

Ask HN: Should I pass on a remotely located co-founder? - BlueSkies

In looking for a co-founder, I've attracted some interest from various parts of the US (the reason might be in my HN profile).  I'm located in the Boston area and have passed on some good candidates that weren't living in Massachusetts.<p>Should I consider a remote co-founder?  What experiences have you had  - good or bad?
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SwellJoe
My current business was started with a co-founder that was nearly as far away
as it is possible to be while remaining on the same planet (I was in Texas, he
was in Australia...which some folks think is bigger than Texas, for some
reason). I wouldn't have chosen a distant co-founder if I were "hiring"
someone from a pool of roughly unknown choices, it just happened that I'd
known him for about eight years and had worked with him numerous times (with
him as a contractor working for my previous company).

There are circumstances where it can work fine, and my situation just happened
to be one of those circumstances. I think the following has to be true for it
to work extremely well:

1\. Very clear boundary between your job and your co-founders job. If you need
to touch the same files in your codebase more than once or twice a week,
you're probably working on stuff that is too closely related. In my case, the
software was my co-founders job, and everything else (including some UI work,
but mainly the website to sell the product, the business-related paperwork and
banking/taxes minutiae, marketing, documentation, etc.) was mine.

2\. A good working relationship, where you both understand the others goals
and understand what aspects of the task are to be done by each of you. Some
sort of task management tool--we've used a bug tracker heavily from the very
earliest days of the company--helps here.

3\. Equal dedication to the goal. Since you aren't in the same room very
often, it can be hard to be sure that everybody is doing their part. And if
everyone isn't "firing on all cylinders" for the good of the company, it will
fail.

But, you should keep in mind that the vast majority of Open Source projects
are built and run by people who meet _maybe_ once or twice per year. I worked
for years on the Squid project and only ever met two of them in person (there
are about 5 long-time core developers on the project) and spoke to a couple of
others on the phone a few times. It doesn't stop them from getting great
things done. MySQL AB was a famously distributed company--they had developers
all over the world. If being acquired for $500M isn't a great success story, I
don't know what is.

Though, I should also fess up to the fact that my co-founder and I now both
live in the valley, a ten minute drive away, and we get together once a week
for status meetings. We're still pretty distributed though...most of our peers
that I've met out here work in the same office or in the same apartment. I
don't know that I'd be more productive in such a circumstance, or that we'd be
further along in our plans...but maybe.

~~~
akd
Australia is 29 times as big as Texas

~~~
SwellJoe
Brilliant. We should take this show on the road.

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Mystalic
I shall disagree with swombat. I co-founded a company a few years ago with
some remote co-founders I had worked with on other projects. I thought it
would be fine. However, there are major barriers to remote co-founders that
can kill a business

\- Inability to brainstorm at any moment

\- Weakened brainstorming - It's just not the same via video, IM, or phone

\- Paperwork takes longer - Often you both have to sign it. Mailing that crap
is just horrendous

\- Harder to keep on task - Having each other to keep pushing each other and
set tasks and to-do lists is vital

\- Meeting with investors is a pain when coordinating two different travel
plans

\- You just don't get to interact with your co-founders enough to REALLY know
whether you're compatible for working together on a startup. You're going to
have to be at the same place later on, might as well be now so you know this
partnership is going to work 100%

The geographic distance was one of the big factors that killed our startup.
Don't do it if you can avoid it in any way.

~~~
metajack
As a founder of several companies that worked almost completely virtually, you
can overcome all these issues.

Inability to brainstorm at any moment? Hardly. Chat is reasonable for this
task.

Weakened brainstorming? Maybe. But you can always get together now and then in
physical space. We do this every few months if possible.

Paperwork? Um, fax machines, scanners and pdfs. It takes the same amount of
time.

Meeting pain? You still have to coordinate both schedules. This is work
aroundable.

Motivation and keeping on task? This is a function of personality. It's very
true that not everyone can work well virtually. I've found several winners in
this regard, but I have also had to fire some people who might have been great
in person, but just couldn't cut it remotely.

There are many benefits to working virtually. The talent pool is _much_ larger
when it is national or international. The hours are better for everyone. One
of my co-workers travels all over surfing in the mornings and working the rest
of the day. All your communication (assuming you aren't using the phone much)
is logged and can be searched, which is quite handy for those brainstorming
sessions. It forces you into decent dev practices and into good communication.

It's not for everyone, surely, but neither is working in an office with your
co-workers.

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swombat
I started a successful business with a friend who was in another city, two
hours away.

However, he was also my best friend that I'd known for 10 years.

Remote is fine, but you need to know the person well in real life, or else
there will be many, many miscommunications.

~~~
thorax
I can second this. I have two remote cofounders (~2 hours away), both are
decade-long friends. So far working out well, but we've had instances where
one of us needs to come up and stay with the other for a business week or two
to get through some of the tougher collaboration pieces. If you already have a
good, trusting relationship and high work-ethic then this can work pretty well
via IM and email.

I've also worked a few years telecommuting myself, so I've learned a lot of
the tricks to maximize the efficiency of that sort of situation. Using things
like Jing, GoToMeeting, daily phone status meetings, and, lately, Chatterous,
have helped us keep the communication efficiency high for our startup.

Definitely not for everyone, but it can work pretty well if you try hard.

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izak30
My advice is if your question is 'should I pass on xx cofounder?' the question
is yes. You need to be SURE with any cofounder.

If it is somebody you have worked with and know well, it may not matter if
they are in a different time zone, but if you have to ask: it probably will.

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elad
My co-founder and I started out working from our own separate homes, and we
experienced a huge surge in productivity once we moved in to a common office.
And I mean HUGE. Phones, IM, email, they're all very nice, but nothing beats
face-to-face, sitting in the same room, looking at the same computer screen
when necessary.

IMO productivity in a team, where the people are working on the same thing
(which makes DHH's case irrelevant) goes exponentially down with distance.
Measuring the distance in feet vs. miles makes more difference than measuring
it in miles vs. thousands of miles.

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oldgregg
I think DHH would say you are doomed for failure unless you are on different
continents. :)

It probably depends on how self-motivated you both are and if you are keeping
day jobs. The biggest challenge I've seen is keeping momentum-- and either
distance or outside responsibilities are often huge drags -- but only you can
make the call ultimately. You could try going long distance with just clear
terms laid out so that in three months if stuff isn't getting done you aren't
stuck in a lousy partnership.

~~~
jamongkad
Well you do know that 37Signals is distributed across the United States. AFAIK
they only have a handful of dudes in the Chicago office.

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richesh
My Co-Founder and I worked together at a consulting firm, we were in the same
city. But when we decided to start working on our idea, we were in two
different locations.

For the first 6 months we worked remotely, and for the last 3 weeks we've been
in the same location. And honestly, the amount of productivity that exists
being in the same place at this early stage is not achievable remotely.

1 week same location = 4 weeks remotely (In my opinion)

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flashgordon
It really depends, I think. If you know the person or has a very good
recommendation from a friend, then Id test it out. I am currently working on a
friend of a friend (recommended highly by the latter friend) who resides in NZ
(I am in sydney). Comms is a problem. It is a very new thing but I could
really use his presence in Sydney.

But I am new to this game, so I cant tell you the otherside of the story.

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rms
That's a hot domain name... have you owned it forever or did you buy it more
recently?

~~~
BlueSkies
I was the first person to register Social.com back in 1995.

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icky
First, make sure that your remote cofounder is a human, and definitely not an
unfriendly AI. ;)

