Tech Entrepreneurs Get a Hand Pairing Up

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Originally published August 10, 2012

By Ian Sherr

When David Hegarty moved to San Francisco from Seattle in 2009 to start a company, he had a problem: He didn’t know anyone he could to team up with.

Mr. Hegarty, now 34 years old, was a business guy who knew how to manage sales, make deals and strike partnerships. What he needed was an engineer.

On a whim, he signed up with FounderDating, a website that aims to help people find a partner to jointly pour blood, sweat and tears into a start-up.

“Unlike normal dating, finding someone to start a company with is not a process that’s well understood,” says Jessica Alter, who co-founded San Francisco-based FounderDating three years ago with Saar Gur, a partner with Charles River Ventures.

FounderDating is one of a growing number of businesses and services trying to match tech-company founders. Competitors range from Maryland-based CoFoundersLab to prominent venture-capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, which funded companies including Google Inc. and LinkedIn Corp.

 

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(Published Aug 10, 2012, in The Wall Street Journal.)