Ask YC: How important is it to be friends with your co-founder?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=82909

by pxigorth • 19 years ago

4 7 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

At least twice I've had the opportunity to co-found a startup with someone whom I've respected, who I know does good work, and has complementary skills. But I chose not to, because of some other aspect of their personality. Something bothered me about them, but I couldn't put my finger on it. It definitely seemed like at some level we didn't like something about the other, and we weren't the kind of people who would end up being friends.

At normal jobs, I've never had a problem working with people that I wasn't friends with, and sometimes actively disliked, but my view is that in a startup situation, this is much more important. How important is liking or being friends with the other person? Did I pass up good opportunities or make the right decision?

DarrenStuart• 19 years ago

go with your gut I say. Only you know what ticks the boxes for you. Also never look back at what could of been...

I have worked with people that I have disliked but over time I have ended up getting on with them quite well in the end. Sometimes first impressions can be wrong.

pg• 19 years ago

When speakers at YC dinners take questions at the end, there's one I ask most of them: what do you know now that you didn't know when you were 24? The most common answer is to trust your instincts about people. If you're thinking of working with someone but something seems iffy about them, don't.

So you probably did the right thing.

Friends can help you screen people. Especially female friends, who often have a more sensitive social radar than men.

willphipps• 19 years ago

i think it's really important. not only from a trust perspective, but also the amount of time you are going to spend with them means its vital you can have a laugh together when things get a bit tough. the risk is that you may fall out over something related to the business - this is something only you can decide, but if you address the possible scenarios early on and have agreed upon a way of dealing with possible outcomes (good and bad), then i think this risk can be limited.

pius• 19 years ago

From my experience, I would recommend finding someone with whom you are friendly, but not friends.

The pressure of the startup will polarize your relationship, so you'll either end up pretty solid friends or pretty solid enemies. Someone whom you already dislike somewhat probably won't become any more palatable. Someone with whom you've already established a friendship leaves you in the position of risking the friendship and/or not having the luxury of candor when they screw up.

sspencer• 19 years ago

I would argue that it is perhaps the most important quality of all.

Always remember that this is someone you are _starting a business with_. Anything less than true friendship is likely to cause grief later on when the going gets tough.

gigamon• 19 years ago

I agree with comments from other posters. The only two things that I would add are that ...

1) you don't need to like someone to work with them in a startup.

In fact, it is very important that you surround yourself with people who have complementary skills and have different lifetime experience and perspective. As a result, it is difficult to truly like someone who is that different.

But you must respect someone in order to work with them in a startup.

2) Trust is very important.

But trust has a different meaning in a startup. Imagine yourself having to jump off a baloney and one of your co-founders is the one who needs to catch you to save your life. In this case, trust means trusting their ability to catch you and their assessment of their ability to catch you. So if you ask "can you catch me?" and they say "yes" but in reality they can't, then you would rather that they say "no". That way, at least you would try to find alternative.

derefr• 19 years ago

Oddly, to "jump off a baloney" seems to somehow more accurately represent the startup process than jumping off a balcony, which you possibly meant to type. (Oddly similar to "living on a smile and a shoeshine", as well.)

Ask YC: How important is it to be friends with your co-founder?

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