Ask HN: Success stories of co-founders that met online? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Success stories of co-founders that met online?

37 pointszemanel38 comments

I've sparingly been working on a side project for a while by myself and i've considered teaming up with a technical co-founder, for known positive reasons. In the far past i placed some ads on "co-founder dating" websites for other projects but eventually didn't follow through for several reasons like

- trust issues in starting a co-founding relationship with a stranger (though i worked for startups/clients remotely for years)

- difficulties in setting criteria for selecting a person

Though not vital for my current goal of launching an MVP/proof of concept, I’m thinking about giving co-founder dating another go and wondering if anybody knows of success cases (co-founders that met and eventually launched a minimally successful startup project) ?

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That's the wrong question.

It sounds like you've already made the decision and want to hear anecdotes that validate your choice, and you'll probably disregard the survivorship bias (explicitly asked for successful examples) and participation bias (hacker news users voluntarily answer).

What you should do is look at some numbers -- % of friends vs nonfriends founders that exited successfully, perhaps.

After that, I suspect the question you will want to ask instead is "How do I find a good cofounder outside of college?"

I think you’re right, don’t think i asked the right question and am, unawarely, fishing for information

I posted a craigslist ad looking for a technical cofounder in 2008. Found a guy, started a company, sold it for a few million five years later, and are working on our second company together. We’re not AirBnB huge, but our collaborations have exceeded all my expectations. It happens!

Were there any traits that you were looking for in your cofounder?

Everything you're good at they shouldn't be and everything they're good at you shouldn't be.

Startups are an exercise in risk mitigation and cofounders mitigate your intrinsic/personal risk. (Every human has flaws.)

VCs and angels often talk about team risk and how its better to have multiple (but not too many) founders. This is because every individual has flaws and founders offset each others. The team risk is the sum total of the founders intrinsic risk. To give yourself the best shot, find someone who will hold you while bombs are going off in the trenches but isn't totally like you. (Same reason why "diversity" is important)

That said culture is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING so you definitely have to be compatible.

Your wife is not like you, but you still love her. Find someone who is different but you can love through the hard times.

craigslist for which city? Remember anything about how you worded the ad?

I can't find the original post email, but it was something like:

"University of Pennsylvania physicist looking for programming partner to develop software for use in radiation oncology."

Pretty short. I was a grad student at the time, so I leveraged that in the post. I think it was in the "gigs" section. Total fluke that it worked.

What on craigslist section? I have been thinking about posting here as more people would be in my target audience?

Had HN existed (or been on my radar) in 2008 I think that would have worked better!

I've done a few startups, one successful, many failed.

The one successful startup was with someone I met online. I bought his book, he added me on Facebook. We trolled each other a lot and became friends. When I asked him to join as a cofounder, it was the second time I met him in person.

On the other hand, the biggest failure was something I did with a former best friend and roommate. He was a true hustler, but his approach was very different to mine. He would lie, cheat, and outright refuse to pay partners.

One startup also failed, with a person I knew for years, but not very well. It was a good idea, very solid market. But startups are mentally exhausting and neither of us could push hard enough.

I think the key is really whether you would trust this person. Would you hang out and talk with them for no reason? Would you add them on Facebook? It's a major red flag if you don't.

Basically, would you marry this person? Because that is what a startup really is like. You literally share the same hotel room at times. Sometimes the office is the hotel room. You have to be that comfortable with them.

And you have to make sacrifices. You're sacrificing years of your career for the dreams of this person. You might be sacrificing your relationships with others. I know a person who never saw his newborn son until the baby died, because he was busy with his startup.

It doesn't really matter if you know them for years or days. What really matters is that you're willing to put everything aside and commit to them.

Asking for successful examples is not inherently flawed. Ideally, you would want some idea of what they did right and why it worked. Good examples of what work can be very helpful, if you have some idea of why they worked.

It might also help to get stories of failures and why they failed. I will give you mine.

I met someone online who wanted me to partner with them on a business. I was interested, but later learned that what they wanted from me was illegal. At that point, I bowed out.

A not for profit project that I worked on turned sour for me and I bailed. Looking back on it, I concluded the founder was looking for a step and fetch to provide the time and energy for the project they could not spare while also working full time and raising a family.

If you just want a step and fetch, don't pretend they are a partner. Pay someone to do menial tasks that you simply don't have time for.

Make sure there is something in it for them. Both of the above examples were looking out for their interests. Neither really thought about my side of things. Screwing someone over is not a means to lay the foundations for trust and a long term partnership.

You're right (particularly on the ethics side).

Ethics is your word for it.

People always seem to think I am talking about ethics. I'm not. I'm just saying "You can't get there from here."

If you want a partner, you need to do certain things that establish that we are in this together and it needs to be designed such that when you both work together, you are both better off for it.

Using people comes back to bite you. You don't need ethics to decide it is stupid and doesn't really work. Pissing on someone tends to come back to bite you exactly when you need someone to have your back. Pressure reveals exactly what you have built and that the foundation is not strong.

Yeah we might be talking about the same thing using different words. For example a fair (and contractually on paper) co-founder agreement is something i think about a lot (and did some research on).

The word ethics has a lot of baggage. It seems to very often suggest some abstract concept of goodness and righteousness. It often appears to lead people astray.

I am just trying to make the distinction that I am talking about something more like "the physics of social phenomena." Just because you can't see gravity doesn't mean it can't drag you down. Just because social stuff often seems invisible doesn't mean there isn't something real and substantial behind it (that can be studied, though it is a challenging space).

And it's fine if you want to think of it in terms of ethics. I am just saying that, in my experience, when people start talking about ethics, they often get derailed from practical considerations. That idea often leads to people doing things backwards and having it backfire.

And maybe that won't be the case for you. But, it is a word I tend to be leery of.

Best of luck.

Yeah guess i wouldn’t even be comfortable entering a partnership like this without a co-founder agreement for the protection of the interests of both parties (therefore removing unnecessary obstacles :)

Edit: which is, as far as i know, the best way to deal with it

Yes, if it isn't your sibling, high school chum or college roommate, putting everything in writing up front is generally the best policy. Even if it is one of those categories, a contract is very valuable should some problem arise.

I am in your situation. I've been working on a MVP and I'm close to release this software.

But I met an investor, interested to invest, who asked me if I have a team or any plans. So they expect us to have a team. I'm the kind of freedom guy, thats why Im in business, dont want a boss, not going for the money.

But there is a problem with success. I fear that if it will be successful, I'll have to partner with a CTO as I'm not the stronger tech guy. And I will not have time to do everything myself.

What I thought about is to contact people I read on the internet, anywhere on the internet. Its likely that they have a job but you never know. If they have time to write on the internet maybe they are not that busy. And I identified someone that I would like to partner with if needed.

This idea with dating a co-founder would be very useful. Even if you dont find or need a co-founder, just to meet like minded people is good. I'm happy I answered you because I understand you.

We started a company around Apache CouchDB, and later merged with a company build around memcached. Both of these open source communities gelled online in mailing lists and IRC. It's not quite your story but open source offers many examples of founders meeting online.

funny, couchdb is at the center of what i want to build :-)

Are you in Portugal/Lisbon? I’ve successfully launched one company and helped people start a few others. And I know plenty of entrepreneurially-minded engineers. Happy to grab coffee and see if I can help in meatspace. Feel free to email me: zemvpferreira at gmail

I’m in Porto on vacations (hometown) but i work and live in Amsterdam. I’m flying back next Saturday but a quick hop to Lisbon could be interesting, thinking ...

I found my cofounder on cofounderslab.com but it took some time and meeting a couple of people there until I had a "match". Our office is in Amsterdam, if you want to grab a beer I can share some of my experiences with you. Philippb3au-at-gmail-com

Cool thanks will do

Me (Gaurav Gupta) and my co-founder on Hackr.io (Saurabh Hooda) met online and we started work in a client/vendor relationship on Lenro.co, Saurabh's original startup. I was running SquareBoat (an app/web development company based in New Delhi) and Saurabh contacted me to build Lenro.co for him.

Two years later, Saurabh decided to close it down but we had by then seen each other's style of working. So for our next startup, we just decided to do it together as co-founders.

Hackr.io is doing well and remains as one of the All-Time Top 50 Hunts on Product Hunt till date.

My co-founder sent me an email and asked if he could help me with my side-project (which helped volunteers to coordinate themselves during the flood 2013). We work together for 5 years now. Best guy ever.

What do you define as minimally successful?

My co-founder and I met through Angellist. We've launched a product and have double digits of customers. And revenue!

Double digits of customers is... 10? That is awesome if it's B2B, rather poor if B2C. Revenue is always a really good sign though.

More than 10, less than 100. We're b2b.

Revenue is nice, wouldn't mind more of it.

I think you'll find that in the cases when it worked, the people involved were in the same city or otherwise able to work together physically at least part of the time. I feel it's the only way to build a relationship.

I’ve given much thought this year on what would actually make me happy long term (never really had a good answer to those “where do you see yourself in 5 years” kind of questions) and what i would really like is to launch a prototype to test the idea (also have something concrete to work with instead of vaporware) and have an office in my hometown (Porto, Portugal; i emigrated to Uk/Netherlands in 2013) and contribute both to local job creation and entrepreneurship (even if cultivating that in the employees) so yeah a local co-founder would have some advantages.

Or otherwise they know each other for years online. I've seen some good partnerships happen with neither party ever seeing one another.

Many YC founders have met online on a programming forum started by one of the really early Facebook employees. It's a great way to meet someone you can work with.

Instamotor. met right here :)

how do you both come to a decision on something?

have they demonstrated they can commit to a project in the past?

do they're strengths align with your weaknesses?

are they interested in the project?

Jeff Atwood + Joel Spolsky - Stack Overflow

Jeff Atwood + Joel Spolsky - Stack Overflow = Coding Horror + Trello?

co-founders of Lyft met online.

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