What We Look for in Founders • Hacker News Board

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#181

Post by dkersten » Sat, Oct 23, 2010, 6:31 PM UTC

akkartik wrote: post #171

jayliew wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long time ago when I met you, you told me you had a few passionate users that used it daily. Does that meet your criteria? May I ask what is it that you are looking for?

The users left. It's mostly just me and one last reader who checks out a couple of stories everyday. It doesn't engage anyone but me. There's a problem with this whole category of apps. Reading solutions are like content - they're getting commoditized. There's also lots of problems with this app itself. There's no overt personalization. It's good that the UI is simple, but bad that the layout is simplistic. There's n…

I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I had a look at the site and don't really understand what its trying to do.

Perhaps you need something to engage new users - to show them what it is and why they want it? I don't know if I like it because, after browsing for a few moments (like every other potential user of anything, I have a very short attention span when checking out random websites without any prior goals), I still don't know what it does.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#182

Post by akkartik » Sat, Oct 23, 2010, 7:36 PM UTC

Revisor wrote: post #172

akkartik wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gahd, who reads this and thinks it describes them? Some of PG's essays stress me out just by reading them. They usually involve the d-word ( http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apaulgraham.com+determi... ). I did my thing ( http://readwarp.com ) for 8 months. But PG and others told me early on it didn't have commercial possibility. So was it determination or inflexibility that I kept at it? I eventually figured it o…

Hi, I just checked Readwarp out and have absolutely no clue what it does. If it's some kind of personal, learning newsfeed I'd be definitely interested in it but without a clear proposition I can't be bothered to dive in deeply (you know, register and such). Thought you'd like to know. Good luck.

Yeah I wasn't really trying to get eyes on the site itself at this point. It used to have a landing page and value proposition and the usual stuff (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1306313), but lately I've optimized it more for employers and coworkers to see what I built, and for the two of us return users, and for me the sole developer and maintainer. No more metrics, traffic acquisition, funnel analytics.

To answer your question: it's a place to come for an infinite stream of stuff to read after you've exhausted your usual haunts and are still bored. When you vote up a story it's more likely to show you stuff from that site. When you vote down it's less likely. Basically a feedreader for people who don't understand feedreaders. There's smarts to show the full text, that works most of the time (try clicking the green arrow at the bottom of some stories). When you get to the bottom of the page it'll autoload more stories.

There isn't that much more to see if you register. We repeat users don't like the scrolling so it shows just one story at a time. There's keyboard shortcuts. That's about it. I pruned everything that didn't work. Thanks for checking it out.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#183

Post by JonathanFields » Sat, Oct 23, 2010, 9:36 PM UTC

PG - Great list of attributes to guide us. What I also found really interesting is a trait that's not on the list - "Tolerance For Ambiguity."

I've seen so many creative endeavors move from freedom to constraint too early or sometimes even flat out fold, not because it was the right time, but because the founders/artists/creators couldn't handle living in the question long enough to make the leap to stunning.

Curious whether that's something you look for and, if so, how?

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#184

Post by jeromec » Sat, Oct 23, 2010, 10:45 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #157

ptn wrote: post #112

pg: would you show an example of an impressive answer to the question about hacking a system to one's advantage?

I'm not pg, but this is probably the best place to tell one of my favorite stories. The highway navigational signs in LA are notoriously confusing, especially this one sign in particular which didn't make sufficiently obvious an exit onto I-5. So some local took note of the sign and started to work. He found out exactly what paint colors to use, cut some sheet metal the right way, and made a North I-5 shield. Then he…

I'm a L.A. native, and I had no clue about this. Great story! I found a video detailing the events from your links: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1442683884005576315...

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#185

Post by twitter_v2 » Sat, Oct 23, 2010, 11:16 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #45

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.

Hi, just recently applied for the next winter round and thought I would get involved and get a few words in! ;-) So the chances of getting accepted as a single founder (which I am) is harder, but surely having a flexible single founder willing to adapt, either by changing his idea or even to team up with other applicants to form a better foundation to move forward, is equally as good (or as risky) as Friends being co-founders. My point is, founders (friends, coders, family etc) could prove to consume more valuable time managing their personalities rather than getting the job done in the first 3 months to get VC's interested or even be accepted by Y-C as pointed out by "pg" in a previous post. There is clearly huge talent being pitched here and I was just keen to hear if Y-C ever formed new partnerships by connecting people?

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#186

Post by bkudria » Sun, Oct 24, 2010, 11:09 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #170

ig1 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine if you build something cool and get traction, YC will consider you even as a single founder.

We do fund single founders. There were 2 this summer. We just have a higher threshold with single founders, because it's harder to succeed as one. The last 3 of the 5 we'd compromise on if the person was good in other respects. Only the first 2 are essential. It's hard to imagine a startup succeeding without at least one person who was determined and flexible. It's just the nature of the domain.

Have you ever considered funding only one person out of a team?

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#187

Post by realitygrill » Mon, Oct 25, 2010, 2:48 AM UTC

Revisor wrote: post #173

llaxsll wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mindset. You believe it, you become it :).

That's actually more true than it sounds. Just a week ago I read Self-Theories by Carol Dweck where she sums up the 30 years of her research. Summary: People who hold entity theory about their traits (ie they believe their traits - like intelligence, sociability etc - cannot change) are not able to change. People who hold the opposite incremental theory (they believe their traits can change) can and do change and the…

I picked up Self-Theories after reading the excellent Mindset (which dealt with fixed vs growth mindsets). For an HNer, I would suggest you borrow Mindset but buy Self-Theories.

Re: What We Look for in Founders

#188

Post by Revisor » Tue, Oct 26, 2010, 4:55 AM UTC

realitygrill wrote: post #187

Revisor wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually more true than it sounds. Just a week ago I read Self-Theories by Carol Dweck where she sums up the 30 years of her research. Summary: People who hold entity theory about their traits (ie they believe their traits - like intelligence, sociability etc - cannot change) are not able to change. People who hold the opposite incremental theory (they believe their traits can change) can and do change and the…

I picked up Self-Theories after reading the excellent Mindset (which dealt with fixed vs growth mindsets). For an HNer, I would suggest you borrow Mindset but buy Self-Theories.

Thank you for the tip on the Mindset. I enjoyed Self-Theories so much I will definitely pick this one up, even if just to reinforce the point she makes.