"How I Met My Cofounder" Story?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3851

by pashle • 19 years ago

4 6 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

pashle3• 19 years ago

This is for you, looking for your cofounder. It's a story about how the original two guys in a garage met each other. If you have a founder story, it's my hope that you also share it here, for all of us. From 'The HP Way', by David Packard:

"Largely because of (Fred) Terman's classes, the four of us - Hewlett, Porter, Oliver, and I (Packard) - became fast friends. It is not a coincidence that a few years later this group would become the management team of HP. Our (Bill and I) common interest in the outdoors first manifested itself in our junior year. There is no question that a shared love of the outdoors strengthened our friendship and helped build a mutual understanding and respect that is the core of their successful business relationship lasting more than a half century."

At the start of Dave's junior year as a Stanford electrical engineer, he demonstrated an interest in ham radios that caught Terman's eye. This led to his invitation to join Terman's graduate course on ham radios, which also included Bill and others, who were crucial to starting and building HP. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I hope this story (and the story you have to share) inspires you and the YC faithful, helping you with THE question: how do I find my cofounder?

eliasbaixas• 19 years ago

I met my cofounder at 7 in the morning while having a beer walking down "Las Ramblas", in Barcelona. He came to my friend asking for a cigarrette, we started talking, and we inmediately realised we shared the passion about technologies, web 2.0, social networking and Open Source, so in 15 days we had our vision of what could we do to change the world :)

elias

pashle3• 19 years ago

elias, THAT story is a keeper, and it's going in the vault!

jamongkad• 19 years ago

I hope to ride on this soon as I'm still looking for a cofounder :(

jullrich1• 19 years ago

I'm planning on flying out from Connecticut to join the meetups and try and get to know other people who share my goals even though I won't be attending the actual startup school event. I look forward to being able to tell the story about how I met my cofounder while crashing a YC "everyone is welcome" social session.

pashle3• 19 years ago

This one comes from Paul Graham, from 'How To Start A Startup':

"What you should do in college is work on your own projects. Hackers should do this even if they don't plan to start startups, because it's the only real way to learn how to program. In some cases you may collaborate with other students, and this is the best way to get to know good hackers. The project may even grow into a startup. But once again, I wouldn't aim too directly at either target. Don't force things; just work on stuff you like with people you like."

Granted, it's targeted towards a college student (which I am), there's an underlying principle that can be applied to most any case you might face. Just do projects with people you like. Too simple.

"How I Met My Cofounder" Story?

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