Meet Hazim Mohamad of CoffeeSpace. Hazim left his successful position as a risk analyst to build a platform that helps match co-founders. Learn more about his journey, how he found his co-founder and his 12 plants.  Also, checkout CoffeeSpace and their cool services. 

What’s your story? How did you get here?

My cofounder, Carin Gan, and I began exploring the cofounder search problem in the summer of 2023, right after completing Antler’s founder residency program in Austin. During this time, we realized just how challenging and frustrating it can be to find the right cofounder. About half of our cohort was actively looking for one, but without access to a large pool of candidates and relevant data points, it was incredibly difficult to find suitable matches. This experience underscored the urgent need for a platform like CoffeeSpace—to help people explore their startup ideas and find the right cofounder.

Finding the right cofounder involves aligning on several critical factors. You may need someone with technical skills or someone in your location. They should be passionate about your industry and, more importantly, committed to working on your specific idea within that industry, on the same timeline. Are they currently working full-time, or do they plan to leave their job in the next three, six, or twelve months? All these variables make the search for a cofounder a complex process. You need a large user base—a big pool of candidates—and data to ensure they meet your criteria. It’s much like dating, where finding the right match requires access to many potential connections and alignment on key factors.

Finding a business partner is similar to finding a life partner. This is someone you’ll be working closely with for at least 5-10 years, building a company together. Our journey began with people in our cohort struggling to find cofounders despite being surrounded by like-minded individuals, reinforcing the need for a dedicated platform.

I can personally relate to this problem because I had been thinking about an idea for two years, but it remained just a thought in the back of my mind until I wrote about it in a Facebook post. By chance, Carin reached out. We hadn’t grown up together, gone to school together, or worked together before. We had met once at a random event years earlier but never spoke afterward. We added each other on Facebook, but that was the extent of our connection.

It was only through our shared passion for solving the same problem that we truly connected. We began exploring ideas together over weekends while I was still at the World Bank and Carin was at Facebook (before it became Meta). After a few months of what we called our ‘trial period,’ we decided to become cofounders. Our relationship was built on a mutual passion to solve a specific problem, and that shared commitment laid the foundation for a strong cofounder partnership.

 

         

What is your pitch?

It’s not just about connecting people who are looking for co-founders. Many are exploring ideas and don’t yet know what they want to pursue. In fact, 65% of our community is in this early exploratory phase. They’re seeking others to brainstorm and develop ideas with—people who may eventually become co-founders if the partnership feels right.

Starting alone can be overwhelming. You don’t have all the resources, and balancing it with a full-time job is even more challenging. Securing funding is also more likely–and manageable–with a co-founder by your side.

Our platform isn’t just for those actively searching for a co-founder, which is a common misconception. We cater to anyone exploring an idea, regardless of its stage, who is motivated to take action. It’s about transforming your thoughts into reality with the right partner, rather than keeping them locked away in your mind.

Do you currently have funding? When you went out for initial funding, how many pitches did you have to give?

To date, we have raised over $500k from angel investors, including exited founders, YC-backed founders, and angel investors from Google, Meta, Quantum Black, and more. Raising funds has become much easier since we started building in public–posting about our progress, challenges, and learnings almost weekly on LinkedIn and Twitter since March, and sending a monthly newsletter to our users and potential investors. We’ve easily done over 150 pitches to raise this amount.

In terms of timeline, we began by interviewing people in June 2023 to validate the problem space. Our conviction grew when we got our first paying user within eight days–before building anything. By the end of June, we already had over 10 paying users. We built the MVP in July, as we had reached the capacity of what we could handle manually, and conducted our pilot phase between August and December. During this time, we learned what influenced users to swipe right or left, developed the first versions of our algorithm, and grew our user base to 800 people, with 60 paying customers.

By then, we had sufficient conviction to build a proper mobile app, which we developed between January and February of this year. We launched it in early March, and since then, we’ve surpassed 5,700 users, recorded over 200,000 swipes on our app, reached the Top 5 Product of the Day on Product Hunt, and were recently selected for this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200, happening in late October in San Francisco. We’ve been receiving a lot more inbounds on investment interest since the traction has been growing and is predominantly how we’ve been raising.

What keeps you up at night?

Our users keep me up at night. They’re founders and aspiring founders, so they’re naturally very demanding and vocal. If they like something, they’ll let you know, and if they don’t, they’ll be even louder about it. It’s great to have such an engaged user base, but it also means a constant stream of feature requests and feedback.

For example, when we launched on Product Hunt at the end of April, we made it to the top five products of the day. The feedback was overwhelming—over 75 comments with users sharing what they loved and where they saw room for improvement.

So, what really keeps me up is making sure we keep up with our users’ demands and continue to improve the product at the pace they expect.

What is your favorite beverage?

I’m from Malaysia, a country known for its tropical fruits, and my favorite is definitely watermelon juice.

Would you consider yourself a risk taker or how did you learn to embrace risk taking?

In my previous role as a risk analyst, my team and I oversaw $40 billion of the World Bank’s Treasury portfolio, so I’m cautious by profession.

However, as a person, I’m naturally more of a risk taker. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have quit my job to pursue this startup full-time. It definitely takes a certain level of risk tolerance to commit to building a startup from the ground up.

Have you had a pivot?

Yes, the first idea was very personal—it was an automated introduction platform for students and alumni. I had access to a database of MIT alumni, but it was passive; you couldn’t see who was open to discussions, on what topics, or their availability. The goal was to solve this issue by creating a platform that could integrate all school databases and facilitate active connections.

However, this concept proved difficult to monetize since it relied heavily on goodwill.

That experience led us to explore the founder space more deeply. Founders face numerous challenges, but we needed a more focused approach.

When we interviewed with Y Combinator in November 2022, our idea had evolved into a B2B SaaS startup community platform. Y Combinator had developed an internal tool called Bookface to manage their network of 10,000 founders—a knowledge and network management platform.

For example, if someone needed an introduction to a post-Series A lawyer in Southeast Asia specializing in healthcare, Bookface would help them find relevant contacts within the community. It was essentially a blend of Slack and Notion, optimized for a trusted, private network.

During the interview, YC advised us to secure our first paying client as soon as possible to prove the concept’s viability. After another pivot a few months later, we finally found the right idea and secured those paying clients.

What is something that you know now but wish you knew?

We once had a conversation with a managing partner who told us that if a problem is real and people are willing to pay to solve it, you can find multiple applications for that solution. Initially, we wanted to build numerous features to appeal to a broader market. 

What I wish I had known earlier is that it’s okay to start by serving a small, specific group. Focus on winning their trust and support, and then expand from there. This approach is exactly what’s working for us now.

People are not just finding co-founders and exploring ideas together on CoffeeSpace; they’re also finding their early hires i.e. employees #1 to #10. The initial hires at a startup are very similar to co-founders—they take on significant risk, wear multiple hats, and have ownership over their areas. Organically, this use case has already happened and we will look into optimizing for this after ‘winning’ the cofounder search market.

Do you have any other passions or interests outside of work?

Scuba diving is one and I used to climb quite a bit. One of my true passions is the game Magic: The Gathering. Magic is a complex game that has been around for 31 years. There’s 30 million people playing Magic globally right now. 

Do you have any either pets or plants or anything else that you’re taking care of?

Yes, my co-founder and I have 12 plants that we take care of.

Misconception about being a founder?

It’s a tough journey, and most people don’t realize their first idea usually won’t be the one that succeeds. It’s often your second, third or even after that that actually works as you begin to understand more about the market and how startups work.

Do you have any advice you would give to someone who’s about to make that big leap?

Validate as much as you can while maintaining a parallel runway. Don’t leave your job until you absolutely have to—like when you get into an accelerator or secure VC funding. Do as much as possible on the side; it will be tough, but it’s worth it from a risk minimization perspective.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Ten years ago, online dating was stigmatized, but now it’s mainstream, with around 30% of Americans finding long-term partners online. We see the same future for co-founder matchmaking—disrupting how co-founders connect and collaborate.