Sleeping With Your Cofounder | Founder Dating | Hacker News Reader

Sleeping With Your Cofounder | Founder Dating

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27 pointsbusterc8 comments

My Co-Founder is not the gender I would choose to sleep with.

Having gotten in bed with a co-founder in the past I would say this article missed the more important rules.

Don't date in the workplace, and don't work in the datespace. You have to compartmentalize your relationship. Don't talk shop over a candle light dinner, and don't talk love/sex/relationship in the office.

Don't get viewed as a unibrain. You need to be in sync, but you need to be viewed as two people. It is easy to get viewed as BrianAndJen all one word, all one person.

No pet names in the work place. You can't be like "Hey Babe, can you get me those TPS reports".

It also depends on how good you are in choosing lovers.

Many people a pretty bad at this and break up (badly) every few years.

These problems won't work out for a start-up.

Also, many start-ups fail and moneyproblems can easily kill relationships.

But I know a few people, who are in a relationship and working together for years. They don't make big money, but their companies aren't in trouble either.

If they are your co-founder they shouldn't be a bad break up anyway. You have to be pickier about co-founders than lovers. Most people will have more lovers in their lifetime than co-founders.

> Don't date in the workplace

I think that really depends on your mentality. I hear this quite a bit, and I passed on a relationship opportunity because of this rule. However, at the defense contractor I used to work for I knew at least half a dozen couples whose marriages were forged at the company.

You didn't read what I said. The Dating doesn't happen in the work place. Not don't date co-workers.

Loved the tips, to add my 2 cents to tip # 1: Don’t Let Arguments Escalate - Also a good idea to not bring in the past issues. I see that too often that when people fight they start bringing in the arguments from the day they met!

It's an interesting dilemma. As a woman, my co-founder (and team mates) are quite likely to be male. I am in love with my work and our mission; having a romantic relationship with someone who does NOT share these passions would be difficult. A person NOT involved in tech startups could never fully understand me. And a totally unattractive individual becomes significantly more so when we hit a rocking work stride and build beautiful things together, hit walls and win together. Fortunately, I need my future lover to summit mountains, too, so I'm somewhat shielded from this potential conflict! (ie - very few tech entrepreneur mountaineers) ;)

If you're able to separate your business relationships and personal relationships and keep it professional then why not? The problem with that is it's usually easier said than done.

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