

How did you meet your YC app team? - deltapoint

College?
Prior collaborations?
Pure randomness?
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luxiou
I followed him around and healed him in WoW.

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Alex3917
Don't take this the wrong way, but you'd make an awesome girlfriend. :-)

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alaskamiller
wait... is he a girl?

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Alex3917
Not as far as I know.

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anson
He'd follow me around and heal me in WoW.

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blored
Awkward.

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SwellJoe
I used to hire him to work on software projects for my previous company (and
we worked on Webmin together--him doing the hard work, me complaining a lot).
He was the best developer I ever worked with, and after seven years, I finally
figured out the smartest thing was to partner up and start something new with
him.

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dmpayton
One partner is my best bud from high school, the other is my wife (who I also
met in high school).

Perhaps someone can answer this for me: Would the wife-as-a-partner thing have
a negative impact on our chances at YC?

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bootload
_"... Would the wife-as-a-partner thing have a negative impact on our chances
at YC? ..."_

Well it sort of depends on the makeup of the team. Imagine your on the
Starship Enterprise and you have to beam down to an unknown planet. Who do you
want on your team? Well you want Kirk, probably a science officer (Spock)
maybe the medical officer (Bones McCoy) , possibly the Coms officer (Uhura)
and a maybe a RedShirt to get blasted away if you come across some real nasty
situation. [0]

So lets assume you are Kirk. The leader, human in touch with his emotions
instincts and has the ability to make decisions but passionate and aggressive.
Lets assume your other partner is Spock. Total nerd. At best unable to read
human nuance, emotion at worst totally miss the poker move Kirk thinks up to
save the day. At best he/she coolly out-logics the best Roumlan, Klingon or
Borg enemies they face. Then there is Bones. Bones is also all empathy, human
and the thinking conscience always trying to get out of sticky situations with
the least harm. [1]

For each episode all three at some times came into conflict to resolve a
difficult situation. Sometimes it was Spock and Bones butting heads over the
most direct decision compared to the decision that caused least harm. Another
time it's Spock advising Kirk not to take such rash action as trying to remove
all the Tribbles as they do sooth the crew and saved the day as in _"The
Trouble with Tribbles"_ [2]

I guess what I'm trying to say is your wife may have the latent skills you
need in your team that has to be identified. Identify her character skills. Is
it all logical and calm like Spock? Passionate, rash and gambler and decision
maker like Kirk? Or is she able to read into people and situations that baffle
both Kirk and Spock as Bones can?

You need all three character types to succeed in any Starship (I mean startup)
adventure, and YC interviews can also be included. Each personality contribute
to produce a successful outcome. Choose the wrong combo and you'll be just
another RedShirt in the application process.

PS My experience is that if you can determine this you can work to plug the
gaps. Not all people are _creators_ interested in building. But they may be
logical analytical and empathetic at the same time.

[0] You can substitute these _"old-skool_ " trekky characters with NexGen
Pikard for Kirk, Warf/Data for Spock and maybe Troi for Bones ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Tribbles>

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dmpayton
Hmm... Logical, analytical, and empathetic is pretty much her in a nutshell.
I'm more like Kirk, the "passionate, rash and gambler and decision maker."

I'm sure she'll understand (and appreciate) your anecdote much more than I
ever will. She's a big time trekie, and me? Not so much...

However, this still leaves my original question somewhat unanswered. While the
three of us may be a great team, I've known many people who believe that
couples should not work/do business together as they feel it will inevitably
lead to conflict and result in the breakup of the company, relationship, or
both. I'm sure that they have some personal experiences, but how does YC
generally look at this type of situation. Will they see it as additional (and
unnecessary) risk? Are there any examples of husband/wife teams in successful
startups?

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bootload
_"... Are there any examples of husband/wife teams in successful startups?
..."_

Sure, Trotts of MT & SixApart ~ <http://www.sixapart.com/about/corner/>

_"... but how does YC generally look at this type of situation ..."_

Who cares? ... More to the point it's unethical if your team is discriminated
against because of marriage. Look, yc play the good guys of the VC world (
read here <http://ycombinator.com/about.html> and here why ~
<http://ycombinator.com/about.html> )

I'd worry about the basics of how you build things and all the other things
that go to build a startup before worrying about this issue. Instead worry
about ....

\- this <http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

\- and this <http://paulgraham.com/die.html>

~~~
bootload
I meant this link instead of reapeating the ycomb.about ~
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50394>

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Harj
our mothers introduced us. he's my cousin.

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rkabir
Buddy from college. We hung out enough so that my ambition rubbed off on him,
and his positive spirit and good humor rubbed off on me. We've also pulled a
good many late nights together working. I don't think you can truly know
someone until you've been sleep deprived together.

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danielha
We made a website together in 7th grade.

It was a different website than now, though.

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rms
Went to college with one partner, went to high school with another, another
was a roommate of someone I went to college with.

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dhouston
via a mutual friend at MIT who was also a yc founder. we lucked out in that it
turned out to be a good fit.

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nextmoveone
Elementary School, and then High School.

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nostrademons
Lived across the hall in college.

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myoung8
He's my roomate in college.

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jamiequint
Facebook Groups

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deltapoint
Which Facebook group? Is there some special for entrepreneurs/hackers?

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rms
The biggest one and a good starting point is probably "Web 2.0
(Entrepreneurs)".

<http://pitt.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2208499259>

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sbraford
the problem seems to be that so many entrepreneurs are already dead set on an
idea.

unless you find the exact entrepreneur looking to do the exact same thing,
you're screwed.

i've tried hackrmatchr, etc. it's all guys who have a startup already and want
you to work on it... not guys who are open to coming up with something
together.

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edawerd
Coworker.

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shadowplay
Lobotomy. Now the conversations are much more interesting.

