ricksta

I listed one of my car for sale on craigslist and had someone contact me outside my city. The conversation started off very natural with the "buyer" asking very relevant used car questions. Then he said he is out of town and is willing to send me a deposit to hold the car. He said: "Before I send you a deposit, please send me a selfie of you, with your drivers license with a piece of paper with todays date July 5 2022. also include a copy of the vehicle registration & insurance."

I got caught off-guard as I sold my last car also to someone remotely sight unseen. So I sent him what he asked. The next morning I woke up and had a sudden realization that I probably got scammed. I went back to the email and realized the phone number and personal email he provided were both fake. He used a generic common Chinese name of "Charles Lau".

I googled selfie ID and it looks like a lot of crypto site (including Coinbase) is using selfie + id + hand written text for biometric verification. Some banks since covid also implemented selfie ID verification.

I filed a local police report and contacted my driver licensing and insurance, which they said theres not much they can do.

My question to HN is what are some of the risks to me as this scammer now has my Selfie + ID + vehicle registration + address. Knowing that crypto sites uses this for verification, can the scammer create a bunch of crypto exchange accounts under my name and start laundering dirty crypto money? or take out a crypto/regular loan under my name? What can I do to protect my self going forward?

In general: How does engineers find good non-technical co-founders for their ventures?

In my specific case: I'm a software engineer based in SF who has been working on a machine learning trading algorithm to trade securities(Average 18% annual returns with 0.9 sharpe ratio over the last 15 years).

I've been testing and trading with my own money based on the algorithm for almost a year now and it's been working out well. I am exploring the idea of starting an hedge fund based off of this strategy. I'd like to partner with one finance guy to take care of admin and a marketing guy to focus on fund raising while I focus on trading and further development of the algorithm.

My network in the finance industry is practically none, so my question is: what is the best way to find these two partners who would compliment my skills and build a good team for this venture?

TLDR: I had 2.5 years of failed startup experience in Vancouver. Recently my cofounder found a job, so now I'm thinking about moving to the valley to join a startup with people I like. Any tips on how I should plan the move? I don't have much savings but I mined some bitcoins, so is there any place that accepts rent with bitcoins?

Long version: It's been almost 2.5 years since I graduated from UBC here in Vancouver (EE + CS). I didn't look for a job, instead I decided to be an entrepreneur and build a startup.

I found a really good co-founder(also technical) at the startup weekend in Nov 2011. We then worked together full time from home for almost 2 years coding up different startup ideas. We tried many different ideas, from new aggregator to market place to loyalty programs... but none of them could gain any traction (We are both full-stack developers).

It is impossible to raise money without traction here in Vanouver. Being bootstrapped and living at home made us less patient. We couldn't focus long enough because we had no income for so long. Eventually in Sept this year, my cofounder have came to an end of his runway and had to look for a full time job (which he found easily with all the development experience we gained together).

Now I am moving to the valley to join a startup, so I can learn from more successful entrepreneurs. I can also save up a bit since valley's salary starts at $100k whereas Vancouver starts at $60k. I would like to go network first as I don't want just any job, I want to join a team with a good cultural fit. Living in the valley is expensive so the sooner I find a job, the less savings I need to cut into. I do have some bitcoins from some casual mining so maybe I can pay rent with bitcoins while networking and job hunting? Any tips and advice on how I can plan my move?

We my co-founder and I have built a product for storefront SME. Both of us are engineering type and not very good going door to door selling. We tried but haven't been able to convince any to buy from us. We know this product can sell because our competitor (in a different geographical area) is able to sell plenty, so it's not that we are building something no one wants. So my question is how do we hire a good sales person who can help us sell our product?