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Comment by Taek | Hacker News Reader

Question for HN: I cannot imagine starting a company with a stranger. There are so many intense moments, points of extreme trust, and ways for things to go wrong, so much passion, and so much blending of self and company, that I wouldn't ever feel comfortable embarking with someone that I didn't know incredibly well as a cofounder.

Are there reasons to believe that starting with a stranger as a cofounder will generally work out well if you can pick the stranger carefully?

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Devils advocate, Tinder ends with plenty of long term relationships. Ultimately much of founderdom is a crap shoot because you never know what your partner will turn into three years from now with money on the table. Truly obvious good founders who have lots of experience or proven connections are few and far between such that for the average startup rolling the dice may be just as effective as picking your best friend.

> Tinder ends with plenty of long term relationships

Sure, and some people go there looking for that. Most go there looking for short term enjoyment and possible long term relationships. That doesn't map onto the cofounder search. There is not much value in having the equivalent of "a couple dates" with at potential cofounder. And some people would actually see it as a negative, if they're worried (rightly or wrongfully) about their idea being stolen.

This is more like if you married the first person who agreed to go out with you on tinder.

Which is probably a petty lousy idea.

I don't see how starting a company with a stranger is going to have better results. There will always be exceptions, but it seems like a bad idea.

I don't think the idea is to pick someone at random; it's more like speed dating, where you check for initial chemistry and aligned interests, and then decide if you want to take it further. Maybe you even do some due diligence and check references.

You're perhaps incurring more risk, compared to a friend/colleague you've known for 10 years; but then, there may also be a reward in connecting with a talented mind who you wouldn't've otherwise. (And it's not as though startups with close friends can't also go south in very ugly ways.)

I'm not saying it can't work, or that starting a startup with an old friend can't fail. But I know which one I'd bet on. So do VCs.

But you don't marry the first person you meet on Tinder. You go on dates with the person. I would imagine you can go on "dates" with potential cofounders as well.

Are you going to "date" them for years before launching out on your endeavor?

So you have a dream. You've always had a dream.

You want to start a company, you know what you want to make, to provide.

You've been itching to do this for years.

You think, "I can only do this with someone I know incredibly well, who has the right personality traits and skills".

What are you going to do with your dream if you don't know anyone like that?

Grow old and die waiting?

Those years are passing by, and you still haven't met the right co-founder among your friends...

Go solopreneur? If it was your idea, you will probably have a hard time getting anyone on board with it to the extent you care about it.

In the end everyone ends up striking a balance between how well they know someone and how much they need their skillset. Most people are only going to know a small number of software engineers, for example.

Also in terms of getting to know whether you can work with someone, it's not as hard as say finding a spouse, where you tend to not even know what you want.

I recently met with a guy with a very similar professional background to myself and I could tell immediately we thought the same way. We definitely qualified each other. I'm sure that kind of thing happens to a lot of experienced professionals.

Every friend was once a stranger. Pithy as it sounds, I have found people who make friends almost at first sight. I find it tough to do this, but know many people who would cheerfully call each other (and behave like) friends after a meeting or two.

One should go on many dates before getting married. It's true for Tinder and co-founders. Startup Weekend is/was a great way to execute these dates.

We often ignore that your passion, vision, ideals and intimate dreams can be common (shared) between people, often people have the exact same idea at the same time. Making it much easier to start a company, because values naturally align. You can see this when Google and Apple suddenly collaborate even thou they certainly exist as competitors.

Sample sizes are one of the only ways to intuit baselines for things as complex as this.

The best way to learn from your mistakes is when you're open to making a bunch of them.

This is where organizational structure, clear boundaries of expectations, clear identification of restrictions, and extremely transparent checks and balances are established as a first order of priority. Waiting for a troublesome issue before establishing these guidelines and limitations is waiting for a time bomb of unknown magnitude to explode before doing what should be priority one.

Yeah, I've been burnt more than once because of "bad" co-founders.

And "bad" can have many definitions: they can be great friends but lack the entrepreneurial spirit, you may feel like they do less than you – even though they have just as many shares, or they do something that proves you can't trust them... plus so many other scenarios.

In a perfect world, you would be able to pick and choose from people who are trustworthy, great to hang out with, super skilled and willing to give up a stable job to risk building a startup. But in the real world, most people lack at least a couple of those things and you have to compromise.

I would be super cautious starting a company with a stranger. But... Finding a developer who's a friend willing to work for free (for a promise of future returns, that is) is super hard, and I'm actually talking to a potential co-founder met via FoundersList now.

My first three steps to verify whether building a startup together makes sense would be:

1. Get to know each other, talk a few times, see if you like each other and the vibe is right. Travel together for a few days if you can (which may be tough right now) – that can be a real test of whether you can stand to be with each other and how you react to different situations.

2. Work on something small together. Maybe a pre-MVP version of your app or one feature. No commitment until it's ready.

3. If it turns out you worked together well and delivered something good without jumping at each other's throats and you feel good about it, then go ahead and build that big thing as co-founders.

Just make sure to have a written agreement that determines what happens if one of the founders decides to leave, how decisions are made, etc. – it may seem like too much in the beginning but it will save you a lot of stress and fighting over "silly" stuff later on.

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"Choosing the wrong co-founders" is actually one of the top startup mistakes for me.

If you would like to read about more, here's an article I wrote some time ago about the top 11 startup mistakes I wish I don't ever make again: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-fail-can-less-making-othe....

I've started with a non-stranger. Someone I would even at one point called a friend.

It didn't end well.

There are no guarantees. Other than not starting won't end in failure. It just won't start.

People marry someone they met at a bar everyday, how is this any different?

not starting at all?

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