Things To Consider In Choosing Co-Founders | Hacker News Reader

Things To Consider In Choosing Co-Founders

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42 pointsyotamros8 comments

> Just like you wouldn’t get married to someone you’ve just met, you shouldn’t get into a long term partnership with someone you don’t know well enough.

This is IMHO by far the most important thing said in this article. I always find it strange when I see website proposing to match you with a co-founders or people looking for a co-founder by asking HN for instance. It's like asking on your blog "Hey readers! Anyone would like to marry me, I have an awesome idea about how we could raise our kids!".

Cultural fit--and company culture in general--is something I rarely see mentioned. And yet, it's critical to a startup's potential for success. No matter how you define that culture, it needs to be defined. And your founders and employees need to share a similar commitment to that culture. Really glad to see it highlighted here as one of the five.

That's an ironic comment to make considering I always hear people bring it up.

Agree people are always talking about it. But they're rarely doing a decent job of defining the culture, adhering to it, and hiring to it.

It's great to define organizational culture, but let's keep in mind that it is bound to be very fluid in a new startup. When you're very small each new person will have a pretty significant effect on the culture of your organization (of course the marginal effect of each new worker would be diminishing). Over-defining it at the beginning could be a mistake in so creativity-intensive industries like hacking.

I'd actually take an approach of formally defining the culture once it has established itself (and is working well).

But well, there's still too many variables to consider. Personal culture of the founder(s) would be very important in picking the right approach. Although many people would like it to be，I don't see management becoming a hard science anytime soon.

I didn't mean to imply that you had to have the culture baked on day 1. But by the time you've moved beyond cofounders and are making hires, you better be well on your way to having it defined. Or you're doomed to wallow in misfits and repairing poor hires instead of moving rapidly.

And I totally agree that the founders drive and define the culture. It's their responsibility to establish it, manage it, and change it, if need be.

Complementary skills and experience are always high on my list of what to look for in a partner or co-founder.

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html principles may help

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