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How did you find your cofounder?

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Re: How did you find your cofounder?

#11

Post by german »

pg wrote: post #3

I strongly recommend finding a friend you've known for a while who's willing to start a startup with you. You want to have more holding you together than just the company. Isn't there someone you know from college?

Or form school, in my case my co-founder is my neighbor, I know him since we were six, thats like 22 years ago.

The thing about close friends is that the friendship will help you a lot when discussing the business, there are a lot of business that break out because a bad relationship among founders.

Re: How did you find your cofounder?

#12

Post by german »

nostrademons wrote: post #10
limeade wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, maybe I should give this a shot. The problem is that almost all of my college friends are also in grad school, so it would take some serious convincing....if only we didn't love science so much...

You could wait a couple years, when it's a good bet that 90% of your college friends will want to leave grad school. They'll take much less convincing then.

In a couple of years that business idea will surely be done by someone else. I think that the best time for doing something is now.

Re: How did you find your cofounder?

#15

Post by jsjenkins168 »

I would just focus on finding good friends who are hackers.

The co-founder relationship will form naturally when/if both of you are ready to start a company. You are in a great place to meet good hackers. Who knows, maybe some of the friends you are meeting now will become future business partners.

One of my co-founders was just a friend in school who I worked together with on projects. After school, we began working at the same company before starting to talk about leaving to do a startup. But if I would have asked him in school I'm sure he would have said "are you crazy".. Some people just need some convincing :)

Another co-founder is a cousin but we've been talking about this stuff for over 10 years so that choice was obvious.

Re: How did you find your cofounder?

#16

Post by pg »

limeade wrote: post #8
pg wrote: post #3

I strongly recommend finding a friend you've known for a while who's willing to start a startup with you. You want to have more holding you together than just the company. Isn't there someone you know from college?

Yeah, maybe I should give this a shot. The problem is that almost all of my college friends are also in grad school, so it would take some serious convincing....if only we didn't love science so much...

When we started Viaweb, I was done with grad school but Rtm and Trevor were still in it. That worked out ok. Grad student procrastination is actually quite a powerful force. It's ok if some founders are still in school, so long as (a) the ringleader isn't and (b) the ones still in school are willing to put a good deal of time into the startup.

Re: How did you find your cofounder?

#17

Post by ALee »

I went to a small liberal arts college, so I knew my co-founders through class and other social circles. I had an idea, one co-founder said "I think it could be done." The other guy, we asked to join when we saw him walking back from class because we were talking about getting someone who was a good hacker.
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