
What We Look for in Founders - anateus
http://paulgraham.com/founders.html
======
chegra
It is pretty hard to change who you are at the core. But the thing about it is
that you have your own way of succeeding. You see at some point in life, you
more than likely have succeeded.

Instead of determination, you have passion. Instead of flexibility, you are a
perfectionist. Instead of imagination, you can communicate well. Instead of
being naughty, you are efficient. Instead of a partner, you are well
connected.

The things that pg talks about takes years to develop, especially naughtiness
and partnership. So instead of spending two years building a friendship to
apply to yc, just go build the business. Inevitably, someone will want to join
you when it is finished built.

So yes, if you are undetermined, inflexible, unimaginative, goodie to shoe,
friendless, go build your dream.

Let a thousand flowers bloom.

~~~
ig1
I imagine if you build something cool and get traction, YC will consider you
even as a single founder.

~~~
pg
We do fund single founders. There were 2 this summer. We just have a higher
threshold with single founders, because it's harder to succeed as one.

The last 3 of the 5 we'd compromise on if the person was good in other
respects. Only the first 2 are essential. It's hard to imagine a startup
succeeding without at least one person who was determined and flexible. It's
just the nature of the domain.

~~~
thewordpainter
100% agree. Another way of saying that: someone has to keep the ship afloat.

As for having other founders, it'll sure help when the ship is in rocky
waters.

Aside from the complimentary skillset, it's nice to have another founder so
they can pick you up when things aren't going your way.

------
jswinghammer
I struggled to think about how I would answer the "Naughty" question. I
thought about it for awhile and remembered something that happened almost 15
years ago.

I hated high school with a passion that still surprises me when I look back on
it. My high school allowed kids who got accepted to college to go and have
school pay for it while getting credit for college and high school. This
sounded great to me but getting accepted was going to be a challenge because I
wasn't a great student and I was only 15 at the time.

I met with the admissions officer at the college I wanted to attend and she
wasn't sure at all about me. I had reviewed the course catalog before the
meeting and made her a suggestion. I said "If I take a 400 level course and
get an "A" would that prove to you that I'm up to doing college level work?"
She said yes and I suggested that I take a course on the history of World War
2. World War 2 was a mild obsession of mine from 13-14 and I still to this day
remember reading pages and pages of statistics about shipping losses during
various times during the war. I knew every imaginable detail about virtually
anything that had to do with World War 2. She didn't know this of course and
warned me many times about what I was getting myself into in signing up for
this course.

I was accepted with the provision that we would review my grades after the
semester was over. I received the highest grade in the class and the entire
course catalog was open to me until I graduated from high school. This ended
up working in my favor in many ways but the most obvious benefit was that I
graduated high school with virtually all of my liberal arts electives done
without having to pay anything for it.

Not sure if this is the spirit of the question or not but it seems like it to
me.

~~~
danilocampos
Sounds pretty bad ass to me. Damn, nice work.

I think it boils down to this: Do you tolerate bullshit or do you proactively
stack the deck for personal advantage?

In this case you leveraged the hell out of a unique personal quirk and created
an opportunity for yourself that wouldn't otherwise exist. To use a poker
analogy (Thanks, Tony Hsieh), you picked the table where you knew you could
win. You knew you'd do better at the college level and you exploited
information asymmetry with both the college administrator and your college-
level peers.

This is the very essence of how successful people and businesses work. You
also showed some moxy and cunning with someone much older and more powerful
than you, which is unusual at that age.

You thought many moves ahead and won, reaping huge upside. That's 98th
percentile at least, man.

------
noelsequeira
A year and a half into our first startup, I can see why determination (or
should I go out on a limb and say downright stubbornness) is so highly rated.

We built a decent product in roughly 6 months, and began engaging with
enterprise customers. 6 frustrating months of trade shows / cold calls /
presentations later, we had a couple of potential customers but things seemed
way too stagnant; their intent to purchase just wasn't apparent.

We were running low on cash and the first visible cracks in our patience were
emerging, but we stayed put. And that's probably because we've known each
other for over 5 years and each of us didn't want to let the others in the
team down.

And then suddenly a month later we received our first purchase order. Okay, it
wasn't exactly sudden - we'd followed up a million times with the client and
iterated on the product each and every time. But nothing else had changed, we
hadn't done anything significantly different in that one month. And that had
us convinced that patience can be a real virtue.

We've not exactly dug ourselves out of a hole yet, but we're getting there
(with several promising leads in the pipeline) and more importantly, a repeat
order as well as a testimonial from our first customer.

EDIT: Just in case you thought the story above was manufactured, here's the a
link to the testimonial [PDF]

[http://creativeriot.com/resources/[Enpower]%20CoreLogic%20-%...](http://creativeriot.com/resources/\[Enpower\]%20CoreLogic%20-%20Case%20study.pdf)

------
maxklein
I bet 80% of people reading that list are thinking: This describes me
perfectly.

~~~
raganwald
I was about to post how this list makes me question leaving BigCo. I must be
in the 20%, I don't think I have any of these qualities, and behold, my bank
account tells me that none of my ventures have succeeded.

~~~
akkartik
Gahd, _who_ reads this and thinks it describes them?

Some of PG's essays stress me out just by reading them. They usually involve
the d-word
([http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apaulgraham.com+determi...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apaulgraham.com+determination)).
I did my thing (<http://readwarp.com>) for 8 months. But PG and others told me
early on it didn't have commercial possibility. So was it determination or
inflexibility that I kept at it? I eventually figured it out for myself, in
some approximately systematic way, that it wasn't going anywhere. I've taken a
job so I can save enough in a year to last me two years while I take stock. Is
that lack of determination or flexibility? Would I be more determined if I was
contracting instead? I still work on readwarp in the weekends; I find I can't
stop even if I know it's not going anywhere. Is that inflexible? Taking a job
has allowed me to change readwarp drastically, make it even more minimalist,
something I just couldn't prioritize when it was something 'serious'. I still
use it everyday. Am I being inflexible?

When the running back retreats is it flexibility or lack of determination? Can
you really tell without knowing if he ended up downfield?

If you watched me work on any given day you'd think I have no determination or
persistence at all. I give up at the first sign of trouble, go off to do
something else, one of a dozen projects. But in the large I do seem to get
things done. I circle back in a few hours or days on that problem I was stuck
on, and I find a way to make progress. Is this flexibility? It seems a dynamic
fundamentally at odds with being an entrepreneur. Funny thing is, I think PG
works like this.

I'm not making excuses, just seeking my blind spot. Somehow the things I'm
interested in don't seem to be of more general usefulness. I haven't
accomplished anything that would stand out in a YC app. I don't know how to
hack any realworld systems, except maybe job interviews and negotiations, but
that's probably just another sign I'll give up and go back to a job. So I keep
seeking my blind spot. What's missing? What works for others? Why am I on the
outside looking in?

Perhaps you think I just shouldn't care what he has to say. But shouldn't I
keep looking for feedback? Different phrasings suggest different answers.

~~~
jayliew
Hey Kartik, I remember when I first got to know you before you took that job.
Your story reminds me of when Evan Williams (Blogger) was the only person
left, and he was just stitching it all by himself, no money, etc. But he had
users.

I sense your frustration, that you feel like you're spinning your tires - and
I've been there.

(1) do you have a non-negligible number of users? (have you done qualitative +
quantitative research, customer development, etc)

(2) do you have a business model hypothesis, that you've sought to
validate/invalidate?

(3) does getting into YC have to be a pre-requisite for your startup to
succeed? (Can you try to succeed without it?)

Another quote came to mind as I read your comment; as they say in startup
world, there's fine line between a visionary and a lunatic. I genuinely want
to believe that you are a visionary. All startup founders want to be
visionaries. But we know the dismal rate of startups.

We're techies, and we naturally like data. We know that while we founders are
emotionally swayed, data is not. What does the data say? Is it looking good?

I feel you when you talk about finding your blind spot. Blind spots are by
definition, well .. hard to find, which is why it's so frustrating (been
there). There's a quote that I can't seem to recall now, but it's something to
do with trying too hard. Counterintuitive, I know. But if you've been staring
at something for too long, you might be too close to the problem to
objectively assess it.

I don't have answers to your questions. The way I sometimes deal with
ambiguity is to define processes, fail-safe checks, high/low-level watermarks,
etc. More structure. If I were you, I would come up with a sign post. How _do_
I know I've gone off the deep end? E.g. wait for someone to tell me, or
specify mile-markers, or ..

~~~
akkartik
Thanks Jay.

 _"does getting into YC have to be a pre-requisite for your startup to
succeed?"_

The goal isn't getting into YC. Or even a successful startup. It's finding
something I can do that is of use to others. Somebody boiled it down to four
words somewhere..

~~~
jayliew
A long time ago when I met you, you told me you had a few passionate users
that used it daily.

Does that meet your criteria? May I ask what is it that you are looking for?

~~~
akkartik
The users left. It's mostly just me and one last reader who checks out a
couple of stories everyday. It doesn't engage anyone but me.

There's a problem with this whole category of apps. Reading solutions are like
content - they're getting commoditized.

There's also lots of problems with this app itself. There's no overt
personalization. It's good that the UI is simple, but bad that the layout is
simplistic. There's none of the richness of a newspaper layout to stimulate
the visual cortex.

If I could build something that truly engaged a few users I'd be happy for a
while.

Let's chat more offline if you want.

~~~
dkersten
I don't know if this is helpful or not, but I had a look at the site and don't
really understand what its trying to do.

Perhaps you need something to engage new users - to show them what it is and
why they want it? I don't know if I like it because, after browsing for a few
moments (like every other potential user of anything, I have a very short
attention span when checking out random websites without any prior goals), I
still don't know what it does.

------
edanm
2 questions on the "friendship" issue:

1\. How do you judge whether co-founders are good friends? I'm guessing a
simple "how long have they been working together" test is a good indication,
but anything else?

2\. What level of feedback do you usually give teams that didn't make it?
Especially teams that got to the interview stage but didn't make it through?
I'm wondering if you've ever told a team your suspicions that they're not good
enough friends (I'm assuming if you did, you phrased it better than that.)

~~~
pg
There are a lot of ways. Many of the questions on the YC application are at
least partially about this. When and how did the founders meet? What have they
worked on together? Even the stock split sometimes tells us a lot.

Yes, we've told groups that we weren't funding them because their friendship
didn't seem strong enough to withstand a startup. You'd be surprised some of
the meltdowns we've seen in interviews.

~~~
robg
Is there a meaningful difference between friends who decide to do a startup
together versus folks who decide to do a startup together and then become
friends? The highest profile successes seem to be more an instance of the
latter, but then success seems to help smooth any differences of opinion.

~~~
pg
Yes, because in most startups there's a point where things seem hopeless. At
that point the startup itself has no power to hold you together, because its
expected value is (or appears to be) zero. You need a strong friendship to
keep you together. E.g. I know for sure there were lots of times when Rtm
thought Viaweb was never going to amount to anything, and only worked on it
because I asked him to.

~~~
robg
Were Woz and Jobs "friends"? Don't Page and Brin claim explicitly they
weren't? It seems more like the shared purpose brought those pairs closer
together than where they started or where they would have ended up had they
never worked together.

That example of Viaweb helps clarify the distinction I'm thinking of. You guys
were friends and so worked together despite differing convictions. But what of
people who share a common purpose and in so doing become friends? Is there
room in your model for that instance of the concept?

~~~
portman
I don't know about Woz/Jobs, but Page/Brin were definitely friends when they
started _a company_.

They may not have been friends when they started collaborating on their first
research project, but at the moment they were "co-founders", they had already
become friends.

~~~
dirtyaura
Jobs and Woz, as surprising as it might sound given the difference in
personalities, were friends, based on what I've read, which is Woz's interview
in Founders at Work and Sculley's Odyssey: Pepsi To Apple.

------
bradly
Definitely finding a co-founder has been the hardest part for me. Not living
in the valley currently, you don't have as big of a pool to find people. Also,
the type of person that makes a great co-founder(smart, determined, etc.)
usually have good things going on already. The people that I talked to that
would have been great to work with were all doing great work currently and
couldn't commit.

It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for
single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for
startups.

~~~
rmorrison
_It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for
single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for
startups._

I feel like that would be somewhat counter-productive for YC.

They're looking for people who are going to be Flexible and Determined to make
the startup happen, regardless of what obstacles get thrown in the way.
Finding a co-founder is one of the first real obstacles, and will definitely
not be the hardest one over the life of the startup. By exemplifying the
qualities listed in this essay, a single founder should be able to find at
least one solid co-founder.

~~~
bradly
Well I believe my startup will be successful even without a co-founder, so I
don't think wanting to meet a co-founder makes someone less determined. Even
though I am confident I can make this happen on my own I would still rather
have a co-founder than not for all the reasons that PG describes. If better
startups comes from an event that helps founders connect, I think it would be
a good thing for everyone.

------
hasenj
I'm still skeptical about the whole co-founder thing.

Sure, maybe if you're building youtube or justin.tv, and you need to talk to
investors or talk face-to-face to potential clients or make deals with giant
media corporations _gasp_ then you probably can't do it as a single-founder.

But, there is a large space of problems that can be solved by a single
founder.

But I suppose if you're determined enough you won't be bothered too much by
people telling you must have a co-founder.

So instead of looking for a co-founder, look for problems that are small
enough to be solve-able by you, but hard enough that a big company can't solve
it properly.

~~~
jedberg
The purpose of a cofounder is not to help alleviate load. It is to have
someone tell you no, that your idea/implementation/justification sucks. They
question your moves and make you justify them. Having a cofounder keeps you in
check and keeps you from straying too far off the successful path.

~~~
hasenj
This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you
without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders
with you.

AFAIK, PG's argument is that it's a lot of stress doing a startup on your own.

~~~
jedberg
> This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you
> without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders
> with you.

Sure, but it is much more effective when someone is in the venture with you,
and their success is tied to yours. Your friends and family are much more
likely to just say "yeah, that's a good idea". No risk on their part.

------
spenrose
My concern about Paul's vision has always been (2), flexibility. It is my
humble belief that you should care what you succeed at, not just that you
succeed at something. On this point Paul seems to be leading in the opposite
direction from Tim O'Reilly ("work on stuff that matters"), and I wish he
would do a 180.

~~~
wmf
_It is my humble belief that you should care what you succeed at_

I know how you feel, but if that empirically produces a lower probability of
success then what can you do?

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I'd rather be moderately successful doing something that matters than very
successful selling sugared water.

~~~
bobf
If you become successful at <random common, unimportant thing>, you can
leverage that to pursue <really great idea>. One example that comes to mind is
Andrew Mason's Groupon talk at Startup School. Before Groupon, the Groupon
guys ran "The Point", which tried to organize people to solve societal
problems, including such ambitious, world changing ideas like building a
climate dome over Chicago to avoid the brutal winters there. Obviously, the
climate dome was never built, and "The Point" pivoted into Groupon. Although I
don't think Andrew Mason has enough leverage/money/etc. to build that climate
dome, he's certainly a lot closer today with Groupon's success than he was
previously.

------
Keyframe
My accountant (with eons of experience): _Worst thing you can do when founding
a company is to found it as a partnership_

Take it as you will. My personal take is that, if partnership (among several
founders) is really strong (friendship from this essay) - then it's certainly
better than doing it alone - backed by high profile success stories. On the
other hand, I've seen too much companies fall apart because of the partnership
- not their business (I have two personal experiences with it).

Question is how do you judge a friendship among founders? Can you spot the
weakest link?

~~~
scott_s
Consider that perhaps your accountant has a different perspective. Accountants
don't get involved until the company makes enough money to _need_ an
accountant. So his perspective, which he may not realize, may be "Given that a
company succeeds, it's better to have been started by a single person."

PG has a different perspective. He's less concerned with questions which
assume a company has succeeded; he's more concerned with questions about
_whether or not_ a company will succeed. So PG's perspective is more "A
company is more likely to succeed with multiple founders."

My point: the two perspectives seem mutually exclusive, but they may not be.

~~~
Keyframe
_Accountants don't get involved until the company makes enough money to need
an accountant._

Actually, here in Croatia every form of company is obliged by law to have a
licensed accountant (working for them or contract). You can't do your own
paperwork - and TBH I wouldn't want to, it is too much liability if something
goes wrong when filing papers.

~~~
btilly
And that fact would constitute a major drag on ever developing a startup
culture.

See <http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html> for some of the other ones.

~~~
Keyframe
I've read that, all valid points. However, I should mention that accounting on
a startup level (bills, invoices, salaries, tax) is really not a drag here. In
fact I would argue it's faster to just collect your inputs and outputs
(invoices and bills) and get them to your accountant once per month or
quarterly, of half year, or yearly (depends how you told tax office how you
will do it). Accountant does the rest for you. On the other hand, you could do
it all by yourself and have an accountant check your papers and sign them
(some people do it like that). Also, no capital gains tax here. :) But this
country could do take some pro-active measures for startups. I don't even want
to go there, because I would have to write a book on their mistakes.

------
JimboOmega
That fifth item, like the post originally mentioning as something that dooms
startups, gets me every time.

Having a solid co-founder seems to be the hardest part, and honestly, it helps
with all the others. It helps you be more flexible since two people can see
things more ways. Gives you more imagination by the same route. It helps you
be more determined since one can pull the other up if he/she gets too
demoralized.

Finding a co-founder is hard, though.

I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability to
sell something seems vital in getting a startup going.

~~~
BrandonM
> I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability
> to sell something seems vital in getting a startup going.

I agree. One of the best assets for a good founder with tech-skills is a
business/marketing founder. She can keep the ball rolling on the business
things that would halt or slow software development, and during development
she can be out discussing the product with potential customers. Once a MVP has
been developed, she obviously becomes the sales and marketing manager.

> Finding a co-founder is hard, though.

Are you single? Notice that I said "she" above? Consider joining a dating site
and trying to meet some cool women who have business or marketing backgrounds
(obviously women that you would like to date as well). I've only been on
OKCupid for a month, and I've already met a couple really cool, driven women
who would be an amazing asset to a startup.

I'm not saying to jump straight into a relationship just so that you can start
your startup. My intent was simply to point out one way of meeting a potential
cofounder, a way you probably never considered. There are countless other
"hacks" that can be employed for meeting cofounders; you just have to put
yourself into situations where you're likely to meet the kind of people you'd
like to meet. It's really that easy.

~~~
JimboOmega
As my story goes, I met someone about 6 months into my year-long startup
experiment. As luck would have it, she had relevant skills... and she did help
a lot with my startup, but not on the level of a co-founder. She isn't that
interested in cleaning up the existing mess and the subject matter and
targeted audience don't really interest her.

That startup sort of burned out, for reasons not worth going into. If we could
find a new idea on a topic we're both passionate about (like travel), we'd
pursue it.

Also, she's more technical (front-end) while I'm also technical (back-end),
and neither of us have much business/marketing background.

~~~
BrandonM
That's excellent! So why did you say having a co-founder is the hardest part?
Surely there's some way you can help the world doing something that interests
the both of you.

~~~
JimboOmega
Before I met her, I had a cofounder that didn't work out. It really cost me.
In essence, he was to do the front end, and me the backend. He didn't deliver
anything of substance. It took me several months(which is millenia in startup
land) before I gave up and just did it myself (with help from the
aforementioned girlfriend). The story is much longer than that - but those
next few months I spent learning javascript, CSS, html, design, etc, cost me
what time I had left; the site got online, but it's a mess (it takes 15
seconds to load each page, for one thing).

Since then, of all the stupid things, I haven't had any good ideas. I know,
people always need - technical cofounders, or this, or that... ideas are
cheap, right? But I haven't got one. Oh, we had a few. A simple iPhone app, a
somewhat derivative board game... nothing really sticks as really a good idea
that we both think would be awesome

There has to be something out there, but no luck yet.

------
gojomo
Kind of reminds me of D&D abilities...

Dtr 16 Flx 15 Img 18 Nty 16 Frd 14

...though the value placed on 'naughtiness' is more like a preference for a
'chaotic good' alignment.

------
adammichaelc
I can attest to the part about intelligence not being as critical as you might
think. The last company I started was with a guy who was brilliant. He dreamed
in code and had been hacking since he was 6 or 7. But he had a hard time
finishing, and so I couldn't depend on him.

I think the startup failed for multiple reasons and I definitely shoulder a
large part of the failure, but next time I do a startup I will make absolutely
sure that anybody I start it with is absolutely dependable and determined to
finish.

~~~
slantyyz
If everything was about raw intelligence, the world would be a totally
different place today. I have a similar story as yours - I once worked with a
guy with a genius level IQ, but he had trust issues and he was horrible with
money.

As in the OP, it's really a recipe of traits that make a startup successful.

------
ptn
pg: would you show an example of an impressive answer to the question about
hacking a system to one's advantage?

~~~
philwelch
I'm not pg, but this is probably the best place to tell one of my favorite
stories.

The highway navigational signs in LA are notoriously confusing, especially
this one sign in particular which didn't make sufficiently obvious an exit
onto I-5. So some local took note of the sign and started to work. He found
out exactly what paint colors to use, cut some sheet metal the right way, and
made a North I-5 shield. Then he made himself a counterfeit Caltrans
(California highway department) uniform, went to the sign, and altered it with
the counterfeit shield to point out the exit. (He even made the shield dirty,
to make it seem like it had been there for some time rather than being newly
installed.)

It was _nine months_ before the highway department even noticed--and when they
did, they didn't even change it back. It stayed up for years until the sign
was completely replaced--complete with this guy's alteration.

I don't know if that qualifies as hacking a system to one's advantage, or even
as a hack, but I think it gets at the underlying personality trait.

Links:

[http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-
became-a-...](http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-
real-public-service/)

<http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html>

~~~
jeromec
I'm a L.A. native, and I had no clue about this. Great story! I found a video
detailing the events from your links:
[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1442683884005576315...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1442683884005576315#docid=-722413983410000836)

------
sstoneii
The "hacking the system" question on the application was probably the hardest
one for me. While nothing just sticks out in my mind of hacking something I
would say that I do and accomplish what most people can't do on a daily basis.
In dealing with people; a smile always helps, the right attitude and
disposition can start a movement, and looking at things from a "how could I
fail?" point of view ALWAYS changes the rules of what a so called deal breaker
is.

example: When I applied to college in 1999 I was accepted right away however
my parents made entirely too much money for me to get adequate loans and grant
money. So I used my graduation money from HS and had my parents to pack up all
must stuff and drive me down to the financial aid office(425 miles away).
After a bit of sincere "asking" and explaining the situation I was in.
VIOLA!!! Money started raining on my college dream. Saying all that to say I
was a good looking kid, with a personality you had to see (because writing
does not convey everything), and had I not been determined to have them tell
me no to my face I would have never attended that school. Did I hack anything?
By no means...did I use what I had to have the circumstances in my favor?
Absolutely!

------
ScottBurson
This surprises me: _You do not however want the kind of determination implied
by phrases like "don't give up on your dreams"._

I would put it diifferently. Don't give up on your dreams, but ask yourself
which is more important to you: to have a successful high-growth startup, or
to do something in particular? If there is a specific thing you want to do or
build, then be prepared for the (likely) possibility that it won't make a good
startup. It might make a great hobby or even a successful lifestyle business.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it -- it just means YC will not be able to
help you.

But maybe your dream is to have a fast-growing, high-impact startup, and it
doesn't matter so much exactly what it is, as long as it's somewhere in the
general area you're interested in. Then perhaps YC may want to get involved.
You're still pursuing your dream, I would argue, it's just a different kind of
dream from a particular project that someone else might want to do.

------
jdavid
#naughtiness

if you are looking for a less than kosher time a founder hacked the system.
maybe you should ask for that.

    
    
      i know personally would have put a more vulnerable answer up there.

------
brlewis
The running back metaphor appeals to me. I wonder how far you can take it.
Running backs pivot for something that will completely stop them. The fact
that getting downfield will take a long time does not make them pivot. Does
this analogy make a good rule of thumb for startup pivot decisions?

~~~
baran
If my startup is a running back, I feel like I'm Barry Sanders.

------
adammichaelc
"He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their
advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into
computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when
judging applications."

Very interesting.

------
araneae
I have a pretty good friend on here that has The Best answer to the "hacked"
question, and I would never, ever be co-founders with him because he's
impossible. There's often a trade-off between "naughtiness" and "friendship."

~~~
bobf
I thought pg's comment on "naughtiness" was interesting, as I was tempted to
use a shorter version of the story I'll relate below in response to the
"hacked" question, as it was a very recent experience. I ultimately shied away
from using it as my answer, as I thought it might be a little socially
unacceptable ("naughty").

At Startup School, there was a line of several hundred people waiting for
lunch, which consisted of a dozen or so different kinds of pizza stacked in
piles of 7-10 boxes each. We had a group of 3-4 people, looked at the line,
and someone said, "This line is ridiculous. How can we hack this system?"
Someone suggested going somewhere else on campus to eat, but we wanted to stay
and mingle. Someone else in the group knew people farther up in the line, and
suggested skipping ahead in the line. Ultimately, I simply squeezed through
near the front of the line, grabbed a whole box of pizza, and took it back for
our group to share.

This kept our group from further clogging the line and seemed much more
efficient than 3-4 of us waiting to select our 1-2 pieces each. Hopefully no
hungry Startup School attendees were upset by our line hackery, as we thought
it was a pretty win-win hack.

~~~
Jun8
See, I think that's an example of the "bad hack" because it has the potential
of damaging people, e.g. what if I was standing in that line for 15mins ahead
of you and because you took that box of pizza, just when my turn comes the
pizza runs out (you think it's unlikely? Then you haven't been to the wild
world of college-student-after-event-pizza-eating).

My definition of a hack is to add value to the an existing system by modifying
a property, not changing a zero-sum situation in your favor. for example, in
your case, the number of pizzas are fixed, so it's a zero-sum situation. A
better hack I usually propose in situations like this is to use _both_ sides
of the table, simple but generally people tend to pick pizza from one side
only.

~~~
BrandonM
> My definition of a hack is to add value to the an existing system by
> modifying a property, not changing a zero-sum situation in your favor.

That seems like a nice definition of hack, but I don't think it's completely
accurate. For example, if a college only accepts a certain number of people
and you come up with clever way to get accepted, that's changing a zero-sum
situation in your favor, and I would still call it a hack.

I agree, however, that the hack seems a _little_ wrong. More clever would have
been for the friends to grab another table, set it up opposite the original
one with room for two lines, and then switch half the pizza boxes to the other
table. (This works better than being on both sides of a single table because
the way pizza boxes open typically blocks access from one side.) Another
possibility would be to just grab a box each and carry it down the line
offering pizza to everyone starting from the front.

~~~
limedaring
I was at Startup School and did this hack as well (grabbing a pizza box)
because it was obvious that there were _plenty_ of other boxes to go around.
It wouldn't work in a situation where there was a limited amount, like
mentioned before, but it was a good hack for that specific situation.

Also, people who grabbed boxes often walked up the line and offered pizza.
Hack + good deed.

------
johnrob
I think YC should consider removing the "describe your idea" portion of the
application. I can imagine that there's some value in it for the reviewers,
but I'm pretty sure its presence inevitably causes applicants to over value it
(and under value the people portion). Every time a YC partner gives advice
about applying, emphasis is always made about how important the team is (as
opposed to the idea). The data might be signaling something here.

If there was nowhere to describe your idea in the application then it would be
obvious how important the team is.

------
Alex3917
"We thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would
be intelligence."

Being intelligent in Silicon Valley matters about as much as the price of tea
in China. It's not that being intelligent isn't important, it's that there is
such an oversupply of intelligent people that being intelligent really doesn't
add that much value or differentiate you. Especially since everyone you meet
is more than happy to tell you what to do, along with the market itself.

~~~
pjscott
The price of tea in China actually varies by orders of magnitude depending on
the tea. Some teas are surprisingly fancy, especially in a country with a long
history of tea-drinking.

------
mrchess
Wish I knew about the emphasis about hacking a system question and I would
have elaborated on my application....

Although it is a difficult question to put emphasis on IMO because it also
makes you in a way "reveal" your bad morals... which I am sure many people
don't feel comfortable doing.

Why would you ever want to openly admit you beat ie. cheated a system be it
government, academic, or private? Not to imply that I ever have... err...
gotta run!

~~~
araneae
Right. Like I started forging the report cards I gave to my parents starting
in 8th grade. I'm not proud of that. Would I really put that on an
application?

~~~
raganwald
I have no idea what Y Combinator thinks about the answer to that question. But
if Paul asked me to help out by reviewing some applications, I'd probably send
you an email asking how that was to your advantage.

~~~
mrchess
Actually I did something like araneae stated, I started hiding my transcripts
in high school and college to avoid drama between my folks because I was NOT a
good student -- the formal education system wasn't for me. There was even one
point in college where I was failing out, but gamed the GPA system so that
they couldn't kick me out.

Anyway, it worked well for me. I didn't get any drama, and I ended up
graduating and landing a job with a top 25 software company.

------
jdp23
> They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter.

or more accurately, "not the rules we think matter".

~~~
pg
If you wanted to be that accurate, you could prepend "I think" to every
statement in every essay written. That's implicit, except in proofs.

~~~
jdp23
Here though it's in a context about morality and proprietries, and what's
"naughty" vs "evil". So I think it's especially valuable to emphasize the
subjectivity.

------
Mz
I'm golden on all counts ...except for the general lack of friends. :-/

(Do grown sons who are insanely loyal make a good substitute? I'm hoping they
do. :-D)

Um, not that I am applying to YC. Just hoping to escape BigCo and go do my own
thing.

------
varun43in
I'm currently the only founder for my startup and have a CS/Engineering
background. I find that almost everybody I talk to seem to think its crazy or
impossible for a single person startup to succeed.

I wonder what the whole deal is about: \- is it because they feel its too much
work for one person? \- they assume that one person cannot be
motivated/determined enough to make a startup successful? \- or is it just
based on the fact that most of the successful startup were stared by 2-3
person teams..

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this guys..

~~~
yurylifshits
Just search "single founder".

There were tons of threads on that.

<http://searchyc.com/single+founder>

------
javadi82
I thought my browser didn't load the complete article because I couldn't see
your obligatory "thanks to X, Y and Z for reading this"...and I kept
scrolling. Thanks for the great article, btw.

~~~
pg
Oops, fixed; thanks.

------
zbruhnke
I found the "things you've hacked" question very interesting. My answer to it
was something that is not actually "legal" so i was a little wary of putting
it, but it puts noone in real danger and was an example of what was basically
my first endeavor into embedded programming and RFID. I hope the YC crew saw
it as something fun and interesting and not criminal lol but it any case I
found it relevant to the topic and really enjoyed the question

------
JonathanFields
PG - Great list of attributes to guide us. What I also found really
interesting is a trait that's not on the list - "Tolerance For Ambiguity."

I've seen so many creative endeavors move from freedom to constraint too early
or sometimes even flat out fold, not because it was the right time, but
because the founders/artists/creators couldn't handle living in the question
long enough to make the leap to stunning.

Curious whether that's something you look for and, if so, how?

------
matthewharden
Like all "lists," I would take and file away as a "best practice;"
particularly one that comes from Paul Graham. Just don't let the list limit
you from executing the plan for your dream. YC even has a place for this on
their application...it's called "hacking the system!" The lesser of these have
achieved greatness. Many said I would never finish college and law school
while being married, but two bar exams later...

------
ig1
+1 for determination.

I've been involved in the early stages of a number of non-profits, time-and-
time again it's clearly been determination above all else that drives success.

I recently read "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power
of New Ideas" (It's sort of like Founders at Work but about non-profits), and
again reading all the founders stories, it's clear the single factor that
unites them is their determination about their cause.

------
kmak
Running back comment is somewhat amusing, if only because a recent article on
ESPN said that Chris Johnson's total yardage is down because he's always
aiming for the HR, thus lowering his average yardage, trying to find and
create space that aren't available.

I guess sometimes you got to take what they give you, but for YC they aim only
for the HR, so it's not that relevant.

------
hariis
What would be the value of this article? You are who you are. Some are innate
qualities and some are simply the cards that you have been dealt with. You
have to become what you want to be with what you got and then some one will
write an article some day mentioning you as a reference and the qualities you
have as the key to being a founder :)

~~~
Estragon
This is discussed elsewhere in the thread. Search for Dweck

------
rexreed
Is lack of distractions or possessing some financial independence anywhere on
the list of what is good for founders? By this I mean -- if there are
financial or non-startup distractions, could this be detrimental? Does not
having a family to take care of rank more favorably than not? Just askin.

------
jdavid
Questions

#Determination " maybe you should ask for a time when you saw something
through, something that was tough, and at your core hard to do. basically what
was your last marathon?"

# flexibility " when were your basic assumptions challenged, and how did you
adapt or over come them? "

------
QuantumGood
In #1 and elsewhere they reference "a certain threshold of intelligence." So
isn't that #6?

------
HiroshiSan
Wonderful post, I especially love the part about naughtiness, when it's time
for me to apply to ycombinator I will share my little ninja hack that I used
for about 2 months ;).

I didn't know about airbnb until now, thanks for introducing me to the site.

------
atomical
"As soon as we heard they'd been supporting themselves by selling Obama and
McCain branded breakfast cereal, they were in. And it turned out the idea was
on the right side of crazy after all."

How about Sarah Palin tea?

------
makeramen
Huh, first thing I thought was "can I go back and change my answer to that
'describe something you hacked..' question?"

There are so many ways to interpret that question from the way the worded it.

~~~
mrchess
My thoughts exactly, I had no idea that that was the intention of that
question especially since it had no context.

------
jdavid
I suppose these are good questions for a potential co-founder.

I wonder if one could check a box on their application to add it to the co-
founder pool?

------
jdavid
#friendship

Maybe you should ask, if you don't have a co-founder, why? And what would you
look for in a good 1st hire/ partner?

------
Andrew_Quentin
PG, Aren't you misleading the young by so strongly suggesting that their start
up needs a friend. Was it Mark... the Facebook founder who created the empire
by himself?

Perhaps it is your opinion that friends do better, but to so strongly state it
as a requirement aren't you perhaps implicitly disproving any sole founder
start up and if so you are, why would you?

~~~
starkness
Even that Mark had two cofounders: Chris and Dustin. And they were all
roommates.

------
Omnipresent
where does the imagination of 'will this work?' come in? Or do you need to
have determination of pursuing all ideas you believe 'will work'. Eventually,
one will work?

------
iphoneedbot
Thing I noticed about successful startups with friends as co-founders is that
they are pretty young and both have entrepreneurial spirit. (Plus, the
requisite complimentary skill-set)

 _Those are surprisingly uncommon combinations_

What if your circle of friends are not entrepreneurial? What if your friends
that /are\ entrepreneurial already have startups?

\--then, of course; you'd have to find a co-founder (thats not a friend) or
motivate a friend to be entrepreneurial - but, that in itself almost defeats
the spirit of #5.

I do believe friends are very important, families as well.

1) They'll keep you motivated. 2) They'll give you advice/input. 3) They'll
give you support; (tech expertise, business feedback and connections, etc..)

The quarter back, and the running back need not be friends to win the
championships.

------
markkat
Oh cool. Then YC will either pick us, or my friends and I will unceasingly try
countless creative ways to change their mind, and they might not all be legal.

Your choice, YC. ;)

