

Co-Founders: They're A Wonderful Thing. Indulge at Your Own Risk. - MediaSquirrel
http://mattmireles.com/co-founders/

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peteforde
I am surprised that I'm the first person in an hour to say this: I clicked on
the link to SpeakerText and it sure looks like a functioning company to me.

I remember when you started posting a lot, and I've always enjoyed your words.
I'm just confused, because reading this feels like someone tore about three
chapters from my copy of the book.

TL;DR: if SpeakerText is dead, then why is the site open for business?

~~~
beatpanda
Seriously, SpeakerText's core technology was one of the best ideas I've seen
for improving journalism on the web. I had product ideas for them, they were
totally on my list of places to try to work at, what happened?

And if they're dead, are there patents? And if not, does anybody want to start
a company? :)

~~~
MediaSquirrel
Thanks for the kind words. SpeakerText was acquired over the summer.

Unfortunately, having awesome technology and improving journalism on the web
are not the same as being able to make truckloads if money.

~~~
beatpanda
Who acquired it?

~~~
isaacn
According to a recent GigaOM Pro Sector RoadMap article on crowd labor
platforms in 2012
([http://go.gigaom.com/rs/gigaom/images/RoadMap2012_GigaOM%20P...](http://go.gigaom.com/rs/gigaom/images/RoadMap2012_GigaOM%20Pro_free_report.pdf)),
CloudFactory (<http://cloudfactory.com>) acquired Speakertext/Humanoid. I
haven't seen any other news to confirm that acquisition or the terms, but I
don't doubt that it happened.

Full Disclosure: I was interviewed for this GigaOM Sector Roadmap article. I
believe the SpeakerText guys were also interviewed for the article.

Cheers, \- Isaac

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abstractbill
Hell yes. I think the ideal founders are siblings or _very_ old friends; The
kinds of people who could never cut each other out of their lives no matter
how mad they were at each other. I've come to the conclusion that you're
asking for a lot of trouble in accepting anything less than that.

~~~
MatthewB
I've been thinking this as well.

However, if you don't have any siblings and none of your very old friends know
anything about technology/startups, you're kind of stuck between a rock and a
hard place. (me)

My old friends are really smart and I'd love to work with them, but when I try
to talk to them about doing a startup, they look at my like I'm nuts.

~~~
OafTobark
Make new friends. Great friendships are not base on how long or how well
you've known a person, but how well you connect with another. That can bloom
amongst new friendship with a little bit of time as well.

I speak from experience. I was in a similar boat. All my closest friends
growing up were the wrong fit for doing anything entrepreneurial much less a
startup. A friend I met through another mutual friend but rarely talked to
turned out to be one of my closest friend and became my previous cofounder. It
worked out great.

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staunch
When you work long and hard with anyone you will come to have truly justified
and serious issues with them.

The question to ask yourself is, would you have looked passed those issues if
you had been successful? If you would have, then you should be just as quick
to look passed them in failure.

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dirkdk
I remember visiting you guys when you were all living and working together in
that small apartment with the pool. You were awesome.

Give it some time, you will regain trust in a new cofounder you will run into,
and you will drink beer again with your old cofounders.

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_sentient
One of the most interesting questions in the whole single founder v.s. co-
founder debate, is how having a co-founder profoundly impacts your personal
net gain from a given start-up venture.

The way I see it, taking on a co-founder is a form of start-up insurance. You
increase your overall chance of success by giving up a huge portion of the
upside in that eventuality.

It makes sense that a VC would prefer companies that have more than one
founder if they believe it increases their statistical chance of success. Just
understand that this may come at the expense of your personal gain, which is
of minimal concern to an outside investor.

~~~
johnrob
Your math/point-of-view is intuitive and quite common. However, startups are a
game of large multipliers. At any given stage, you're always pushing to be 10X
of where you are now. Your long term goal is probably to be 1000X more
valuable than where you start out.

Dividing stock amongst 2 or 3 co-founders is a small order multiplier. You
lose half or two thirds of the company. Hitting (or missing) the 1000X goal
will determine your personal outcome - the amount of stock given to other co-
founders, as an input variable, has virtually no comparative effect on the
outcome.

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paulsutter
You can restore the friendship. In time you should and will.

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jacalulu
I'm sorry for your experience and loss. I'm sitting here working with my co-
founder right now and I couldn't imagine going at it alone. I know people that
have lost friends because things have gone bad, but I think the potential to
do something great is worth the risk more often than not.

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trg2
I met one of you guys on the Muni, going down Market, my first day in San
Francisco. Can't remember what your name was. Hope you're able to patch things
up and keep going, because it sounded like such a bad ass idea.

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jordinl
Don't think I would like to have a startup with a friend... It could end up
losing our friendship. It can't be good to mix business and friends.

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dm8
Just like long-term relationships, when breakups happen then people never
speak again in most of the cases. But are differences that extreme?

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bretthellman
"We fought over the scraps" - What was there to fight over?

