In 2025 I was looking for a co-founder for a robotics project and really wanted a technical sparring partner who was working on closely related problems. Growing somewhat tired of clicking through profiles on YC and wanting a way to find co-founders that focused more on similar plans or ideas, I decided to build a free alternative approach where users find each other and connect solely through the semantic similarity of their venture ideas.

I hope this post is accepted since YC has its own co-founder matching, but I'm not advocating for people to leave it. I tink it's complementary. Plenty of reasons to look for co-founders based on their skills, background, or location, but Indexed-Ideas fits in as a more efficient way to tap into what I view as your most natural pool of collaborators. People you don't need to pitch to because they are already convinced. It also enables you to size up your ecosystem by seeing how many great minds out there are thinking alike. For founders who are overly secretive with their ideas this approach might also be more attractive since a highly similar idea is needed to find their profile. Let me know what you think. I would love to get some feedback!