Idea reach and the cofounder myth | Hacker News Reader

Idea reach and the cofounder myth

swombat.com

98 pointsnoelsequeira20 comments

Great article. Aside from the fact that being approached by someone "looking for a co-founder" is a turn-off (on par with being approached by someone looking for a spouse), it's also not a good sign of a successful entrepreneur. The successful entrepreneur archetype will be executing at all stages. If they believe that the lynchpin is an external person that will make it magically come together then they probably don't have the chops to make it through all the challenges that startups inevitably face. This is distinctly different from hiring an engineer, or meeting someone who shares passion and applicable skills for your idea.

As far as swinging for the fences goes, I believe that is a middle stage decision. When you have some traction, you are potentially faced with difficult choices about whether to "sell out" or not. If you are just starting out and you decide you are "going to be the next Google" that is just pie-in-the-sky dreaming, not swinging for the fences. If you want to be an Apple, Google or Amazon you will need to build it up over the course of decades through a series of successful pivots to scale up. Facebook is the most recent example, where the entire momentum of the site was imparted from the exclusivity of a truly tiny market (Harvard students), and then pivoting pivoting to progressively wider markets. For any of these companies the risks are incredible at each pivot, so swinging for the fences is more akin to building 5 startups in a row successfully. The only way you're going to get there is by building one regular small startup first and then repeatedly taking it to the next level from there. I don't think it's any different for YC startups other than that they start out with better connections, but that does not a business model make.

I agree - I think that part about "swinging for the fences" waters down the article's message. "well of course my idea for Facebook for cats is a great idea - I've got to swing for the fences!!"... Which could be the take-a-way for some people from this very down to earth article.

I like what you're saying in reference to building things up over time and pivoting into new spaces. I think that is the path to finding a co-founder. You have to go out and do things. Your idea reach (part of which is your network) will expand as you go.

Interesting article - I agree with a lot of what you say.

>> YCombinator has made it a successful business model to take founders and virtually catapult them far away from their idea reach, and succeed anyway through a combination of exceptional founder selection and world-class mentoring

Actually, I think what Y Combinator is very good at is recruiting decent hackers. They're then encouraged to build prototypes very quickly within what you call their "idea reach" and talk to users to iterate & improve. In fact, almost all the YC companies that spring to mind are very much within the "idea reach" of the founders. Both the "success stories" (Airbnb, Dropbox, Heroku) and the more recent ones - (Codecademy, Parse, Mongo HQ, Verbling etc etc) all fit this mold.

Non-technical founders are very occasionally accepted, but almost always required to find a technical co-founder to extend their idea reach to including something software-focussed.

> YCombinator has made it a successful business model to take founders and virtually catapult them far away from their idea reach, and succeed anyway through a combination of exceptional founder selection and world-class mentoring.

There's a bit of a logical flaw there: either it's "catapulting them away from their reach", or, through "founder selection", picking people who have a far reach in the first place.

I don't think there's a logical flaw. I think (perhaps wrongly, as pointed out in another comment) that YC pushes people to do something way beyond their reach, but then makes up for the skills gap by providing them with incredible mentoring and connections.

So basically it extends their idea reach...

Saying that YC pushes people to do something 'beyond their reach' is fair, but saying that it extends their reach by selecting the right people is... not consistent.

Anyway, it's a good article, that's just a nitpick that jumped out at me.

Maybe "the right people" are those people who can take advantage of YC's capacity to extend their reach.

Probably, but that's not quite the same thing:

"YC is able to extend founders' reach by... selecting founders" says nothing about YC actually doing something to extend founders reach, merely that they're good at selecting long-reach founders.

I do believe that they extend the reach of founders that they have selected, in any event.

>>This is a brilliant idea, and after you explore it (using, for example, the lean methods which only evolved 10 years later, because you're a visionary), you decide that this is worth pursuing, it has a lot of market potential.

I do hope that was tongue in cheek... Those "lean methods" have been around forever; What's happened in the last 10 years is that they've been packaged and sold.

I think what you're saying is true from a certain perspective, but I also think that a lot of great progress comes from cross pollination of ideas. If field A solves a problem using method X, but field B has never applied method X then someone who makes that connection and applies X to B can start a mini-revolution in field B. New is pretty relative in that sense, especially if you reflect on Solomonic wisdom: "There is nothing new under the sun."

Maybe it's more helpful for product development teams in mid-size or larger firms... In the realm of bootstrappers & hustlers, most of the advice is SOP, just re-branded.

There really is no difference between successful entrepreneurs and unsuccessful ones except for the decision to do it. I find that most successful people have the trait is that they take action regardless of the fact that they have a co-founder or not. They naively move forward and as obstacles come in their way, find ways to solve them.

Most of the time what makes or breaks a startup is the tenacity to stick with it and plow through obstacles. Of course, one has to be practical in some cases (e.g., the iPhone example mentioned in the article). But I think in most cases, there is always a solution. As Brian Chesky says, "If you can imagine it, you can create it".

Necessary but not sufficient right? I alluded to the same point in my comment above, successful entrepreneurs get shit done and don't make excuses (ie. if something is a true problem then the find another angle).

However there's a significant selection bias at work in believe that tenacity always wins. In reality there are no doubt many people who simply do not have what it takes. Granted most of them do quit rather than spending an entire life trying, but I'm sure they're out there, you just haven't heard of them.

"There really is no difference between successful entrepreneurs and unsuccessful ones except for the decision to do it."

Huh? Both already decided to 'do it', and the there's still a distinction which you're making yourself in the wording - "successful" and "unsuccessful". There's some other difference besides deciding to "do it". I've known a number of unsuccessful entrepreneurs who "did it", but didn't succeed. Some of that non-success was related to them directly, some was timing, some was poor idea, etc. But they still 'did it' and weren't successful.

As Brian Chesky says, "If you can imagine it, you can create it".

What a silly thing to say. A quick glance at pretty much any sci-fi novel proves that. Go on, go build me a light-sabre, capable of cutting through metre-thick bulkheads. Once you've finished with that, I'd like a time machine so I can go back in time and look at dinosaurs, and also a perpetual motion machine. I leave the order of the last two up to you.

I don't think that quote is meant to be taken literally. It's more a commentary on how you can accomplish most things you can put your mind to; the only limits you place are those you impose on yourself.

And I don't know, but it might be possible to create a light-sabre. Who knows. I am sure that we live with technology today that seemed just as impossible 100 years ago.

Great article, I think that one of the biggest barriers to people becoming entrepreneurs is the failure to grasp the fact that there is a vast spectrum in the skills (technical or otherwise) needed to get a business off the ground.

However, while I agree with your point that "I'm looking for the right cofounder" is really only an excuse covering up either a reluctance to jump in or an idea out of reach, there comes a point in any business (Maybe once you come up against an unforeseen technical problem, difficulty securing partnerships, ), when it becomes necessary to bring great people on board in at a co-founder level who complement your skills and make up for your shortcomings. The key here is having access to the right people, so that you don't have to "look" for the right people.

I think that in this case what determines your ability to recruit the best people comes from your "Network reach" which varies from person to person, but is something that must be cultivated as diligently as technical knowledge or business knowledge, by maintaing the right relationships, associating yourself with the right communities and groups, connecting people with each other, and carefully training yourself to recognize and maximize opportunity when it arises.

This is actually a fantastic article, I'm glad I stumbled upon it.

"If, however, you've got very limited savings, and failure will propel you back into a corporate environment and a job you hate, then it might be better to focus on achieving survival and comfort first. That's easier with an idea that's within your reach." pretty much describes my situation!

Daniel, do you have an article where you're recommending a path for a solo entrepreneur that might eventually lead him to attracting cofounders? Anything in the pipeline perhaps? I imagine it'd be along the lines of "work on what's within your reach, have both the idea and your own execution so far be attractive enough that someone will want to join forces with you".

Also, if your idea reach is for 1 person worth of work, why would you even need a cofounder?

I liked this article. A lot of what I see encouraged by incubators and investors is "swing for the fences" type startups where they try to expand your sights to aim for as broad and as lucrative a market as possible. These are a horrible idea for most first time founders, especially those attempting to escape the shackles of a corporate job. Founders that set their sights lower and have a crystal clear plan of how to achieve profitability are much more likely to succeed.

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