

Picking Your Co-Founders: What's luck got to do with it? - spencerfry
http://spencerfry.com/picking-your-co-founders

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awolf
I think this is some of the most realistic advice about co-founders that I
have read.

I need a co-founder for the company I'm starting right now; but how the hell
can I expect to find what I want: "the best", as a newbie to the startup
world? For me at this point it is going to be luck of the draw.

~~~
kevinholesh
Spencer might not agree, but why not go at it alone until you find the right
person? If you're driven enough to start your own company in a space you know
a lot about, you should be driven enough to do so alone, at least temporarily.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Few people are truly lone wolves. If you have a spouse you can lean on for a
while, this may be doable.

~~~
vaksel
I think with the internet it doesn't apply as much.

You can do the lone wolf thing, and then just come post on HN or some other
community site to get your feel of human interaction

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eastlinkage
My advice: don't rush it. Work on a small project together first to make sure
you're compatible.

~~~
spencerfry
But most big projects start as successful small projects (e.g. Twitter,
Facebook, etc.). So you can't really set out to start something small just to
test the waters. You'll either drown or you won't.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
"But most big projects start as successful small projects (e.g. Twitter,
Facebook, etc.)"

Do you have a source for this?

With small projects you can a) severely limit scope b) enter a smaller market
and c) define success in an accessible way.

Edit: Also, with your experiences (from spending 6 months getting to know
someone or with your previous business with nterface guys,) it sounds like you
were doing some sort of "small projects" with your future cofounders, even if
it wasn't framed as such.

~~~
spencerfry
Well especially with the example of Twitter, it started as a small little
internal tool inside the company. It was a small project that engineers were
just doing in their spare time. So that's one example. Facebook too from what
I've read. Facebook was just a little stalking like tool Mark created with his
friends for Harvard kids. I'm sure when they started they never saw a real
scope outside of that. Both of these _small_ projects grew into large
projects, because of their success. What I'm trying to say is that you
typically can't set out to create just a small project.

The nterface story was definitely just the next level of luck based co-
founders. Although, we really did meet by chance. I probably should have gone
into more detail that I did in fact hire Dave and Jason to design/program a
small project that I was working on. I contracted them out rather than chose
them to be my co-founders. It then evolved into something more.

What I'm stressing more in the article is that luck plays a huge role for
first time entrepreneurs: smaller network, less experience, can only find
people with similar experience, etc.

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chrischen
This is why it doesn't pay to be antisocial. Spend your school years making
friends and filtering out a potential list of cofounders.

