limiting beliefs and fears came flooding in. 😂
What if I fail and I drag them down with me?
Do I really know how to build a product?
These two questions that kept me up at night.
My confidence failed. My lizard brain was working hard to keep me safe.
But there was a nagging voice at the back of my head that was also getting stronger after every conversation with Kat. I was still 50/50 until I attended one of their events where I got to try Andrea’s hypnotherapy for myself. I was won over 100%.
So I talked with my coach and shifted my perspective to help me make a decision that was not based on fear alone.
Of course, I knew how to build a product. And if there was something I couldn’t figure out on my own, I had a bunch of friends who could help me.
Of course,e I will fail. But isn’t that the point of product building? To keep failing so we can figure out what doesn’t work until we find out what does?
So in the end, the WANT won. And even though my confidence was low, I called for courage instead to take that leap of faith.
⚠️ IMPORTANT CAVEAT:I think it’s also important to mention my privileges made it possible for me to even say yes. I had a full time job, some savings, and a supportive partner. I had a a financial cushion to be comfortable with the risk should shit hit the fan.
🔰 TL;DR: So if if you’re being scouted to be a startup co-founder, here are some tips:
1. Get clear on your why. It's a huge ego boost but the reality is full of uncertainty and hard work. Make sure you weigh the PROs and CONs against each other.
2. It's a partnership not a favor. There are many risks and the startup life can be stressful. Make sure your potential co-founder is grounded in this reality and not just here for the ego-trip.
2. Get clear on your constraints. There will be tons of work and there's no team to do the job except for you and your co-founders. Make sure you have the capacity and energy for this. If you're still employed, check your employment contract.
3. Don't listen to your self-limiting beliefs. If you really want to do this, trust your gut and say yes. You don't have to know how to do everything from the beginning. You'll learn along the way. Conclusion
The startup life can be an amazing adventure. But the reality is also that the last 12 months have been intense.
We’ve made huge mistakes.
We’ve made the wrong bets
We’ve lost money and opportunities
We’ve neglected important administrative work that had consequences
The 3 of us have also disagreed about many things.
But we’ve never fought. At least not a fight that made us question whether or not we would want to keep working with each other.
So if you want to get into it, grit is important.
Find co-founders who you could feel safe with — because you’re going to make a lot of mistakes and it makes a boatload of difference when you’re working with people who can help you learn from those mistakes without making you feel like an ogre.
Besides celebrating wins is more fun with people you actually like to work with. ❤️
Questions for you!
For the startup peeps reading this who have co-founders - how did you find each other? And what made you say YES to the opportunity to work together?
I’d love to read your stories in the comments section below 👇
📣 I will have 2 open coaching slots for February!
If you’re an experienced woman in tech (in product, engineering, data, or design) feeling uncertain about your performance and your career.
Or if you’re a new leader and you want need help navigating your new leadership role, set up your team for success, and make sure you have time for the rest of your life
Or are you an aspiring entrepreneur. You have an idea but you’re not sure how to turn it into reality.
I’d love to support you! My approach is a balance of practical work - wherein we define goals for what you want to achieve, design a strategy for it, and identify next best actions that you can take in your day to day. As well as mixing it with a holistic approach to make sure you have the right system to take on your challenges with energy and strength.
If this is the kind of support that you’re looking for, I’d love to chat!
If you got to this part of this newsletter, thanks for staying with me til the end. And thank you for sharing with me topics that you’d like for me to share my thoughts, feelings, and violent reactions on.
❤️
Kax
PS. Here are more ways for us to connect:
I love all the tips on your startup building. One of these days I'm going to commit fully. Just need to maybe hit the lottery first.