Currently, I'm a single founder with an idea for an initiative. It's not exactly a startup yet but might become one in its later stages. On what basis should I select co-founders, and if I might need them?
Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
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Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#2Complementary skillsets/interests.
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#3Ive gone through this a few times. The best approach I took was to look at myself and assess my strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that made finding people with other complimentary strengths easier, and also results in (hopefully) a better product, solution or what have you.
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#4Here's my best tip: Make sure they are in a similar life situation. ie. Wealth, kids, family, etc.
If one of you has three years of life savings and one of you needs money in three months, that will affect your decision making.
If one of you wants to take weekends off to go to the kid's soccer games and the other one wants to go out and drink on Friday afternoon, you had better figure that out ahead of time and make sure you're both ok with that.
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#5Choose people you work well with, who just won't give up, and share similar values. If one of you wants to build a long term company, and the other wants to cash out as soon as possible and go work for Hooli that could become a serious issue down the line.
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#6Here's my best tip: Make sure they are in a similar life situation. ie. Wealth, kids, family, etc. If one of you has three years of life savings and one of you needs money in three months, that will affect your decision making. If one of you wants to take weekends off to go to the kid's soccer games and the other one wants to go out and drink on Friday afternoon, you had better figure that out ahead of time and make…
Is it important for both people to sign a vesting schedule from day one?
This seems like a surprisingly common scenario: The initial agreement is a 50/50 split, and then a few months down the road one or both founders feel that 50/50 is no longer fair. If a vesting schedule is signed, you never have to think about this or revisit it.
The point of a one year cliff is that you can say "Ok" without worrying whether the other person is ineffective. If they are, you part ways.
This usually kills the company, of course, but squabbling over scraps of equity seems to do at least as much damage. Enough that YC wrote https://blog.ycombinator.com/splitting-equity-among-founders... about it. And it seems especially dangerous if you can't both agree to sign from day one, before doing any significant work.
But perhaps that's that's too inflexible. I don't know.
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#7Someone who knows "criteria" is a plural word. The singular is "criterion".
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#8Here's my best tip: Make sure they are in a similar life situation. ie. Wealth, kids, family, etc. If one of you has three years of life savings and one of you needs money in three months, that will affect your decision making. If one of you wants to take weekends off to go to the kid's soccer games and the other one wants to go out and drink on Friday afternoon, you had better figure that out ahead of time and make…
Is it important for both people to sign a vesting schedule from day one? This seems like a surprisingly common scenario: The initial agreement is a 50/50 split, and then a few months down the road one or both founders feel that 50/50 is no longer fair. If a vesting schedule is signed, you never have to think about this or revisit it. The point of a one year cliff is that you can say "Ok" without worrying whether the…
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Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#9Character (integrity, drive to learn & improve) and skills that you respect or admire. Then shared values and life situation: the startup should be the #1 priority for everyone on the core (full-time) founding team. Missing any of those requirements increases the risk of failure.
Unfortunately for those without a wide/deep network of college friends, former colleagues, etc. it's hard to judge character and skills without a previous friendship or shared work environment, etc. If you're forced to evaluate a potential co-founder in the absence of shared history, work on something small together for a few days/weeks and see how it goes.
Another thing to do in all cases is to discuss downside/failure scenarios right up-front, and see if there's a sense of openness and fairness. Check out the books The Founder's Dilemmas and Slicing Pie for structuring the conversations, as they give vital ideas and precedents around formalizing the founders' relationships. It's much easier to chat about failure and equity before real work starts, and I've seen many times that it flushes out assumptions and behaviors that you won't want on your team (assuming you're the reasonable and fair one :-).
Re: Ask HN: What are your criteria for selecting cofounders?
#10Meta: is anybody else here thinking "what a strange question"? Is there some kind of co-founder aisle in the bay area grocery stores or something?