
When to fire your co-founders - phsr
http://venturehacks.com/articles/fire-co-founders
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brlewis
The first words he uses to illustrate cofounders you shouldn't bring in are
"grey hair". If I could recruit anyone in the world as a cofounder, a lot of
the top contenders would have gray hair.

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ojbyrne
And he favored people with no background over people with "so-so backgrounds."
If you haven't been out in the world, its easy to have a spotless background.

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trevelyan
He probably told the kid to "come back when you have a team and some more
experience." ha ha

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jacquesm
The biggest mismatches that I can think of involve co-founders with completely
different expectations of what the company will do, different financial
backgrounds and different energy levels.

As soon as you're 'not in this boat together' you're in trouble.

Other than that I certainly wouldn't let age be a problem either way or rule
out people with a serious commitment to family or other dependents.

As for firing co-founders, that is not as easy as he makes it seem, I think
that if you get to the point where you need to 'fire a co-founder' and they
don't leave by themselves that you are probably better off starting over.

Ideas aplenty.

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megamark16
I was telling a guy I sometimes do contract work for about one of my projects
and he asked if I was interested in bringing him on as a cofounder (which I
need) to take care of the UI/UX stuff and balance out my development load
(which I also desperately need). I told him I'd think about it, but I'm
honestly very hesitant to take on a cofounder at this point. My main
hesitation with him is that he lives in another country and I worry about all
of the complications involved with that (although I heard it worked out well
for 37Signals). Another issue I have is that my project is still kind of my
baby, and I hate to hand even a part of it over to anyone else just yet. I
guess I need to do more networking before I make any decisions. It's lonely
working alone, but it's scary trusting other people. Perhaps that means I
haven't met anyone that I trust enough to work with as a cofounder.

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johnrob
If you want a founder, pick someone you already know and trust. The next best
thing is to hire someone, and down the road promote them to effective founder
status.

~~~
gte910h
But who's not a friend.

The secondary relationship makes the primary relationship hard when it has
issues.

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jason_tko
To me, the core of this article is always make sure you have the right team
for what you're trying to achieve.

Allowing 'hanger-on' people who have installed themselves into positions
within the company, displays a clear lack of leadership and the ability to
make and carry out difficult decisions.

If you don't know the kind of people you need in your team, recognise this as
a weakness, and seek help. Then be prepared to follow the advice you get.

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johnl
I like the read but..... I would have liked the author to be more specific
about the qualities as a cofounder. A well rounded person compared to a so-so
person is still too vague for me. And as a VC and the reason to not invest in
my start-up was due to co-founders I would like him to say so, not make a
vague excuse as he said he did per the article.

