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Worth collaborating with a remote co-founder?

I’ve met a few potential co-founders online. From different countries. Israel, for instance.

1. Can I trust someone I’ve never met?

2. Is it easy to work remotely?

3. Can I trust someone who’s in another part of the world?

  • My advice would be to see your potential co-founder in real life for at least 1-2 weeks. Hang out with the person in person and see if you share vision & strategy.

    Working remotely is no problem at all in today’s world, there are plenty of communication possibilities (chat, phone, email, online meetings) – the technology isn’t the problem. If you trust the person and can rely that they can work w/o constant supervision it should turn out fine!

    However, I personally would never start a company with a complete random stranger. Doesn’t matter for me whether I’d meet the guy in a bar or an online chat. I’d would be a gamble rather than a rational decision.

    Having that said, finding a co-founder isn’t like finding co-workers (well, employees), so I think your approach of online “interviewing” (or comparing) potential co-founders is just stupid. Too much of a gamble if you ask me.

    I personally like to find strategic partners. You should find someone in the same sphere of your (upcoming) business.

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  • For context: most of my team is remote, including some of my co-founders.

    I would not advise to have a co-founder that you don’t know, remote or not. You may want to consider giving stock options with vesting, but by any means you can’t risk given control parcial control to your company to someone you don’t know.

    Trust is something earned, that has nothing to do with the person’s location. The problem with having someone remote is that it takes longer to earn that trust, since you will have way fewer interactions with that person.

    Generally speaking, working with someone remotely will slow you down and reduce the amount of information you will be able to exchange. I know, my team (including some founding partners) are remote. But if that is the only option, (like it was in my case), then you can make it work.

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  • In my experience investors hate “distributed teams” and it could hurt your chances of getting funded

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