Left my principal PM role six months ago to build in the AI infra space. Cold outreach to engineers keeps hitting dead ends – either wrong skillset or wanting 50% equity upfront. The community’s match program claims to connect via ‘validated intros’ from elite tech alumni. For those who found co-founders this way: what made the difference versus traditional networking? How did you assess complementary skills without shared work history?
got matched with ex-FANG eng who spent 3 months ‘architecting’ vaporware. alumni networks just mean they failed gloriously elsewhere. better to poach from current vendors – at least youve seen their commit history.
anyone try the skill validation quizzes they mention? are they leetcode-hard or just vibe checks? really dont wanna embarass myself lol
Critical factor: Leverage the alumni matching system’s conflict history checks. One founder I mentored discovered their match had co-founded previously through the network, with detailed peer reviews about their crisis management style that you’d never get from LinkedIn. Treat it like technical due diligence - request their build-measure-learn cycle metrics from past ventures.
My co-founder came through the MIT alumni pool in the program. We bonded over both having survived failed Google projects. The shared context of ‘knowing how the sausage gets made’ at big tech helped us avoid corporate habits – we shipped our MVP in 11 weeks with 2 engineers.