Finding Founders

If you want to build a successful open-source SaaS, you need more than just a great product. You need someone who can grow it, market it, and turn it into a business. The great news is that in the same way that you like, and you are good at what you do - there are people out there who love: marketing, growing audiences, running ads, writing copy, and scaling products. You just need to find them.

The Premise

There are “marketing nerds"s out there. That is people who:

• Love growing audiences, running ads, writing copy
• Are great at building funnels, optimizing conversions, and scaling products
• Are naturally outgoing, love networking, and thrive on building relationships

but also:

• Are not technical, don’t want to code, and don’t want to run the product
• Want to work on something real, not just a side project
• Are currently stuck selling crap and want to team with a legit builder

In the same way that you finding a marketing partner would be a dream come true, it’s a dream come true for them too. They want to work on something real, not just another side project. They want to own equity in a product that has potential, not just run ads for someone else’s.

Where to Find Them

I didn’t have many ideas for this section so I used LLM’s to research this. It came back up with quite a few good suggestions and resources that I didn’t know about.

Here are some of the best places to find potential co-founders or partners:

• https://indiehackers.com (forums, collab threads)
  • What to do:
    • Post your project in “Looking for Collaborators” or “Help Wanted”
    • Be honest: “Dev looking for a marketing-focused partner for open source SaaS”
    • Why it works: Lots of marketers looking for product builders
• https://cofounderslab.com
• https://foundersmatch.com
• Reddit: /r/startups, /r/cofounder, /r/EntrepreneurRideAlong
• Twitter bios: “growth hacker”, “product marketer”, etc.
• Growth Hacking Discords:
  • IndieHackers Discord
  • WIP.chat community
  • Swipe Files (marketing nerds)
  • GrowthMentor Discord
  • Join, hang out, post in #collab or #cofounders channels
• Microconf
  • Site: https://connect.microconf.com
  • It’s a high-signal network of bootstrapped SaaS founders, many of whom are marketers looking for things to sell.
• Service Founders
  • In your travels (or on LinkedIn), look for people running services like:
    • SEO audits
    • Landing page optimization
    • Newsletter growth
  • Many of them want to own equity in the product vs just being an agency.

Be Ready

Before reaching out, get your own house in order. You should really be at a place where you ideally have the following things ready. If you want people to take you seriously, then it’s an important investment of time in getting your side of things presentable and professional.

You should be ready to show what you can do, what you have built, your ability to execute and scale, and that you are professional and serious about your project. If ever there is a time to bring your A-game, this is it.

1. Live Product

Having a live, polished product is essential before reaching out to potential partners. This means your SaaS should be fully functional, visually appealing, and free of major bugs. A live demo or production instance shows that you’re serious and that your project is more than just an idea or prototype. It also allows potential partners to experience the product firsthand, which builds trust and excitement.

2. GitHub Organization

A dedicated GitHub organization and open-source repository demonstrate professionalism and transparency. It signals that you’re committed to the project’s long-term success and that you’re open to collaboration. A well-organized repo with clear documentation, issues, and contribution guidelines makes it easier for others to get involved and understand the codebase. See: OSS + SaaS.

3. Demoable SaaS

Having a self-hosted, demoable SaaS version ready to scale is a huge advantage. This means your infrastructure is set up for others to deploy or test the product themselves. It also shows that you’ve thought about scalability and real-world usage, which is attractive to partners who want to hit the ground running.

4. Blog & SEO Funnel

A blog and SEO-ready content funnel are crucial for organic growth. Regularly publishing helpful, relevant content not only attracts users but also establishes your authority in the space. It gives your marketing partner a foundation to build on and shows that you understand the importance of inbound marketing.

You might be thinking, “I’m not a marketer, why should I care about SEO and funnels?”. The answer is, as the tech person you ideally won’t have to, your partner will. However, what they will need is a lot of high-quality “content” to work with. So, this means writing blog posts early and often, creating guides, tutorials, and other resources that can be used to attract and engage users. Also, if it’s in your plan, creating matching YouTube videos for your blog posts (which cross-reference each other) can be a great way to build an audience and drive traffic to your SaaS.

More of TOFU, MOFU, BOFU and Sales Funnels.

5. Shipping Velocity

The ability to ship like a machine means you can iterate quickly and respond to feedback. This is vital for early-stage SaaS, where rapid improvement can make the difference between success and stagnation. Demonstrating a strong shipping cadence reassures partners that the product will keep evolving and that their efforts will be supported by ongoing development.

Build Systems

In order to be nible and to ship quickly, you need to have solid systems in place. In the case of a website or SaaS, this means having a solid CI/CD pipeline, automated testing, and deployment processes. This allows you to push changes quickly and safely, which is essential for maintaining momentum and keeping your partners engaged.

• Level 1: Basic CI/CD
  • Automated builds and tests on every commit
  • Simple deployment scripts
• Level 2: Advanced CI/CD
  • Automated deployments to staging and production
  • Rollback capabilities
  • Integration tests
• Level 3: Full DevOps
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform and Ansible for reproducible environments
  • Monitoring and alerting systems in place with a status webpage (e.g. UptimeKuma, StatusPage, etc)
  • Automated scaling and load balancing
  • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)

This will take some time to set up and to mature over time, but it’s worth investing in. It will not only make your life easier as a developer but also make your project more attractive to potential partners. They will see that you have a solid foundation and that you are serious about building a successful SaaS.

What to Say

When you reach out to potential partners, be clear about what you have and what you’re looking for. Here are some examples of how you might frame your message:

“I built a live open-source SaaS, it’s 95% done. I don’t want to run the business side, just code. Looking for a marketer/operator interested in scaling something real.”

Or:

“TL;DR: I’m a veteran security engineer with a powerful homelab and a polished open-source SaaS app called AwesomeApp (tracks all your [stuff], visualized on a calendar).

It’s live, has a hosted demo, self-hosting instructions, and a clean brand. The backend is Supabase, the UI is sharp, and I’m ready to scale - but I don’t want to be the one growing an audience or fiddling with funnels.

I’m looking for someone who loves marketing and audience building - ideally a solo marketer or content creator looking for a real product they can grow.

This could be rev-share, equity, or even just a collab. Hit me up if this sounds interesting!”