Cofounder red flag I ignored twice.
I watched a founder lose his technical cofounder about five months in. Guy joined in August, gone by late January the moment IBM emailed him. Turns out he never believed in the idea. He wanted a resume line and a story to tell, and a recruiter gave him a better one.
I've made this mistake too. The trap is that a "yes" to joining you feels like conviction, but it's usually just curiosity plus a low opportunity cost. The moment something safer shows up, they're out.
The one signal that actually predicts it: have they ever started something of their own, even a tiny thing that failed? Someone who shut down their own project already knows the loneliness of it. They're not testing whether they like the feeling. They already know they do.
I built SoloVault to help with the earlier question — what's worth building in the first place — but who you build it with is the part I keep underweighting.
How do you screen for real founder fire before committing?
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