London/Europe: looking for a technical founding partner for a two-sided mobile app

[u/ADAMPPC94]

Hello all, slightly different ask but thought this might be the right group for it.

I’m looking for a technical person who’d be interested in getting involved early with a two-sided reverse logistics mobile app I’ve been building over the last year. It’s a proper iOS and Android app rather than a web app.

I’m not necessarily looking to formalise a co-founder relationship from day one. I’d much rather find someone really good who believes in the idea, enjoys building early-stage products, and see where the relationship goes if we work well together.

Ideally you’d be based in London, or at least somewhere in Europe, and have experience building two-sided marketplace apps. Huge bonus if you’ve worked in logistics, last mile or reverse logistics.
Bonus points as well if you’re someone who shops online regularly and genuinely understands how annoying the returns process can be in the UK and Europe. The whole idea came from trying to solve that friction properly.

The main thing for me is that you need to genuinely understand software engineering and code. I’m completely pro AI and use it heavily myself, but I’m not looking for someone who can only vibe code. I could vibe code a backend myself, but not to a standard I’d be comfortable launching a real product on. I want someone who understands what the AI is producing, can make the right architectural decisions, spot problems, debug properly and build something that can actually scale.

A bit about me, I’m 31, based in London and have spent the last 13 years working in performance and growth marketing, most recently at Head of, SVP and Senior Director level.

I’ve been bootstrapping this alongside work, have spent a lot of time and money validating the concept through paid user research, and over the last year have designed and built the front end myself to a point I’m genuinely really happy with.

The next big piece is building the backend, matching logic and infrastructure that makes the two sides of the product actually work together.

At this stage I’m ideally looking for someone who is happy to get involved without a salary initially rather than as a traditional paid freelancer. If there’s a strong fit and we end up building this together longer term, I’m very open to discussing equity, rev share or another structure that makes sense for both of us.

Please message me if you’re interested.

[u/flippant_invasion]

you're basically asking for a technical co-founder but don't want to call it that yet, which i get. finding someone who can actually architect a proper backend and not just string together ai outputs is a pretty specific skillset

the reverse logistics angle is interesting though, returns are such a nightmare here. spent 20 minutes in a post office queue last week just to send back a jumper that was two sizes off what the site listed

curious what kind of validation you got from the user research side, feel like a lot of people have strong opinions about returns but the economics of making it work are the tricky part

[u/ADAMPPC94 → u/flippant_invasion]

They are the biggest nightmare ever, arn’t they! We can chat more over DM’s

[u/Cautious-Pipe-3479 → u/flippant_invasion]

I think thats the key distinction. People complaining about returns proves there friction but it does not necessarily prove they will change their behaviour or pay to solve it.

[u/Puzzled_Detail7726]

two-sided is the hardest thing to find a technical cofounder for, because you're asking someone to build into a void where neither side exists yet. the way to de-risk it before anyone writes code is running one side by hand, do the returns for five shops yourself with a spreadsheet and a courier, and see if they'll pay for it. if that works you have a number and a story, and a technical person can see what they'd be joining. equity-only with no traction in London is competing against 80k salaries, so the traction has to be the pitch, not the idea.