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What We Look for in Founders

paulgraham.com

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Re: What We Look for in Founders

#41

Post by d4ft »

Keyframe wrote: post #20

My accountant (with eons of experience): Worst thing you can do when founding a company is to found it as a partnership Take it as you will. My personal take is that, if partnership (among several founders) is really strong (friendship from this essay) - then it's certainly better than doing it alone - backed by high profile success stories. On the other hand, I've seen too much companies fall apart because of the pa…

I think he may just be suggesting forming as an LLC or some other entity that both shields you from liability, and doesn't dissolve when one partner calls it quits.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#42

Post by elai »

araneae wrote: post #10
mrchess wrote: post #4

Wish I knew about the emphasis about hacking a system question and I would have elaborated on my application.... Although it is a difficult question to put emphasis on IMO because it also makes you in a way "reveal" your bad morals... which I am sure many people don't feel comfortable doing. Why would you ever want to openly admit you beat ie. cheated a system be it government, academic, or private? Not to imply that…

Right. Like I started forging the report cards I gave to my parents starting in 8th grade. I'm not proud of that. Would I really put that on an application?

It can also be when you went to to a 3rd party wireless store and got them to add a cheap unlimited tetherable data plan that no one knows about and is in the "depreciated/archived" features section.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#43

Post by jfarmer »

bradly wrote: post #14

Definitely finding a co-founder has been the hardest part for me. Not living in the valley currently, you don't have as big of a pool to find people. Also, the type of person that makes a great co-founder(smart, determined, etc.) usually have good things going on already. The people that I talked to that would have been great to work with were all doing great work currently and couldn't commit. It would be really awe…

First step, move to where the startup founders are. The SF Bay Area is the best.

Second, once there, there are tons of events like you describe! E.g., http://founderdating.com/

If you can't move to the SF Bay area then the next best thing to do is star throwing startup events and invite all the startup people you know (and tell them to do the same).

If there's no network you have to build it. Cisco had to exist before Facebook could, so to speak.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#44

Post by Keyframe »

pg wrote: post #32
Keyframe wrote: post #20

My accountant (with eons of experience): Worst thing you can do when founding a company is to found it as a partnership Take it as you will. My personal take is that, if partnership (among several founders) is really strong (friendship from this essay) - then it's certainly better than doing it alone - backed by high profile success stories. On the other hand, I've seen too much companies fall apart because of the pa…

This may well be true of companies generally-- restaurants and plumbers and kennels and so on. There the downside of having multiple owners may outweigh the upside. But with startups it's the other way around.

That must be it. It occurred to my after I made a post. Though there are posts often in similar tone posted here: "My cofounder sits while I do all the work", "We went into this 50-50, now he wants more", "I lost the drive for it"... etc.

I know most people here are young and doing startups with their friends, and free advice is worth as much as it costs - but it really doesn't cost you anything if you straighten the terms of partnership/friendship up front, no matter how long you know each other guys. Just do it. It may be awkward, but you won't regret it.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#45

Post by pg »

edanm wrote: post #13

2 questions on the "friendship" issue: 1. How do you judge whether co-founders are good friends? I'm guessing a simple "how long have they been working together" test is a good indication, but anything else? 2. What level of feedback do you usually give teams that didn't make it? Especially teams that got to the interview stage but didn't make it through? I'm wondering if you've ever told a team your suspicions that…

There are a lot of ways. Many of the questions on the YC application are at least partially about this. When and how did the founders meet? What have they worked on together? Even the stock split sometimes tells us a lot.

Yes, we've told groups that we weren't funding them because their friendship didn't seem strong enough to withstand a startup. You'd be surprised some of the meltdowns we've seen in interviews.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#47

Post by bobf »

araneae wrote: post #6

I have a pretty good friend on here that has The Best answer to the "hacked" question, and I would never, ever be co-founders with him because he's impossible. There's often a trade-off between "naughtiness" and "friendship."

I thought pg's comment on "naughtiness" was interesting, as I was tempted to use a shorter version of the story I'll relate below in response to the "hacked" question, as it was a very recent experience. I ultimately shied away from using it as my answer, as I thought it might be a little socially unacceptable ("naughty").

At Startup School, there was a line of several hundred people waiting for lunch, which consisted of a dozen or so different kinds of pizza stacked in piles of 7-10 boxes each. We had a group of 3-4 people, looked at the line, and someone said, "This line is ridiculous. How can we hack this system?" Someone suggested going somewhere else on campus to eat, but we wanted to stay and mingle. Someone else in the group knew people farther up in the line, and suggested skipping ahead in the line. Ultimately, I simply squeezed through near the front of the line, grabbed a whole box of pizza, and took it back for our group to share.

This kept our group from further clogging the line and seemed much more efficient than 3-4 of us waiting to select our 1-2 pieces each. Hopefully no hungry Startup School attendees were upset by our line hackery, as we thought it was a pretty win-win hack.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#48

Post by wensing »

bradly wrote: post #14

Definitely finding a co-founder has been the hardest part for me. Not living in the valley currently, you don't have as big of a pool to find people. Also, the type of person that makes a great co-founder(smart, determined, etc.) usually have good things going on already. The people that I talked to that would have been great to work with were all doing great work currently and couldn't commit. It would be really awe…

Are there any great companies in your area? The kind that hire really smart recent college grads? Have any friends that work at a place like that? It's a long shot, but those places can be breeding grounds for the 'quit the cube' type of startup founder.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#49

Post by pg »

javadi82 wrote: post #46

I thought my browser didn't load the complete article because I couldn't see your obligatory "thanks to X, Y and Z for reading this"...and I kept scrolling. Thanks for the great article, btw.

Oops, fixed; thanks.
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