[HN Gopher] What do people want in a co-founder? ___________________________________________________________________ What do people want in a co-founder? Author : sandslash Score : 85 points Date : 2021-10-21 15:01 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (blog.ycombinator.com) (TXT) w3m dump (blog.ycombinator.com) | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > 65% of founders do Product | | > 57% of founders do Operations | | > 52% of founders do Sales and Marketing | | > 37% of founders do Design | | > 31% of founders do Engineering | | > Engineers seem to be in high demand. Among founders who do not | do Engineering, 80% prefer a co-founder who does Engineering. | | This mirrors what I've seen in every co-founder matching forum: A | huge imbalance of soft skills over engineering experience. | | I'm sure some of those founders are extremely talented at | product, operations, sales, and design. However, there are many | others who fit the classic "idea guy" stereotype. | | One thing I've learned from using co-founder matchmaking services | like this is how hard it is to tell the difference between the | two types of founders from credentials alone. A striking number | of the people with impressive resumes and FAANG backgrounds got | there by mastering big company skills and working their way up | the ladder and through interview processes. Eventually they | conclude that a startup is just more of the same big skills but | with them at the top of the org chart. | | Some of the most promising people I've talked to on these | platforms had less traditionally impressive resumes. They didn't | necessarily have Ivy League university backgrounds or FAANG | companies on their resume. That's likely what led them to use | these platforms in the first place: Smaller personal networks | that necessitate reaching farther for potential co-founders. | | These services can be interesting, but it really feels like a | numbers game. Be prepared to take a lot of conversations very | quickly, don't let impressive credentials alone sway you, and | don't get discouraged by the volume of negative matches. | mancerayder wrote: | I'd like to comment here as a tech person that's moved into | management. Not as a founder, but I've done consulting in the | past and I've worked in all sized companies. | | As I've become less technical, I occasionally come across the | highly technical, often almost genius-like engineer who fails | to comprehend organizational structure and social structures. | They fail to 'see' them, so sometimes decisions that you make | as manager, or that the company makes, feel foreign to them. | And so they often have cynical ideas (often found online) about | companies, managers and so forth. | | While some of the cynical stuff can often be true, my point is | this: the successful engineer is also someone with social | skills, and that includes company skills as you put it. | | The person with pure ladder climbing skills is a fraud. But the | person who can both be technical 'enough' and understand | organizational and human structures can help things scale. | | What's missing from the conversation is Creativity, I think, or | maybe it's me that's out of touch. Successful people seem to be | ones that aren't afraid to take unique approaches to solving | problems. Sometimes 'engineers' are highly talented but they're | looking for blueprints and patterns to follow rather than | create - and I am not talking about code. | waprin wrote: | I briefly floated a profile on there, though I decided to take a | new full time job and focus on that for a while instead. | | While on the platform, I was flooded with non technical people | who didn't have much besides an idea and an MBA. I guess if they | could credibly raise money/sell product then maybe it would make | sense but I was highly skeptical of the value add, and I got the | feeling a lot of them were looking for a free dev to build some | big product that they now get to shop around to investors, taking | 50% of the equity for doing so. | | The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe | with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a | consistent visual aesthetic are very important. For some reason | SWEs make more money than designers in industry but whenever | you're at startup network events it always seems SWEs outnumber | designers 3 to 1. And likewise I didn't see many people with | design portfolios on this platform. | | I'm surprised so few people care about where there cofounder | lives. It seems YC is geared towards situations where you go all | in, work hard full time on the project etc. That would be a | situation where I would most care about a strong relationship | that I think would be much easier to build in person. | kirillzubovsky wrote: | > "people who didn't have much besides an idea and an MBA" | | I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings | hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the | past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were | able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing | else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to | give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little. | [deleted] | nicoburns wrote: | For me it would be sales and the "business" side of things. And | perhaps some domain expertise. I can do design competently | enough to make it work (I do most the design work at my current | company despite nominally being the lead software engineer). | | The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go | about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. | robocat wrote: | > The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go | about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. | | I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have | correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with | them - you can then tell real talent from their real world | effects, even if it is not your own skill set. | | Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is | integrity - if you can't trust them then their other skills | don't matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance | to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult. | kilbuz wrote: | What other side of a startup is there, besides "business"? | OnlineGladiator wrote: | > The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go | about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. | | I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd | approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of | already having started my own company), but start with the | obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the | questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell | themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell | themselves to investors, customers, and future employees. | yarcob wrote: | > I'm surprised so few people care about where there cofounder | lives. | | If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would | be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global | matching platform are more interested in finding someone with | specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives | nearby. | waprin wrote: | Well even if I want to find someone local, doesn't mean I can | just walk outside and find them, especially since the | pandemic shut down most events in the Bay Area. Dating apps | seem pretty popular and I think vast majority of people on | those platforms are looking for someone local. | yarcob wrote: | It took many years before dating platforms became viable. I | remember trying some dating websites early on, and there | just weren't any people in my area at all. It was fun | looking at the profiles, but it wasn't actually useful for | meeting people yet. | | I would assume that a cofounder matching platform with | 16000 profiles has a similar problem, it's just too few | people to bother looking for local matches. | jasode wrote: | _> Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are | more interested in finding someone with specific skills / | interests rather than someone who lives nearby._ | | Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious | screen shots but it says you can filter on _location_. Thus, | a "global" matching platform becomes a _local_ one. It 's | not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping | for a local person to appear. | | It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby | potential co-founder in a subset on a _popular_ website such | as YC is more likely than a local website such as | lasvegas.craigslist.org | ctvo wrote: | > _The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I | vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design | and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important_ | | Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go | very far with a single contractor designer picked up from | dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and | marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you | well into later funding rounds. | | Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX | are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more | engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about | SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, | but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that | happen. | robocat wrote: | > Design is cheap, and outsourced | | I think the concept we need here is "taste" - that ability to | recognise something is great, and ideally the ability to know | what will work and be able to make it happen. | | Often you want to have a designer because you are paying them | for their taste, and perhaps not so much for their technical | skills. Perhaps you personally are the opposite, where you | have the taste and ability to spec, and you just want to have | someone do what you ask. | | There is a stereotype of founders with no taste, who drive | the production of hideous products. | | A sensible founder that doesn't have great taste needs a | cofounder or employee that does have great taste, and the | founder needs to give that person the authority to drive the | aesthetic of the product. That role is usually given to a | designer - and I suspect that you are misunderstanding what | waprin (the person you are replying to) meant. | waprin wrote: | By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the | programming too. There are some pretty good people out there | who aren't that expensive. But there's a bunch of risks with | that approach and they are similar to the ones where you | outsource design - you will constantly have to re-hire if you | need pivots, there might be major friction switching people, | and the costs can start to add up. It's not 100% analogous, | freelance design is a bit cheaper, it's easier to spot bad | designers etc, but I think the analogy somewhat holds. | | Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - | AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in | design. | mbesto wrote: | > By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the | programming too. | | And there's plenty of successful companies that do this | btw. | | > But there's a bunch of risks with that approach and they | are similar to the ones where you outsource design - you | will constantly have to re-hire if you need pivots, there | might be major friction switching people, and the costs can | start to add up. | | This is simply not true. This can happen regardless of | wether you outsource your dev team or not. | | > Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - | AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in | design. | | One of the top 50 largest companies in the world was | started by an engineer who dropped out of school. What's | your point? Correlation != causation. | | Outsourcing is such a dirty word here and I don't get it. | It's objectively not a _bad_ option, it just has different | risks. | ctvo wrote: | > _By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all | the programming too._ | | The market for developer talent and designer talent are | visibly different. Different in terms of supply, | compensation (as a factor of supply), and risk (due to the | compensation!). Risk here is you mostly take the word of | the developer they're competent. We come up with elaborate | interview processes for this (if you have an idea for a | better process... ). For a designer, a portfolio clearly | demonstrates they're competent. This makes outsourcing and | freelancing more viable, increasing supply, and driving | down the overall costs, in my opinion. | | I won't touch on actual skill / investment in becoming a | good designer vs. developer except to say I think there's | differences there too, at least outside of the tail. | | I would circle back to my second point, that even if you | have an excellent designer, someone still needs to | implement it and not make it janky. I think it explains, as | a whole, why people gravitate towards engineering co- | founders if they don't have the skillset. | | > _Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - | AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in | design._ | | I don't think Airbnb won on design or would consider design | its moat. Designers can also be excellent leaders and | executives. | waprin wrote: | Fair points, but a note on AirBnB with the caveat that I | only know the public information and never worked there. | To me, their only moat is their brand and the network | effects they built with that brand. The famous stories | are them fundraising by selling Obama themed cheerios, | and going to apartments helping hosts take better | pictures. Neither of those things are the "cranking out | iPhone mocks" you'd expect from a freelance designer but | seem like stories fundamentally linked to their design | backgrounds and ability to tell stories in the visual | world. Strong design probably matters more for something | like Snapchat than Coinbase so I'm sure it depends. | You're probably right in your explanation for why Eng | skills are more in demand but I still suspect you're | understating the impact of a great designer. | ctvo wrote: | In my opinion empathy for users (doubly important in a | multi sided marketplace e.g. hosts and guests) helped | Airbnb succeed. They no doubt removed friction, and | prioritized that internally, and that helped them become | an aggregator for their new market but unclear if it was | due to being designers that provided this insight. | | I think for an early stage startup you need to make | tradeoffs. What skills can we get with our founding | team's overlap, and what skills can we easily fill? Of | course, the person matters so much more than these | checkboxes, and I don't think anyone would suggest _not_ | working with a designer, but I think it does explain why | so many are looking for technical founders. | waprin wrote: | But I was complaining about the exact opposite- I have a | hard time finding potential design cofounders as an | engineer, and every hackathon and similar events seems to | be filled with engineers , but short on designers even | though designers win pitches more than engineers (you can | fake implementation for a demo but can't fake design). | | The fact that it's harder to find designers than | engineers for founders despite the opposite dynamic in | the job market is what I was saying was surprising. | | The platform does not have many designers looking for | technical founders. As I said, it's filled with MBAs. | When pressed what skills they would contribute, they say | things like "backend finance." Usually either they have | no money but need you to build a complex project before | you can think about raising money (raising the question | why not just build it and pitch VCs yourself), or they | already raised money but want to give you some absurdly | low percentage (you're not really cofounder). | | Are there people in there that would be able to raise | money /sell the product if you built it? Maybe but others | have discussed why that's the hardest of all skills to | vet for. | | Either way if the platform was filled with strong | designers interested in partnering with technical | cofounders I'd be much happier and speak more highly of | it. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | > I'm surprised so few people care about where there cofounder | lives. | | I got the impression that many of the people using these | services felt they had already exhausted their local networks | and decided to look more broadly. | | I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full- | remote companies anyway. | | That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at | all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. | The co-founder relationship is too important. | mrkramer wrote: | A friend who is ready to help and who will not leave me when | difficult times come. | Graffur wrote: | Someone nice, eager, available, smart and driven | wanderinghogan wrote: | A tech-literate business person who is around the same life stage | as me (or are sympathetic/able to work with people in different | life stages), if I were looking. | fierro wrote: | killer instinct | jollybean wrote: | First issues are Integrity, Trust, 'Business Maturity' (i.e. can | communicate reasonably, operationally competent) etc.. | | It's like a rocky marriage with divorces and re-marriages, you | have to really trust and get along, even when visions are not | aligned. | | If you don't have that it will be very difficult. | timavr wrote: | - Decent Human Being - Hard Worker - Wicked Smart - Someone I | want to spend time with | earksiinni wrote: | I signed up for the platform as an engineer looking for non- | engineers. Unlike some of the engineer types here, I'm of the | opinion that engineering is as important (not more important) | than non-technical skill sets. In some startups, it's probably | less important. | | The problem is that the profiles I match with read like resumes. | I don't care too much that you were early employee at XYZ Corp or | that you had a successful $100m exit. I care about your heart. | | I've cofounded too many times with cofounders whose worldview, | politics, and level of emotional empathy and openness were | incompatible with mine. It sucked every time and was the #1 cause | for failure. | | Sometimes I feel like a vox clamantis in deserto when it comes to | advocating for founders with higher emotional awareness. I'm | happy whenever I read posts on HN about why neurodiversity | matters in tech, but they almost always focus on folks on the | spectrum. Then there are folks like me, oftentimes survivors of | abuse who are neuro-atypical in a different way. We are empaths-- | and very much not fitting in the mold of a "typical" engineer or | how non-engineers perceive typical engineers. | | I don't need a fellow empath as a co-founder, but at least I need | someone who understands where I'm coming from and is compatible. | Brag sheets tend to drive me away, but that's the ethos we've | built into our industry, so I don't blame the individuals. | theaussiestew wrote: | I've had the experience that you mention here too, basically a | really competent co-founder but someone with a vastly different | worldview. You can't really change someone's worldview, so it | was tough to find out later. | | I'm curious, what area of need would you service if you did | find a co-founder that was more self-aware? | what_is_orcas wrote: | Fellow engineer here who cares about the same things you report | here. | | Did you just give up (using that platform)? Did you find a | better platform? | earksiinni wrote: | I didn't give up per se, but I'm not actively checking it, | either. Sometimes I get emails about matches, which I read. | Haven't found any that clicked so far. | | Right now, though, I'm going through a phase where I'm | doubting whether I want to do a startup at all. Still fully | onboard for entrepreneurship, but I'm questioning whether the | startup path (especially the VC path) is right for my goals. | | I am, however, interested in making organic connections with | like-minded individuals. Perhaps like right here, in the | comments of HN ;-) | sam0x17 wrote: | Technical founders who have decided to take on bizdev stuff in | this role but know what they're talking about when it comes to | the tech stack are an incredible asset. Nothing better than an | ex-engineer as a COO/CEO/etc | [deleted] | weezin wrote: | Someone good at things I suck at. | andrew_ wrote: | My needs are simple: Deep domain knowledge and deep trust. | avmich wrote: | Can the latter be had at all, in a short order? Maybe if it's | impossible, another criteria would be useful? | ksec wrote: | My thought on the issue is to talk about hard topics ( | politics ). I think that is the easiest way to test one | person's character. | notenoughbeans wrote: | I want someone that can sell what I've built. | yarcob wrote: | I've met (and worked with) people who built something, and were | looking for someone to sell it. | | The unfortunate truth is that this usually doesn't work because | of two reasons: | | 1) If you can't convince anybody to buy your product, you also | won't be able to convince anybody to sell your product. You | need to be able to at least sell your idea to the cofounder. | | 2) If you've never tried selling your product, and have never | interacted with your customers, chances are that what you built | doesn't solve anybodys problem. I've never seen a successful | product that was a hit right away without any user testing and | iteration based on user feedback, but some people are convinced | their product is different. | hunterb123 wrote: | This. I love developing, marketing, and branding but I have no | connections. | | I want someone to handle people and let me handle product. | jollybean wrote: | 1) You want someone who can tell you what will sell, if you | build it. | | 2) Also, it's never clear. So you want someone who you can work | with to forge a path through the jungle. | anonymouse008 wrote: | What have you built? | short12 wrote: | What have you sold is a far far more important question | notenoughbeans wrote: | I have created some low-code, zero-code devtools for personal | use I want to polish and get on the market. | anonymouse008 wrote: | Hot market right now -- have a (public) readme / repo / | anything? | notenoughbeans wrote: | Still a work in progress. I'm planning on sharing it once | it's more ready. | Grimm1 wrote: | In my experience that's a trap, if you have a small set | of useable features, release it now and get feedback from | real people. | andrewnc wrote: | As they say in the start up world "Ship It!" | | I've seen lots of advice that says people ship too late. | I'm not sure if that's the case here, but something to | consider. | halfmatthalfcat wrote: | Don't pay attention to the other "just ship it" comments, | it'll be ready when it's ready. Too many people like to | walk out that trite phrase when they have no knowledge on | what you're doing or where you're at yet want to seem | like they know something you don't. It's annoying. | Grimm1 wrote: | First, at least in regards to my comment -- that's | entirely reductionist. Second, I commented because it's | one of the hardest things, in my opinion as an engineer | myself, to overcome. You're interpretation of people | wanting to seem like someone knows something they don't | is at best uncharitable. My comment comes from a place of | hopefully being helpful and giving someone a nudge for a | thing that is definitely uncomfortable (showing your baby | to the world) and showing some sense of camaraderie that | a lot of us have been there. | halfmatthalfcat wrote: | It might seem helpful but it's not. Obviously this is my | opinion but it's disrespectful to the engineer doing the | work to essentially shame them into releasing something | that they have a vision for early. | | Who knows what shape it's in, who knows if it's bugged? | Releasing something to just get it out there and it's so | bugged, the users run away. | | I understand why you are saying what you are saying but | maybe try to look at it from a different perspective | because whenever someone says that to me, it's demeaning. | I (we) know what we're doing and perfectly capable of | judging when something is "done". | Grimm1 wrote: | Edit: I'll make a quick edit because the below sounded | too aggressive to me after reading it again like two | minutes later. Your point that not everyone takes | unsolicited advice well because it feels like it | undermines their own skill and knowledge is noted and I | have run into people who think similarly to you, but I | think it's helpful more than not to a wider group of | people and it helped me so I will consider the thought in | a given situation but I will likely continue to give the | advice. | | ---- | | Right which is why I qualified it with "If you have a | small set of useable features". Honestly, feeling shamed | is your hang up, same with feeling demeaned. I've had | that said to me and it motivated me and was helpful, | because I had been holding back. | | I guess we'll agree to disagree because I don't know you | and I don't want to like armchair psychology here. But, | I'm certainly not going to tiptoe around every word | though just because someone somewhere may be offended, | especially in this case where I believe most people would | find it helpful. | halfmatthalfcat wrote: | I'm also not directly targeting you, my comment was to | the OP. There was another comment that said very similar | things that you alluded to, which kind of helps prove my | point that this advice is parroted everywhere without any | consideration for the developer themselves and their | unique situation. | notenoughbeans wrote: | Hey, I appreciate both of your advice. I have some usable | features that work great on my dev environment, so now | I'm mostly working on getting things reliably working in | the cloud. | short12 wrote: | This is what I thought I had. But in reality both cofounders | need to be hard sales people first and foremost and building | shit becomes a distant 2nd priority. | | But I agree with you a hundred percent. That's the ideal | situation for someone that likes to build | sudosteph wrote: | If I were to bring on a co-founder at this point, I'd want | someone who is willing to live in the same city as me, is | charming AF, and has some complementary skillset that will remain | valuable as the company scales (sales/marketing and data | engineering/analytics being the big two for my startup). But me | and my co-founder are actually doing alright without a 3rd, so | will probably just be picky about first hires. | sillysaurusx wrote: | > willing to live in the same city as me, is charming AF, and | has some complementary skillset that will remain valuable | | A spouse tends to have all of these. Hmm... | sudosteph wrote: | Well, my spouse IS my current co-founder, so clearly I chose | wisely. | xwdv wrote: | So you have a family business. | dasil003 wrote: | You know in 20+ years of founding and working at a bunch of | different startups and companies ranging from big companies in | fly-over country, to team-of-2 bootstrapped 6-figure businesses, | and all the way up to super hot pre-IPO unicorns; one thing I've | learned is that great people that you gel with and might want to | start a company with are everywhere in equal proportions. | | Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon Valley, | but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, so the | signal to noise ratio is actually less. I feel any kind co- | founder dating suffers from the exact same thing. YC's name gives | it more legitimacy, but that very fact attracts more dedicated | wannabes who are just playing house harder. | | Ultimately after all these years I keep coming back to Joel | Spolsky's idea of working with people who are "smart and get | things done". That's it. I am skeptical I will find someone I | want to work with on a co-founder dating site, because the people | I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing with the | resources available to them versus looking for a longshot silver | bullet. There are exceptions of course, but this is just my gut | instinct, you might take it with a grain of salt since I waste a | lot of time commenting on HN :) | jdavis703 wrote: | > Sure, there are probably slightly more of them in Silicon | Valley, but also SV is full of wannabes who are playing house, | so the signal to noise ratio is actually less. | | I started in DC and moved to the SFBA. Maybe I was around the | wrong people in DC, but it sure seems a lot easier to at least | find good people out here. It's not that SV has magical water | or anything. It's simply there's more people with startup | experienced, and more people who come here to gain that | experience. | | I imagine the reverse is also true. If government and policy | were my passion, I prevent would've been best staying in DC. | Even though there's plenty of talented government execs and | policy experts everywhere. | [deleted] | dgs_sgd wrote: | What is playing house? | quotz wrote: | Pretending | andyferris wrote: | Pretending. | | Kids play a game where someone pretends to be the mum, the | dad, the baby, etc, and pretend be family. So someone is | pretending be a responsible parent (and the commenter here is | insinuating the wannabe co-founder is just pretending they | have the necessary skills and abilities). As a kid, we never | really had a name for it, but adults seem to refer to the | activity as "playing house". | dgs_sgd wrote: | Ah, thanks | giantg2 wrote: | As The Offspring say, "the world needs wannabes" (Pretty Fly | For A White Guy). | | I want to be a successful and well compensated software | engineer. Thus I try. Maybe one day I will succeed. | kirillzubovsky wrote: | > "people I want to work with are too busy trying to do a thing | with the resources available to them versus looking for a | longshot silver bullet." | | Right on. Most people I'd co-found anything with in a heart | beat are too busy with 101 things already. The question isn't | who I would want to work with, but how to convince them that | _this_ venture is worth dropping everything else in the world | for. | codegeek wrote: | I have been on the y combinator co-founder portal and so far, | it has not been that great. Most people either don't respond or | if they do, they are really mostly interested in their own | ideas and I know the irony of saying this because I have my own | ideas. | | I really believe that finding a co-founder is almost impossible | to plan but it is more of an accident. Unless you have worked | with someone for a while and know their strengths and | weaknesses, no site can solve this problem. | | Having said this, if you have a great co-founder, you truly are | very lucky because I know how lonely it gets as a solo founder. | smoldesu wrote: | It might be a case of Survivorship Bias (erm... anti-bias). | The people out there who are still looking for co-founders | are likely saddled with a business proposition that most | people find objectionable. | mikepurvis wrote: | Completely agree. I'm an employee right now, but if I were ever | looking for a co-founder, my shortlist would be the people I've | worked with, hacking together some random project at all hours. | chadash wrote: | _" Among founders who do not do Engineering, 80% prefer a co- | founder who does Engineering."_ | | I'm sure this familiar to any engineer on this site. "I have this | great idea for an app, and I just need you to build it. We'll | split the company 50/50." | anyfactor wrote: | As a dev I entertain this idea on 4 criteria - 1. You are a | veteran in the target industry. 2. You have connections and you | are well-liked. 3. You can sell to those people. 4. There is a | mutual trust and respect between us. | | If you know the industry inside out and you are willing to | sell, I would have no problem to partner up. But usually those | who are successful in an industry rarely have enough time to | invest in a startup. | | People I want to partner up with are so busy managing their | business, client and family, they will just end up having a | custom software made with their money and try to sell that. | corobo wrote: | "Oh cool! Show me your business plan!" | yawnxyz wrote: | At first I thought it'd be great to pick up engineering and say | yes to some of these founders. | | After becoming a designer/engineer I've realized that most of | these ideas take shape during the engineering process. And the | process will in turn change and twist the idea itself based on | customer interviews and iterative prototypes. | | The engineering process leads to better "ideas" that replace | the initial ideas. But most non-engineer, first-time founders | don't realize that's the case. The engineering process also | pokes so many holes in the first idea, because they require the | idea to actually be fleshed out... | | Maybe I'm just bitter about working with doe-eyed, non- | technical first time "idea person" kind of founders. | sushsjsuauahab wrote: | Not applicable, I just need introductions to people who might | want to buy what I sell, and a lawyer to protect me. | WalterBright wrote: | I want them to have the leet business skillz I don't have. I | don't want a clone of myself with the same strengths and faults. | dahart wrote: | Having gone through it, I think the single most important things | are missing. Your co-founder needs to have the same vision as | you, they need to want the same outcome. And you don't find out | that you want different outcomes for a _long_ time, it's very | very easy in the beginning to agree you both want a successful | company, for your software to be awesome, and for money to roll | in. Later when things get real, you may discover your shared | vision isn't quite as shared as you thought. | | The other thing I want in a co-founder is someone who will have | my back unflinchingly and always when speaking to others, whether | it's investors or customers or just friends and family, because | inevitably things will come up that worry you which can sow | mistrust if not caught quickly. I was lucky to have such a co- | founder, and I actually feel guilty for worrying that they didn't | always support me. I tried to return the trust at all times. But | note that discovering differing visions can and does threaten | your ability to know if a co-founder trusts you! I think it's a | miracle that companies survive, knowing how easy it is for people | to want different things. | boulos wrote: | Fwiw, the survey design missed an important aspect of "don't care | about location": most people are probably assuming a lot of time | zone overlap. So they might say "don't care about location" (true | in some sense), but wouldn't have said "Yes! Sign me up for a | 12-hour time difference!". | giantg2 wrote: | This sounds like a cool service. I wish I had more time and | skills to make a profile. | handrous wrote: | - Fat rolodex full of rich people they know well enough that they | might say yes to chatting over golf, and who aren't risk-averse | (I have zero such people in mine, so this would be a must). | | - Domain knowledge--but, very specifically, knowledge of how to | navigate the legal and business environment of that domain, | especially all the "secret" stuff. If they don't know what X or Y | is called or how to do some procedure that only low-on-the-totem- | pole people do, that's fine--if they've got the rest of this, | then they'll surely know people we can ask/interview for those | parts. | | - At least enough sales skills to get the folks from the first | point to fund us OR to make some useful introductions OR to | grease some wheels. | neonate wrote: | Are golf and such things still important to startups nowadays? | I would have hoped that was dying off already. | Kluny wrote: | You can meet people at improv club, hockey or mountain biking | instead, but you still have to meet people somehow, right? | lisper wrote: | And you are _much_ more likely to meet potential investors | on a golf course than at an improv club. | snarf21 wrote: | I think it is still important to Angels. Angels want to | invest in people/teams that are "like" them. They are more | likely to trust other country club types that they assume | have the same background and social circles they do. A lot of | Angels don't care about the money or the return, it is about | having stuff to talk about over drinks or between holes on | the course. "I'm in a couple of blockchain start-ups that are | really promising". It is about being interesting and in the | know. Viability is meaningless. | aketchum wrote: | "golf" is just a euphemism that sometimes literally means | golf, but other times means any type of social activity that | can be used to build relationships. What did you hope was | dying off? There will always be a need for people who have | and can form strong relationships with rich people who are | looking for new investments. | kilbuz wrote: | Golf was big and is now bigger. Drawing in many younger | folks, too. | mbesto wrote: | If you're in enterprise software, yes. | | Try selling your CRM to the VP of Sales of a regional | retailer who lives in Phoenix and NOT take him out to play | golf. | handrous wrote: | So are country clubs, and social clubs that organize | fundraising galas and such. Joining them to make useful | business contacts very probably works pretty well (I've not | tried, but I've done some looking--note that the social clubs | are usually exclusively for women--yes, even in 2021--but men | attend the events). Tennis is still huge. Skiing. That stuff | changes slowly, if at all--you and I just aren't part of it, | so we can imagine it's some old-fashioned thing that's all | but extinct, if we don't go looking for it. | | Most of the shit from the now-ancient Official Preppy | Handbook is still _basically_ true, in fact, as far as I can | tell. | | The tech version of "where to meet people to make | connections" is probably rock climbing gyms, right now. | That'd be for barely-rich new money people connected to tech, | or for programmers if you're looking to hire. Every group has | their in-crowd preferences. | bastardoperator wrote: | Some people still think the biggest deals are happening on | the golf course, I think most deals over the past 18 months | likely happened via zoom. | dgfitz wrote: | Oh I'm not so sure. I know a LOT of people who took up golf | during last summer/fall. It was one of the few outdoor | sports you could safely play with friends. | RussianCow wrote: | This is very far from dying off. A friend of mine recently | started a company, and close to 100% of the money they raised | was a direct result of squeezing into golf games, ski trips, | and retreats with prospective investors. My salesperson | friends regularly score very large deals over games of golf | or similar activities. | | You'd think that the merits of your product would be enough | to carry your sales, but in practice, sales is primarily | driven by your network, which involves getting close to as | many people as possible. Turns out, it's easier to do that | over golf than via formal meetings. | costcofries wrote: | I think the answer is usually, someone who has skills that you | don't. When I think about looking for a co-founder, I know what | specific skills I am looking for, there is a gap, this second | person would fill that gap. Some other thoughts: | | - Specific skill set (what is their expertise) - Values alignment | - Ways of working (work life balance, etc) - Communication style | - Conflict resolution and disagreement management | zalebz wrote: | A few initial thoughts jump out at me: | | someone I respect in a domain of life I respect (could be | music/athletics/relationships/humor/whatever but ultimately it is | a reason I enjoy them as a person and in times of adversity can't | dismiss them as a disposable generic employee) | | moreover, the above attribute also often demonstrates a healthy | life balance outside of work, and this will help prevent | workaholic burnout which is a very real pitfall ina startup | | someone that has motivation/ambition in a domain(s) that I do not | (maybe I can do a particular skill and even at a competent level, | but I'd rather have a partner that enjoys it and reads up about | it in their spare time even if they aren't as "good" at that | skill as I am right now) | | someone that has been challenged in life in some fashion. again | the domain isn't as important as the experience of facing | pressure/adversity and finding that extra gear within oneself to | emerge. and furthermore then wanting to start the next challenge | despite having already gone through the wringer. in my experience | there are people who thrive under pressure and those that tend to | hide/crumble when challenged. you obviously want the former and | some that has been tested. | | there are plenty of other attributes that are covered by great | replies that I won't repeat. I felt these seemed a bit distinct | (at least when I posted) and worth mentioning ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-22 23:00 UTC)