Anyone have stories on nasty co-founding team relationships and/or recommendations on what to look for in a co-founder?
Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
1–10 of 38 posts
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#2Make sure you do background checks (references + backchannel).
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#3In my experience the important things are:
1. Do they proactively do the tedious stuff when things aren't exciting? Passion waxes and wanes and good co-founders dig deep and push through the bottoms of the motivation cycle.
2. Would you feel comfortable with the, representing YOU if you were not around?
3. How quickly can you find a comfortable and systematic way to constructively criticize one another?
There are more specific details, but these are the non-negotiables
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#4i'd do a small throw-away project with the person before you attempt anything. if you can complete the project, then tackle something bigger. it's like training camp before full-season play.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#5Here's an example of non-alignment of founders, and ownership that did not have vesting periods...with a consequence that departing partner-founders had to deal with a major fraction of the entity owned by non-participants.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#6What do they say?
What do they do?
What do other people say about them?
That will usually weed out most of the procrastinators, wannabes, "difficult" people etc...
A bit of interpersonal chemistry going, some complimentary skills (you're looking for compatibility, after all), and some level of emotional investment on the problem being solved, wouldn't hurt either.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#7I had a friend who would "test" girlfriends by taking them camping for a few days.
Camping or other intense travel that raises the level of discomfort (no running water/flush toilets/electricity/internet/air conditioning etc.) reveals someone's true nature very quickly. You'll see whether they get cranky or stay optimistic, whether they're disorganized or not, whether they carry more or less of their fair share of the load, whether they get on your nerves, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#8Key takeaway: Ensure your cofounders are competent through third-party verification if you can't do it yourself.
I know of company cofounded by a skilled business guy and a technical guy. That's a fairly typical split, except the technical guy is absolutely useless. He hasn't learned anything new since his internship days, and insisted his code was perfect despite obvious security flaws.
The business guy just took the technical guy at his word without checking to see if his skills really were at that level. What followed was a tremendous waste of investor money as the technical guy insisted on doing everything his way and creating massive loads of technical debt.
Had the business guy had an independent party verify the technical guy's skills, he'd have saved himself $X00,000 in opportunity costs and years of his life.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#9i'd do a small throw-away project with the person before you attempt anything. if you can complete the project, then tackle something bigger. it's like training camp before full-season play.
Not always practical. I've almost completed a 7-year project and now find myself in the unusual position of being a technical founder in search of a non-technical co-founder. I could go out alone for sure and yet know that I'm just not good at carving out a market for my product, no matter how good I know it to be.
My challenge isn't knowing what to look for (if I have a skill it's reading people) - it's finding someone suitable.
Re: Ask HN: Horror co-founder stories.
#10I have a story in the making that I hope will have a happy ending.
I started a company with two of my good friends whom I also happen to be living with at the moment. We're profitable and growing, but that doesn't mean we don't have problems. I am the technical co-founder while the other two handle operations and the business development side. However, they seem to be just going with the flow while I on the other hand am pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into this company. And I feel my work isn't being respected because they have unrealistic demands and sometimes complain about things not working or things not being done while they on the other hand aren't making any effort to see how they can help. It's easy for them to just delegate their tasks to our assistants but for my work, it isn't so easy. They should be hustling and trying to grow the company with their free time, but they aren't. My resentment has been growing against them and lately it's been putting a strain on our relationship. I think us starting out as friends has made us avoid talking about the deep issues that underly this predicament. In the end, I can't do this without them and they can't do it without me. How can I approach this situation? The obvious answer is to sit down, talk, and make my issues be known but before I do that, I need some good advice.
I also want to mention our equity is split three ways evenly with no vesting.