

I Can Has Co-Founder: A Tale of Cheezburgers and K-Pop Stars - joyce
http://blog.simplehoney.com/i-can-has-co-founder-a-tale-of-cheezeburgers-and-k-pop-stars/

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biggiesu
awesome post...same applies for all relationships...founder,
marriage...important to have the difficult conversations upfront, rather than
find out way later...and totally agree, if you're doing anything worth doing
(whether it's starting a company or starting a relationship), if it's to get
to a meaningful point, there will be conflict. avoiding conflict is not the
goal, but rather understanding how to navigate that conflict and arrive at a
place where you are stronger and better for it is the secret to maintaining a
healthy team or interpersonal dynamic. but it's far easier to avoid the
conversation, cause it's not always easy, and if you avoid it, there's the
small chance that you can be lucky enough to never have that conversation. but
you might as well go buy lotto tickets. having the tough conversations upfront
means that you can sort through things when you have cool heads, when you
haven't gone and formed a legal entity together and when you have other
employees that are depending on you. it's tough, but the right thing to do.
kudos joyce on a fantastic post!!

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ericnakagawa
biggiesu I totally agree. We actually had a prolonged discussion about a many
different ideas.

Oddly enough, the issues we expected to have the hardest time ended up being
the easiest to answer. When you've spent a lot of time with someone hanging
out outside of work, doing normal stuff like spending time with their family,
shooting the shit and not talking about work but just being people it allows
you to be more open.

There was a time where Joyce and I got excited about doing a dating site, for
a day or two we did a bunch of research and were slowly building momentum. By
the second day I woke up and I realized that my heart just was not into the
idea doing a dating site (sorry dating sites, I'm married). I shared my
feelings with Joyce and after a short conversatio we dropped it and moved on.

We eventually came up with the concept of a "24-hour test". If we didn't care
or love the current idea we were working on after 24 hours, we would move on
to something else.

We iterated through several other ideas in this fashion... researching,
prototyping or mocking up, digging in, thinking, debating. One or two ideas
made it past 24 hours, and one made it a couple weeks.

But, finally, after several months of planning we landed on an idea that we
both are excited about. I can't wait to share it with the world.

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barce
The co-founder interview questions are all must ask questions.

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leeb
I wish my grad school advisor had asked "How do you behave when you get mad?"
What an important thing to figure out ahead of time :)

Best of luck to you two!

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uservoice
Wonder Twins power, ACTIVATE! You guys are two of my favorite people in the
world - Go big, make it grand, take travel experiences to the next level!

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joyce
Aww shucks, thanks for the compliments!

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transphorm
I love Joyce, Eric, Wynwyn, Caleb and Margaret! They have taught me so much.
Original Techstars!

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dirkdk
breaking up with your cofounder is for sure in the top 3 of reasons why
startups fail. How to make sure you are an awesome team is hard, and it seemed
you guys nailed it. Great post!

ps. so when are those $150 trips to Hawaii available?

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hyuuu
great list of questions, i'm totally stealing some of those for my own project
:)

