
How did you find your business partners?  - newbiedude

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theoutlander
We had a major power outage in the Seattle area in December '06 and some areas
didn't come back for 12 days (mine was 6). I met my partner at a grocery store
while picking up firewood and somehow we talked about how our lives were
dependent on computers and the internet :-P. That evening we started poker
nights with a few friends where we bounced ideas. Finally, when I was working
on my idea and the 2 people working with me QUIT, I was telling him about how
hard it was to find a co-founder! And to my surprise, he offered to work on
it....now we exhibit great teamwork! Just like the founders of Google, our
Bachelors is from Univ. of Maryland and Univ. of Michigan ... LOL

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Sam_Odio
When I started a summer project, I used facebook advertising and campus flyers
to find potential partners.

I ended getting ~15 hackers interested in working on the project over the
summer, interviewed 10, and picked two.

We all worked an lived together in the same apartment. It was probably the
best summer of my life, and cost us about $2,000 / person. Most of that was
for food & rent.

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zaidf
That's a neat approach in that it's something that can be repeated - of course
the exact response may vary depending on the nature of your uni.

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comatose_kid
I found mine through past work experience.

I approached two of the smartest hackers I had worked with, and showed them a
very brief Keynote presentation followed by a demo of the concept I had been
working on part time over the last 6 months.

The Y-combinator application process prompted me to expedite my search for
other founders. I was originally planning on launching v.1 of the app before
approaching them. Take-aways from this:

 _It is tempting to get a co-founder quickly, if only to validate your idea.
That's fine, but don't approach potentials just because you believe there is a
high chance of them accepting. Always try to bring in the best people you
know.

_ Know that you can work well together. Often said, but it's still worth
repeating.

 _Presentations are great, but it's easier to convince someone to spend their
time on an idea when you back your presentation up with a demo. Regardless of
the outcome, you'll receive valuable feedback, and it's probably good practice
for when you meet VCs.

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imperator
My current business partner went to the same highschool as I. He and I became
friends because of our love of ideas. We both looked to the future not just as
an amusing fiction, but as something we would create. So we were always
working on science projects, rail guns, etc.

My initial interest in applying to Ycomb came when a friend of my brother's
put an alert out to anyone who wanted to start a business on top of an idea he
had around OpenID. I expressed interest and after he discarded his idea, he
opted to join my project. However, the connection between he and I was far
looser, and eventually he left the group. Interestingly, a day before our
third left I told my brother that I had a feeling our third was going to
leave. Not particularly useful prescience, but I think it goes to show that if
you have a bad feeling about a relationship, you should listen to it.

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zaidf
Back in high school I used to get small freelance projects. Every now and then
I would subcontract it. And I subcontracted one of the coding projects through
a rentacoder.com to what later turned into my partner. We just connected
really well and shared a passion to launch new things.

We've done quite a few ventures together in past 4-5 years with MSN chat being
our only line of communication:) If we get into YC he'll be flying up to US
and hey we might actually finally meet.

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SteveC
I met mine through a mutal friend. He had the product idea and could do
everything needed except for the technical side of things. My name was
eventually brought up and I got a phone call later that night to go over the
idea. A week later I had a prototype version ready to demonstrate and we moved
on from there. That was 5 years ago and we're still business partners to this
day.

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newbiedude
I'm interested in the relationship between the idea creator and the coder.

I have the idea, but I can't program for the life of me. I've outsourced to
people in China but I need to have someone local who can take care of the
small stuff.

It just seems that if I find somebody I'll just be telling them what to do
while I sit and watch them code...

How do you deal with this?

~~~
SteveC
If it was just him giving me an idea then I would have simply done it myself
without his involvement. Our product is about teaching guitar. I didn't have
any guitar experience while he has nearly two decades worth. He has to produce
all the content which is a massive task in itself. The difference is he works
on a guitar and I work on a computer. I should make clear the idea is no
longer just his. He may have had the initial idea but it's developed a great
deal from there to be made up of many ideas from both of us. Ownership of an
idea seems to dilute over time. I believe our relationship works because it is
equal. Equal decision making power, work load, and business ownership. I think
any business relationship where the workload isn't equally shared is doomed to
failure. Ideas aren't really worth much. His idea was seemed pretty obvious
but we discovered no one was really doing it (due to technical restraints
which have only started lifting over the past five years, not through lack of
a market ;-).

For a successful business relationship I believe you need to bring an
essential skill that helps the project get off the ground, not just an idea.
Otherwise, your only alternative is to learn how to code or pay someone to do
it.

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joshwa
Friends of friends... put it out there to anyone/everyone you know that you're
looking for someone with x background or x skills. Let your network do the
work. It worked for me!

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wensing
We worked together (directly) in a corporate IT department.

