
Ask HN: How did you and your cofounder meet? - zackattack
I've heard it many times: cofounding a startup is like getting married. So, like the stories that couples tell, tell us your stories: how did you meet? From the first time you exchanged words, to the moment that you fully made the plunge .. what happened?
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gsaines
My cofounders were my best friends from uni. I met Scott during freshman year.
At Oberlin, students have 5 weeks off in the middle of winter when we're
expected to cook for ourselves. I probably would have eaten ramen all 35 days
for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but we banded together and became expert hash
brown cooks.

I met Nick and in sophomore year and we started a street art group. We did
some pretty crazy stuff that made a lot of people smile. I actually met my
girlfriend because of an art project we pulled off particularly well.

I introduced Nick and Scott during the end of junior year. Nick and I needed
another house mate for our sweet off-campus diggs and so I suggested Scott.
They got along well, so we dragged Scott with us. Nick and Scott actually were
working on a recreational project for a while called Marblar, it was this
horrible 3D game where you are a marble and you wander a crudely created world
for several minutes before the psychics engine crashed.

When Nick came up with the idea for the company, he kind of roped me in, and
it was pretty obvious Scott should join us.

~~~
qeorge
I have a few close friends who attended Oberlin, and I was always impressed
with the 5 week break in winter. IIRC, its not so much time off, but rather
time you're expected to pursue something, anything. Is that correct?

I wish other colleges would follow their lead. It leads to some really amazing
experiences.

------
qeorge
Grew up together, fell out of touch, reconnected during college (NCSU) and
became good friends again.

Later, after we'd both dropped out and were working shitty jobs (read:
retail), we both decided that this wasn't going to be the way our stories
played out, and decided to start a web design company. I quit my job almost
immediately, and he did soon after. Three years later, still going strong.

Failure has never been an option, because if this doesn't work I'm back to
square one, and I'm not going back. That urgency has forced us to rapidly
evolve our business model and given us the strength to tighten our belt
buckles through the thin times.

I wouldn't change any of it, but holy shit was it scary.

~~~
greyboy
Wow, I can't believe your office is 3 miles from my home, and 1/4 mile from my
friend's business that I often visit. Small world.

~~~
qeorge
That's wild. Drop me a line sometime, email's in my profile.

------
ivankirigin
We were literally married. We met in an honors algorithms class at nyu.

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dkasper
My freshman year of college my cofounder and I were arch enemies in the web
programming course at school. There was a competition around the final project
and we were on opposing teams. I think it was mostly because we were jealous
of each other's skills. That summer we both worked on research projects at
school and became friends and caught the startup bug. At one point he
mentioned that we should start a company together and I off-handedly agreed (I
only vaguely remember this part although he's told me about it many times).

We tried various little side projects but never got very far during school. He
graduated a year before me and got married and moved to San Francisco. Now
that I've graduated and moved to San Francisco too we both live together in
the same apartment with his wife, so in a way being cofounders is like being
married for us :-)

Now we just have to find more time to hack on our stuff...

------
nkohari
We were introduced by a mutual friend when we were in high school. We dated
through college, and then got married. :) (Yes, my co-founder is also my
wife.)

I'd always wanted to start my own business since as long as I could remember,
but was biding my time in the corporate world until I felt I was "ready".
She'd never really considered it, instead studying industrial/organizational
psychology with the intent of becoming a professor.

After she passed comprehensive exams for her Ph.D., she started getting the
feeling academia might be not be for her. Around the same idea, I had the idea
that would eventually become our startup, and we started talking about it. As
it turned out, she had studied the same topic from another point of view and
had some great insight. The rest was dollars and cents.

~~~
impeachgod
My friend tells me that it is very difficult for those involved in a romantic
relationship to go in business together as well. She says that it can be an
additional source of conflict due to differing work styles, finances, and
other problems. How do you two manage it?

------
jim-greer
My mom brought her home from the hospital when I was 3.

~~~
pplante
elaborate?

~~~
forensic
his sister

~~~
barredo
or half-sister, or that-kidnapped-girl-i-live-with

------
stgarrity
Clara & I met socially in college, partnered up for a compilers course
(CS143), then did a fellowship together during our masters. Went our separate
ways for 4 years after college (me to Seattle, she stayed in SF) but stayed
close friends & traveled together, both for work & play.

We both quit our jobs this year to start something together...we've been
talking about it for long enough it was about time. :)

------
lfittl
Originally met each other at a local hackerspace
<http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Metalab>

Spent lots of time together and got friends, then he decided to go after a
product idea and I joined him.

For the valley folks this probably means hanging out at the Hacker Dojo
<http://hackerdojo.pbworks.com/>

------
wheels
He was one of my good friend's boyfriend's roommates. We met at a party on my
good friend's boyfriend's best friend's birthday.

All clear now?

~~~
gcheong
I think so but can you show me a directed edge graph?

------
swombat
I lived in the same boarding house for two years with my first cofounder
(Steve), who I started my first business with 7 years later. I was working for
Accenture, and looking for a way out of the corporate world, and in fact was
actively looking to start my own business, and Steve called me up and asked if
I'd like to help him with this business idea he had...

My cofounder on my next business (Bob) is Steve's brother. I met him when I
moved back to the UK, but obviously knew of him before, and had a strong
introduction via Steve. I slept on his couch for 2 weeks when I first moved to
London. Then I met him every once in a while for a few years, almost moved
into the same flat-share at one point (the estate agent screwed up so it
didn't happen). Then, at some point, the idea for Woobius came together (it
was called Citeworks at the time...) and we got started on it.

------
diN0bot
haha. my cofounder and i _are_ married. we met playing ultimate frisbee. we
"adventured" more so than "dated," and were soon engaged. the startups came
soon after. it was lucky that although we were so much in synch in spirit, our
professional skills are complementary.

------
hikari17
I first came across Justin when he blogged from the FamilySearch development
conference back in March of 2008. My wife and I had been looking for months
for a technical co-founder with a strong interest in family history. Justin's
blog posts were noticed/quoted by a genealogy blogger I followed and that
quickly led us to him.

Emails and phone conversations soon followed, and within a month he had
started making our fledgling app his own, taking it in all sorts of new and
better directions. Through it all, we've only actually "met" face-to-face for
a total of about five days during the 20+ months we've worked part-time on
Genlighten.

------
PStamatiou
At the first Atlanta Startup Weekend. It was only after continued meets,
coding and planning things out over coffee on saturdays, and so on, that it
became apparent we were both interested in working together. 2 years later,
still kicking it on Skribit.com and it's a good fit. We're both technical,
he's a better overall developer and brings some previous startup & finance
experience to the table, while my main hats include front-end and (some)
design, etc.

team page: <http://skribit.com/about>

------
kobs
We were sitting next to each other during our Intro CS lab when groups were
being assigned; I asked if he wanted to be my partner. We've been partners for
pretty much everything ever since.

------
DaniFong
My cofounder Steve tried to hire me for a videogame startup. I ended up hiring
him for my compressed air energy storage startup. He brought on Ed, a partner
he worked with more than two decades ago; they created a startup, Cubicomp,
that produced the first ever 3D graphics software running on a PC. It ran on
an IBM XT. We've all switched back to physics/engineering from more of a
software focus through our careers.

~~~
rasikjain
Its interesting to know from engineering startup. Would you mind telling the
name of your startup.....

~~~
DaniFong
LightSail Energy. There isn't much on our website. We're stealth.

------
jasonlbaptiste
Mark and I for Ramamia (side project)- Met on hacker news!

Me + Cofounder of unannounced startup- Worked together at first startup + met
through mutual friend from college.

------
adityakothadiya
Startup conference event. But we met 2-3 times in different conferences,
recognized each other every time, updated our progress about what we did from
last conference, and eventually decided to meet for coffee.

After 3-4 coffee meetings, we decided to join the hands.

And I'm very happy with the results. Its been 2-3 weeks only we started
working together, but I already started seeing huge benefits.

~~~
robertgaal
+1

------
adw
One of my cofounders, we met because we were at the same college (I was an
undergrad; he was a grad student.)

We met again years later as part of the same research group; by this point he
was a postdoc and I was doing a PhD. Finished that, moved departments, and
that's how I met my other cofounder: we were part of a team working on the
same research project.

------
jlm382
Meeting my co-founder was love at first sight - we were the only freshman in
our discrete math class at Berkeley, so the GSI paired us up to be homework
buddies. It was our first week in college.

What started as doing problem sets together ultimately turned into building a
company together. As they say, "you'll find the one when you're least
expecting to."

------
ryanwaggoner
Sophomore year...of high school. Now ten years later and we're doing a startup
together.

------
emmett
Grew up in the same neighborhood and went to elementary school and college
together.

------
fjabre
Went looking on elance for some help on a project.

2 years later we're founding a company together.

------
jordanbrown
We met through craigslist but didnt work together initially. As time went on
we were then connected to every social site out there. I hit him up on
facebook to do lunch about an idea I was had and the rest is history.

------
lleger
At high school, in our dorm room; he was a junior, I a senior. I met our third
cofounder years ago on the internet in a blogging network called Random
Shapes.

------
JangoSteve
We were in an entrepreneurship club together at our university (well
techinically we had met a few times before in various classes and parties).

------
jaddison
I'm involved in a couple of ventures and I've met each of my co-founders
through past employment (all of us working at the same employer(s)).

------
newy
College buddies - now working on Optask (<http://www.optask.com>)

------
apinstein
Tennis match in a singles league... still kinda surprises me to this day that
we're business partners now!

------
snprbob86
As interns at Google. We shared a workspace there, but it turned out that we
attended the same university.

------
lucumo
In university. We worked together on paired work and group work, and I rented
a room in his house.

------
khandelwal
I find it interesting, that as far as I can tell, only a couple people said
"previous co-worker".

------
pplante
I met mine via a previous job. We worked well together and decided to go
create our own startup.

------
monological
Through a bay area car enthusiast club. We realized we both had a passion for
startups.

------
andrewljohnson
On a date.

~~~
zackattack
Who hooked up the date, startupfriendfinder?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Hehe, nah... just good old-fashioned craigslist.

That's how nerds meet in the Bay :)

------
marram
Freshman year in college. Ten years ago. At a math class.

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callmeed
Highschool baseball team ... best friends since

------
Oompa
1) Sophomore Year in HS 2) IRC

------
ig0rskee
First day of University

------
ca98am79
He read my blog

------
rishi
college and TECH cocktail

------
Dramatico
At a sausage fest like most hackers.

