

Ask HN: Never physically met your co-founder? - stevenjohns

Hi all,<p>I&#x27;m about to submit a YC application but after getting a couple of people to take a look, they both found it problematic that I&#x27;ve never physically met my co-founder.<p>My co-founder and I have a healthier relationship than probably most people we both know physically. We&#x27;ve spoken every other day for at least the last 3 years, his neighbor has (quite literally) fallen in love with me and his other neighbor contacts me for life advice. My co-founder and I have worked together on large projects (albeit not technical) and have exchanged money for services (that&#x27;s actually how we got to know one another-- I hired him to tutor me over Skype). Our personalities don&#x27;t clash at all-- we even both have the same obscure interests (Jamaican Patois anyone?). Even when I consider all of the people I know, physically or otherwise, I cannot think of a person who would be better suited to act as a co-founder.<p>But still: I&#x27;m in Sydney, Australia, and he&#x27;s in Florida, USA. I emailed PG about this and he said it would be a problem.<p>Has anyone been in this situation for YC? What does HN suggest I do? Should we bring in a third co-founder that one of us has met physically (there are a few people who have contributed and we&#x27;d eventually hire but we don&#x27;t expressly consider them founders)-- would it remedy things?<p>Advice on this would be extremely appreciated.
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general_failure
It is difficult to build a product when you and the co-founder have not met in
person ever. That said, how would I know given that I have never worked in
such a situation? I am willing to give you the benefit of doubt that this
works well for you and your product.

IMO, if getting into YC is a very important goal, you simply need to
workaround this and do whatever it takes to get into YC. Which includes
getting another founder probably.

If YC is just a nice to have, I would say just go on and build your awesome
product. Re-apply next season (if they reject) and show then what you have
already accomplished with a remote co-founder.

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stevenjohns
I guess we'll be adding another founder then. Do you believe the problem will
persist, however, considering one of the founders wouldn't have met the other
two?

