
Do you need a co-founder? (Google Docs list) - jayliew
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgCvDTyBjHdOdDFfMENqeWVGNVFxTXdnaDZBRkd0cUE&hl=en
======
ryduh
This has been possibly the coolest use of Google Docs I have seen

~~~
fleaflicker
and a way to hijack all of our gmail account names

~~~
jayliew
doesn't have to be gmail - I added my HN username and @twitter. (Plus, you can
obfuscate your email yourself)

~~~
johns
He's not referring to the data entered. When you share a doc you can see the
Google username of everyone viewing it.

~~~
staunch
Proving the point: terXX.Xones charlXXXbbard laXXXedel syXXXdr larXXXalan
daviXXXbert.gordon shaXXXhern JusXXXilly boXXXox BjXXXnGT mnXXXr johXXXns
sdXXXf iamXXXingo notorioXXXeeky hasseXXXntanfous patriXXXcuto jXXXn chXXXis
maXXXk jayXXXrn richXXXdjg xkeXXXeth mucXXXra abXXXczo proXXXich
MattheXXXlair87 roXXXiku ageXX.Xunky

~~~
jayliew
If you're going to throw your hat into the co-founder pool with information on
how to reach you, I think your Google username is the least of your concerns.

Seriously, did you know getting on the interwebs reveals your IP address :p
Someone could run a full suite of penetration tests on your IP addr to get to
your end-point or router.

~~~
staunch
What about the people merely clicking the link, to view what it is? It reveals
their email address/name for anyone to see. That's behavior unlike any other
public page on the web.

~~~
jayliew
But that is the point of a directory listing of people - people who enter
their info want to be found and contacted.

If you don't want to be contacted, then don't add your information. I'm not
sure what you're suggesting is the problem, but perhaps you can suggest a
solution?

You obfuscate your email addr so that it's human-readable and not spam-bot
readable. Or just add your twitter username instead, or whatever choice you
prefer.

~~~
dangrossman
You're missing his point.

You reveal your Google Account (and e-mail address for most people) just by
viewing the page, without typing a single character into the page.

~~~
mark_h
You could always log out first, before clicking on it.

~~~
jayliew
I see.

Basically, the consumers of the content (the people just wanting to see what's
on the list) want to be completely 100% anonymous. I wonder how the producers
of the content (the people entering their information on the spreadsheet)
would feel about that.

Well there you go, as suggested above.. you can always logout first - or
create a dummy account. Google sign-in is arguably one of the commonly used on
the Web, even if you're really anti-Google .. having a dummy account would be
real handy.

Excess paranoia, on the other hand, is another topic.

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rythie
This makes me wonder why all the hype about Wave when docs can already do
this.

~~~
TristanKromer
I love Wave, and still can't figure out what I should be doing with it.

~~~
carmenNeghina
if you do, let me know! I guess it will be useful when the early adopters
start playing with it around as well :)

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wensing
Makes me think so much more could be done with profile pages on HN.

~~~
pg
What should I add? I'm open to suggestions.

~~~
replicatorblog
A resource like this Google Doc, but limited to people with a certain karma
threshold. A way to connect potential founders that are geographically
separate. I know that cofounders should know each other so not a start up
dating site, but a place where people looking to throw their hat in the
startup ring can make first connections with other like minded folks. Current
solutions like meetups get overcrowded with the unskilled "idea guy" who needs
someone to build his half baked social net. HN would be a great filter.

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thesethings
If anybody wants to do things to this doc (install Pivot Tables gadget,
rearrange columns, do crazy sorts), but is worried about messing up doc for
others, remember you can copy it out for yourself with File -> Make a Copy.

(Yes it will be slightly out of date eventually, but you can then copy it out
again.)

------
hassenben
This is actually quite dangerous. You can use GData to load the document
retrieve all contributors and authors.

You can also retrieve the viewers using a cronjob.

GData returns a "Person" objects in 3.0
[http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/d...](http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/data/Person.html)

and when you know that google docs generates a revision for just clicking
around you can retrieve all revisions and email addresses using
[http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/d...](http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/data/docs/RevisionEntry.html)

Anyway, it is a great idea... but really not a good idea to use a google doc
:-)

~~~
po
So by quite dangerous you mean that anyone can find out that you've looked at
and/or edited that page.

Definitely a privacy issue for many people, but I'm not sure I would qualify
it as quite dangerous.

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icey
Does anyone know a board like HN with a designer bent? It looks like more than
half of the people filling out the spreadsheet would like to meet up with
someone with design skills. It might be worthwhile to share this link on a
board with designers.

~~~
allantyoung
one of the more popular hangouts on the net for designers is MediaBistro - it
has a bulletin board that might be an appropriate place for this:
<http://www.mediabistro.com/bbs/>

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jasonlbaptiste
watching this being edited in real time on the spreadsheet is fascinating.

~~~
philjackson
Yep, it's amazing how well its coping with what's going on. I watched someone
deface it partially and then someone fix it again. Very cool.

~~~
cschneid
On the other hand, we used google spreadsheets as an issue tracker to guide
working with clients. It fell over repeatedly over the course of an hour phone
call on all ends (5 or so people viewing). It's really bad at keeping
connections alive.

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gtt
Technical entrepreneur seems to be most wanted character class.

~~~
dpritchett
I'm going to keep rerolling until I get all 18s.

------
adrianwaj
This spreadsheet is going to get seriously diluted with every bastard and his
dog. You might need a password or something. Louis Gray's tweet is doing the
rounds: <http://bit.ly/info/hackerbrain>

~~~
louismg
Sharing the doc was not an intent to dilute, but to raise awareness. Apologies
for any issues. There is a definite interest in plans from the members of this
community.

~~~
jayliew
It's fine, my own entry got mangled a bit by pure accident, but I just re-
filled it and it's fine.

Thanks for sharing the awareness Louis.

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TristanKromer
This is exactly the problem I'm working on. If you're interested in this topic
and would be willing to alpha test or otherwise help out, please drop me a
line at <http://startupsquare.com>

~~~
carmenNeghina
Looks like a great concept. We need more such initiatives. At what stage is
the project at the moment?

~~~
TristanKromer
Alpha alpha alpha. We're going to be letting people in within the next few
weeks and the start tuning!

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gprisament
Quick! Someone write a Marriage Problem Solver that can take this spreadsheet
as input!

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ropiku
I am surprised that many tech founders are looking for tech instead of
business

~~~
fjabre
Easier to go from tech to business than the other way around.

~~~
indiejade
The problem with this line of thinking is that a founder can have the
"coolest" tech idea ever, but without any business sense (growth), he's just
swimming around in the same circle, over and over. They're complementary
skills, not opposing, and neither one is "greater" or "less" than the other.

~~~
chrischen
Maybe it takes business sense to realize the potential of an idea, and so the
spreadsheet selects for techies who have business sense too.

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bpick
Can we do one of these for Angel Investing?

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jayliew
That's actually an interesting comment, are you an angel investor?

For co-founders, everybody wants to pair up .. but for investors and
entrepreneurs, the dynamics would appear different, right? In the sense that
there's more entrepreneurs than there are investors, and since investors have
a finite amount of money, they don't want to be too easily accessible since
they can't invest in everybody (and don't want to be pitched to all the time)?

If you are on the investor side of the table, do shed some light :)

~~~
bpick
I'm on the investor side of the table in that I have money and would be happy
to invest in a worthy start-up. I'm young and fairly inexperienced, but I
don't mind being pitched, and I would be happy to share my email address with
interested parties.

I think nothing could be more valuable than making funding more accessible to
companies that could one day change the world; especially if it could be done
well. Maybe we should get to work on this idea...partner. :)

~~~
jayliew
!! Did you guys see that? I believe an angel investor just said he wants to be
pitched :)

bpick, if you're looking to angel-invest the YC startup community is a really
good place to start scouting, you're at the right place! I don't see any
contact info on your HN about page. Can you tell us all how to reach you? My
contact info is on my about page

~~~
bpick
Contact info updated. I'm waiting for my cellphone to detonate.

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asolove
Trying to reorganize the locations in a useful way. Started by country but
this raises the problem that Canada - Pacific - Vancouver isn't close to US -
Pacific - Seattle in the list. Other ideas?

~~~
seiji
Have people use lat/lng? You can add two new columns for latitude and
longitude populated by:

    
    
      =GoogleLookup("address to geocode", "latitude")
    

"Address to geocode" can probably be made using the existing city/country
columns.

Then you can automatically make a map directly from spreadsheet data:
[http://gmaps-
samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsma...](http://gmaps-
samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsmapwizard/makecustommap.htm)

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csallen
I hope this Doc stays around indefinitely, so those of us looking for a co-
founder in the future will have a resource. It's worth posting a link to it
every so often.

~~~
jayliew
Yup, I will be keeping it up indefinitely, I don't see any reason why to
remove .. but if it ever came down to that, I will ping the HN community so
that everybody knows.

I guess anyone looking to build a co-founder dating site has to figure out
what value they are adding on top of this spreadsheet!

~~~
skmurphy
One of the reasons that the Bootstrapper Breakfasts have been helpful to bring
teams together is that it's a low key way to have a serious conversation with
one or more potential cofounders and form an impression based on more than a
paragraph or two on a "dating site."

From folks who have attended a Startup Weekend or similar event, I hear that
it's a good way to learn how someone performs under at least a moderate amount
of pressure.

I am less sanguine about "dating site" although a lot of folks have
contributed to the spreadsheet so it will probably help potential co-founders
become aware of each other.

I also think you can form a reasonable impression of someone from reading
their blog and HN comments but not everyone who has the strengths you will
need to get startup off the ground is necessarily interested in contributing
to a forum.

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jason_tko
This is a great idea. I ran an article on Hacker News a couple of months ago
looking for a co-founder at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=941606>.

It was on HN for maybe 1 day on the weekend, so I was concerned I was missing
out on the perfect person to work with on a startup.

Having something like this (or, better yet perhaps a wiki that tracks edits)
is an excellent idea. Kudos Jayliew !

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faramarz
I'm not sure how many Torontonians are on HN, but I put out a call in there
anyway. Hope to make some meaningful connections. Thanks jayliew!

~~~
jayliew
You're welcome! I know I'm scratching not just my own itch, but helping others
too .. it's a great feeling. Obviously I got lucky too .. it's not like I
coded Google Docs. A reminder that despite all our technical and business
talent - luck remain an important part of our endeavor. We can however work to
maximize our odds and exposure to luck!

------
csytan
I hope you don't mind, I added a "comments" column.

~~~
jayliew
Not at all, I was pondering about that earlier and decided to defer the
decision to the public ;)

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csytan
It looks like most people are looking for a good designer / UI specialist. If
only there was an HN for designers focusing on starts ups!

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yumraj
Great idea, but IMHO it would have been much nicer if people had created new
sheets based on their location and then added the Info, so that it would have
been much easier to browse.

Or course, location+skill wouldn't have hurt either. In the current format, it
could potentially become unmanageable and not very user friendly.

I'm just going to create a sheet for SF-BayArea see if people adopt it :).

~~~
briggsrs
I believe there is the option of sorting it by city and adding the content
once it is filtered. :)

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yumraj
yeah, but the problem is that people will not necessarily use same names for
their location. E.g. SF, SFBayArea, SFBA, Silicon Valley, etc. all refer to
the same location but are different.

On the other hand, if someone really wants it s/he would be able to find it :)

~~~
briggsrs
I wonder if it would be feasible to construct a database where they enter the
zipcode instead, and set a parameter that determines which area you belong to.
(Eg. if you live in 94107, any zipcode within 60 mile radius would be
considered the "Bay Area".

~~~
megamark16
So, a while back I created a bartering webapp with location aware searching
using Django. I did it mostly as a learning process so I could become more
familiar with Django, and I never really marketed it much, and it really
doesn't get any use now.

With that being said, if you wanted to get on there and create a profile, add
a post saying that you're looking for a founder with XYZ skillsets, or that
you're available to be a cofounder, other people could search for you based on
keywords or tags plus their relation to your zip code.

<http://www.igwyn.com> (I've Got What You Need).

Not meant to be shameless self promotion, but it might actually be helpful for
people.

Mark

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alexro
As one who tried to capture a cofounder in the past, I would insist on listing
the primary area of interest (i.e. social media, search etc) and also what
obstacles you from progressing on your own (i.e. lack of particular skill,
lack of money etc), as it greatly streamlines the further interactions

~~~
jayliew
Just create a new column, I think it's a good idea too

~~~
alexro
I'm not putting anything in there, so maybe it isn't appropriate for me to add
columns. Though I've noticed the Primary Areas of Interest made it into the
spreadsheet already.

------
ADRIANFR
I copied (almost) all entries from the doc in a semantic wiki:
<http://www.startuplinkup.com> Please go and search your entry there, refine
it, rename it, etc. Hope this is more manageable than the google doc. Follow
@startuplinkup.

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minalecs
for people just leaving twitter names, how do i send them a message. Sorry I
may be one of the only people that only reads twitter (strictly stalker),
never use it for actually do messaging or anything else. I followed them, but
still don't know how to send message

~~~
jayliew
type "@thatotherpersonsusername hello there"

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NEPatriot
Would it be appropriate to create an open source community project which would
keep the current simple interface of google docs but support more users and
perhaps store info such as blog links/HN links to posts along with a
standardized location?

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bullrico
This looked very interesting, so we coded up an app based on some of the
comments - it's at findmycofounder.com, more details on Twitter
(@FindMyCofounder). We figured we could launch this in 24 hours or so, do try
it out in a couple of hours.

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cemerick
Just tossed my info on there. Not actively looking for a cofounder -- mostly
because I don't think it's likely I'll find anyone with the right
skills/temperament -- but it's worth getting out there anyway.

~~~
jayliew
Can't win the lottery if you don't at least buy a ticket :)

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tk999
Is it working? Some line is missing and empty and some lines only has a word
"Java," (may be merge during typing...)

May be it is better to build a one / 2 pages UI for that...

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JoelMcCracken
Hmm, this could be a webapp. A way for people who are a pre-seed startup
seeder, if you will. Startups.com (or something similar) might want to jump on
this.

~~~
alain94040
Again, it's all about critical mass and people knowing where to look.

We launched exactly what you are asking for a year ago. It's there, people are
using it. But not everyone knows it. Look at my profile if you don't know
which site I'm talking about.

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fjabre
oh man.. don't be typing in 'asdfdsaf' into the rows!

~~~
jayliew
hilarious :D

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briggsrs
Just wish there was a online directory similar to the one shown in Google
spreadsheet, that is as simple, intuitive and cleanly designed.

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p0nce
Is there a site dedicated to finding a cofounder ?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
theres been several attempts along the road, but nothing has stuck.

~~~
jayliew
Imho, this spreadsheet captures the very bare essence of a co-founder dating
site. Find your co-founder with nothing more than your browser's "Control-F"

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
i think most sites should be reduced to being this simple

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yan
Thanks, added a brief entry. Don't exactly need a cofounder right now, but
would not mind others reaching out.

------
jasonlbaptiste
anyone on here interested in a company that does hardware mixed with software
based upon ubuntu?

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joubert
It seems you can edit without even signing in to Google Docs. Are your edits
then anonymous?

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SlyShy
Very chaotic with 33 people inside. I'll wait my turn for a while.

~~~
yan
Just pick an empty row and start editing!

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chubbard
Wasn't this supposed to be done in Wave? ;-)

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charlesju
Cool way to use Google Docs

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JoelMcCracken
Awesome.

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itistoday
We need a wiki-style spread sheet so that changes can be reverted. I've seen
several rows cleared of their info (80-83), not sure if it's by vandals or
not.

