PartnerUp Reviews and Details

Questions & Answers

1. What makes PartnerUp unique?

   PartnerUp is built on the idea that choosing who you build with is a big decision, so it should feel like one.

   You can browse and search everyone on the app, and each day you also get one curated pick with a free nudge to reach out. Nobody can message anybody until both people have said yes, so every conversation starts from a mutual decision instead of a cold message sitting in someone's inbox. There's no swiping, no endless feed and no streaks to keep up with.

   The other part is what happens after you meet someone. Most matching tools stop at the introduction, but that's usually when the hard questions start: how to split equity, how vesting should work and what goes in a founders agreement. PartnerUp has a co-founder toolkit for exactly that, with calculators for equity, vesting, cap tables, dilution and runway, plus legal templates and plain-language guides.

   It also has Paradigm, an AI that learns your business and helps you plan and grow it.

2. Why should a person choose PartnerUp over its competitors?

   It really depends on what you're after. YC Co-Founder Matching and big directories like CoFoundersLab give you a huge pool, but that also means a lot of sorting and a lot of first messages that go nowhere.

   Apps like CoffeeSpace make it quicker with swiping, although that can easily turn into skimming past people. PartnerUp suits people who'd rather look at one good match properly than skim through a hundred.

   Firstly, every conversation starts with a mutual yes, so you're talking to someone who actually chose to talk to you. Secondly, profiles lead with what each person offers and what they're looking for, so you can judge someone on substance. Finally, PartnerUp stays useful once you've found someone, because the toolkit and Paradigm help you agree the equity split, set up vesting, draft your agreements and plan your first 90 days. The other tools leave you to work that part out alone.

   PartnerUp is newer and smaller than the big names, so if raw reach is all you want, they're probably the better fit. If you want a calmer and more serious search, that's what PartnerUp is for.

3. How would you describe the primary audience of PartnerUp?

   PartnerUp is for founders, operators, collaborators and generally anybody with a serious intention to build something. In practice that's three groups. The first is founders looking for a co-founder to start or run a venture with.

   The second is skilled people, such as engineers, designers, growth marketers and domain experts, who'd like to join an existing project instead of starting their own.

   The third is people looking for a partner on a specific project or side venture. What they have in common is that they aren't browsing for the sake of it. Finding a business partner is closer to a big hire than to casual networking, so they come with intent and want to know the other person did too.

   The app is live in English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Swedish, so the audience is international.

4. What's the story behind PartnerUp?

   The idea for PartnerUp came about because I really struggled to find like-minded people to build with. As a creative I'm always coming up with things to build. I have more ideas than I do time, and so the right people to work with have always been the missing piece. Most of the options out there were either huge directories where you send a lot of cold messages that go nowhere, or swiping apps that made a serious decision feel like a game.

   I decided to build the thing I wanted: a calmer place where both people choose to talk before anything starts. Finding the person is only half the job though. Once you agree to build together you're straight into equity splits, vesting and agreements, which is where a lot of first-time founders get stuck, so the co-founder toolkit came next, and then Paradigm. So with that being said, if you'd like to be part of a community where talented people with serious intentions can connect, I welcome you to PartnerUp.

5. Which are the primary technologies used for building PartnerUp?

   PartnerUp is a mobile app for iOS and Android, built from one TypeScript codebase with React Native and Expo.

   Expo Router handles navigation, and EAS handles the builds and over-the-air updates.

   The backend runs on Convex, which looks after the database, server functions, file storage and scheduled jobs like the daily pick. Sign-in uses Better Auth (email, Google and Apple), subscriptions go through RevenueCat, emails go through Resend, and push notifications go through Expo's push service.

   Paradigm, the AI side of the app, runs on Moonshot's Kimi model through an OpenAI-compatible API. The website and blog are built with Next.js and hosted on Vercel, i18next handles translations across all seven languages, and Sentry tracks errors.

6. Who are some of the biggest customers of PartnerUp?

   • Founders looking for a co-founder to start a company with
   • Engineers, designers and other operators who want to join an early-stage venture
   • People looking for a partner on a side project or a specific piece of work
   • Founders who've already found their co-founder and use the toolkit to split equity, set up vesting and draft their agreements
   • Founders using Paradigm to plan and run their business