@James – It is tough to find out about someone’s personal financial situation, but I think there are certain questions you can ask that can give you indications of their financial health.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

@Edward – Thanks for being the catalyst that connected me to Nicole. Law of Attraction at work. :-)

Re. co-founders/business partners: Congratulations on finding someone to help bear the weight of running a business, I bet it’s already making a big difference. I’ve managed to push out a private beta application as a lone founder, and it’s tough. Sounds like you have a good match there.

In the last few days, a Rails developer friend and I have decided to collaborate on a business idea over a weekend (it’s a small project, lots of potential). We originally got in touch over the Web through Rails programming sites, we’ve met once for some coding & coffee (but we catch up every day on Twitter/Skype/the-private-beta-of-my-app, luckily enough), and we’ve finally found a project which feels like a good match for our skill sets. Plus in the interim we’ve had the time to share code, work through bug fixes on each others projects, use collaborative programming tools, etc, and the Web applications we use everyday have helped us to do the ‘vetting’. Although, it’s never felt like we’ve been doing that – it’s more a matter of keeping in touch and finding out what people are up to on a daily basis (as you’ve stated in your third bullet point).

@Joe – I never thought I’d find a business partner online either until I met Nicole. We both seem to have similar goals. You are so right about making sure everything is lined up if you hire them online or in person!

@Martin – I’m not sure what your free tool is, but it is important to do the vetting. You can also do all the vetting in the world but until you work with them, you won’t ever know the full story. Listening to references is important and having legal documents in place if the person becomes a big problem is very important.