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Do you need a co-founder? (Google Docs list)
- yan 17y agoThanks, added a brief entry. Don't exactly need a cofounder right now, but would not mind others reaching out.
- charlesju 17y agoCool way to use Google Docs
- alexro 17y agoAs one who tried to capture a cofounder in the past, I would insist on listing the primary area of interest (i.e. social media, search etc) and also what obstacles you from progressing on your own (i.e. lack of particular skill, lack of money etc), as it greatly streamlines the further interactions
- JoelMcCracken 17y agoAwesome.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- csytan 17y agoI hope you don't mind, I added a "comments" column.
- jayliew 17y agoNot at all, I was pondering about that earlier and decided to defer the decision to the public ;)
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agowatching this being edited in real time on the spreadsheet is fascinating.
- philjackson 17y agoYep, it's amazing how well its coping with what's going on. I watched someone deface it partially and then someone fix it again. Very cool.
- cschneid 17y agoOn the other hand, we used google spreadsheets as an issue tracker to guide working with clients. It fell over repeatedly over the course of an hour phone call on all ends (5 or so people viewing). It's really bad at keeping connections alive.
- leelin 17y agoI want to turn it into a massive gave of Pong.
- SlyShy 17y agoVery chaotic with 33 people inside. I'll wait my turn for a while.
- yan 17y agoJust pick an empty row and start editing!
- ryduh 17y agoThis has been possibly the coolest use of Google Docs I have seen
- fleaflicker 17y agoand a way to hijack all of our gmail account names
- jayliew 17y agodoesn't have to be gmail - I added my HN username and @twitter. (Plus, you can obfuscate your email yourself)
- johns 17y agoHe's not referring to the data entered. When you share a doc you can see the Google username of everyone viewing it.
- staunch 17y agoProving the point: terXX.Xones charlXXXbbard laXXXedel syXXXdr larXXXalan daviXXXbert.gordon shaXXXhern JusXXXilly boXXXox BjXXXnGT mnXXXr johXXXns sdXXXf iamXXXingo notorioXXXeeky hasseXXXntanfous patriXXXcuto jXXXn chXXXis maXXXk jayXXXrn richXXXdjg xkeXXXeth mucXXXra abXXXczo proXXXich MattheXXXlair87 roXXXiku ageXX.Xunky
- jayliew 17y agoIf you're going to throw your hat into the co-founder pool with information on how to reach you, I think your Google username is the least of your concerns. Seriously, did you know getting on the interwebs reveals your IP address :p Someone could run a full suite of penetration tests on your IP addr to get to your end-point or router.
- staunch 17y ago
- JoelMcCracken 17y agoHmm, this could be a webapp. A way for people who are a pre-seed startup seeder, if you will. Startups.com (or something similar) might want to jump on this.
- allantyoung 17y agoa good friend, Tristan, is working on something like this: http://startupsquare.com/ http://startupsquare.com/
- alain94040 17y agoAgain, it's all about critical mass and people knowing where to look. We launched exactly what you are asking for a year ago. It's there, people are using it. But not everyone knows it. Look at my profile if you don't know which site I'm talking about.
- icey 17y agoDoes anyone know a board like HN with a designer bent? It looks like more than half of the people filling out the spreadsheet would like to meet up with someone with design skills. It might be worthwhile to share this link on a board with designers.
- allantyoung 17y agoone of the more popular hangouts on the net for designers is MediaBistro - it has a bulletin board that might be an appropriate place for this: http://www.mediabistro.com/bbs/ http://www.mediabistro.com/bbs/
- p0nce 17y agoIs there a site dedicated to finding a cofounder ?
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agotheres been several attempts along the road, but nothing has stuck.
- jayliew 17y agoImho, this spreadsheet captures the very bare essence of a co-founder dating site. Find your co-founder with nothing more than your browser's "Control-F"
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoi think most sites should be reduced to being this simple
- alain94040 17y agohttp://fairsoftware.net/find-cofounders-for-your-startup http://fairsoftware.net/find-cofounders-for-your-startup and http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/ http://www.meetup.com/Co-Founders-Wanted-Meetup/ are dedicated to finding co-founders. The first one is for worldwide online, the second link is for Silicon Valley in person. This was posted originally in this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1046134 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1046134 - can someone write me a script so everytime someone asks that question, I can auto-reply? ... ok bad idea... spam... never mind :-)
- TristanKromer 17y agoI'm working on a project like this, initially but not exclusively for tech. If you'd be interested in helping us improve the service, we'd definitely appreciate the feedback. You can DM me @startupsquare or find us at http://startupsquare.com http://startupsquare.com Thanks!
- asolove 17y agoTrying to reorganize the locations in a useful way. Started by country but this raises the problem that Canada - Pacific - Vancouver isn't close to US - Pacific - Seattle in the list. Other ideas?
- seiji 17y agoHave people use lat/lng? You can add two new columns for latitude and longitude populated by: =GoogleLookup("address to geocode", "latitude") "Address to geocode" can probably be made using the existing city/country columns. Then you can automatically make a map directly from spreadsheet data: http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsmapwizard/makecustommap.htm http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/spreadsheetsma...
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoanyone on here interested in a company that does hardware mixed with software based upon ubuntu?
- faramarz 17y agoI'm not sure how many Torontonians are on HN, but I put out a call in there anyway. Hope to make some meaningful connections. Thanks jayliew!
- cunard-n 17y agoHi, yeah, I'm the king of Kensington and I just need...just joking. Big ups faramarz
- jayliew 17y agoYou're welcome! I know I'm scratching not just my own itch, but helping others too .. it's a great feeling. Obviously I got lucky too .. it's not like I coded Google Docs. A reminder that despite all our technical and business talent - luck remain an important part of our endeavor. We can however work to maximize our odds and exposure to luck!
- rythie 17y agoThis makes me wonder why all the hype about Wave when docs can already do this.
- TristanKromer 17y agoI love Wave, and still can't figure out what I should be doing with it.
- carmenNeghina 17y agoif you do, let me know! I guess it will be useful when the early adopters start playing with it around as well :)
- csytan 17y agoIt looks like most people are looking for a good designer / UI specialist. If only there was an HN for designers focusing on starts ups!
- csallen 17y agoI hope this Doc stays around indefinitely, so those of us looking for a co-founder in the future will have a resource. It's worth posting a link to it every so often.
- adrianwaj 17y agoI am URL forwarding to this spreadsheet from http://hackerbrain.com/ http://hackerbrain.com/
- jayliew 17y agoYup, I will be keeping it up indefinitely, I don't see any reason why to remove .. but if it ever came down to that, I will ping the HN community so that everybody knows. I guess anyone looking to build a co-founder dating site has to figure out what value they are adding on top of this spreadsheet!
- alain94040 17y agoanyone looking to build a co-founder dating site has to figure out what value they are adding 1. Better search (by location, keyword, whatever) 2. time-based, so that old entries from years past don't pollute the current directory 3. protect anonymity but preserving a way to get in touch 4. more details available so you can make a judgment call more easily 5. a way to look at projects or people, depending on what your approach is That's a good start. I'd say #2 is critical, because the Google Docs list will become obsolete within weeks. http://fairsoftware.net/publicUsers http://fairsoftware.net/publicUsers is a list of people, and http://fairsoftware.net/publicProjects http://fairsoftware.net/publicProjects is a list of projects. You can navigate back and forth.
- skmurphy 17y agoOne of the reasons that the Bootstrapper Breakfasts have been helpful to bring teams together is that it's a low key way to have a serious conversation with one or more potential cofounders and form an impression based on more than a paragraph or two on a "dating site." From folks who have attended a Startup Weekend or similar event, I hear that it's a good way to learn how someone performs under at least a moderate amount of pressure. I am less sanguine about "dating site" although a lot of folks have contributed to the spreadsheet so it will probably help potential co-founders become aware of each other. I also think you can form a reasonable impression of someone from reading their blog and HN comments but not everyone who has the strengths you will need to get startup off the ground is necessarily interested in contributing to a forum.
- yumraj 17y agoGreat idea, but IMHO it would have been much nicer if people had created new sheets based on their location and then added the Info, so that it would have been much easier to browse. Or course, location+skill wouldn't have hurt either. In the current format, it could potentially become unmanageable and not very user friendly. I'm just going to create a sheet for SF-BayArea see if people adopt it :).
- briggsrs 17y agoI believe there is the option of sorting it by city and adding the content once it is filtered. :)
- yumraj 17y agoyeah, but the problem is that people will not necessarily use same names for their location. E.g. SF, SFBayArea, SFBA, Silicon Valley, etc. all refer to the same location but are different. On the other hand, if someone really wants it s/he would be able to find it :)
- briggsrs 17y agoI wonder if it would be feasible to construct a database where they enter the zipcode instead, and set a parameter that determines which area you belong to. (Eg. if you live in 94107, any zipcode within 60 mile radius would be considered the "Bay Area".
- megamark16 17y agoSo, a while back I created a bartering webapp with location aware searching using Django. I did it mostly as a learning process so I could become more familiar with Django, and I never really marketed it much, and it really doesn't get any use now. With that being said, if you wanted to get on there and create a profile, add a post saying that you're looking for a founder with XYZ skillsets, or that you're available to be a cofounder, other people could search for you based on keywords or tags plus their relation to your zip code. http://www.igwyn.com http://www.igwyn.com (I've Got What You Need). Not meant to be shameless self promotion, but it might actually be helpful for people. Mark
- cemerick 17y agoJust tossed my info on there. Not actively looking for a cofounder -- mostly because I don't think it's likely I'll find anyone with the right skills/temperament -- but it's worth getting out there anyway.
- jayliew 17y agoCan't win the lottery if you don't at least buy a ticket :)
- gtt 17y agoTechnical entrepreneur seems to be most wanted character class.
- dpritchett 17y agoI'm going to keep rerolling until I get all 18s.
- angelbob 17y agoWeird. You'd expect HN to be overstocked with those, just because of its target audience.
- adrianwaj 17y agoThis spreadsheet is going to get seriously diluted with every bastard and his dog. You might need a password or something. Louis Gray's tweet is doing the rounds: http://bit.ly/info/hackerbrain http://bit.ly/info/hackerbrain
- louismg 17y agoSharing the doc was not an intent to dilute, but to raise awareness. Apologies for any issues. There is a definite interest in plans from the members of this community.
- jayliew 17y agoIt's fine, my own entry got mangled a bit by pure accident, but I just re-filled it and it's fine. Thanks for sharing the awareness Louis.
- wensing 17y agoMakes me think so much more could be done with profile pages on HN.
- adrianwaj 17y agoWith a verification string placed by users on their profile (as with Google Webmaster tools), a social network could be run interdependently. It would scrape.
- briggsrs 17y agoYea that is an excellent idea, thats what i was trying to get at on my first post.
- adrianwaj 17y agoA generic social network would work, where users can verify against one or many domains or sets of urls. To reach someone's page, you would type in: site.com/verificationstring edit: the string would have to go in the <head> otherwise it can be faked on ugc sites
- wensing 17y agoHackrTrackr http://hackrtrackr.com/ http://hackrtrackr.com/
- seiji 17y agoI think that has been abandoned.
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agoagreed. that or if pg opened up an api for authentication, really retrieving stories,etc. I'm pretty sure we would build some great apps.
- pg 17y agoWhat should I add? I'm open to suggestions.
- briggsrs 17y agoJust wish there was a online directory similar to the one shown in Google spreadsheet, that is as simple, intuitive and cleanly designed.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- ropiku 17y agoI am surprised that many tech founders are looking for tech instead of business
- fjabre 17y agoEasier to go from tech to business than the other way around.
- indiejade 17y agoThe problem with this line of thinking is that a founder can have the "coolest" tech idea ever, but without any business sense (growth), he's just swimming around in the same circle, over and over. They're complementary skills, not opposing, and neither one is "greater" or "less" than the other.
- chrischen 17y agoMaybe it takes business sense to realize the potential of an idea, and so the spreadsheet selects for techies who have business sense too.
- TristanKromer 17y agoFunny, I hear that a lot but I did not find so much of a hurdle. I guess I did start with some tech. I ran a BBS, then stopped coding and did marketing in the entertainment industry for 10 years, then went right into IT security. I don't think there is anything inherently more complex in Applied Cryptography than there is in some of these absurdly obfuscated balance sheets.
- robryan 17y agoWell if you are a single person looking for a co-founder, getting a business person straight up means that your still solely responsible for getting a product out, I guess either you are doing something you can manage, can afford to outsource some code, or you want a co-founder who can help.
- NEPatriot 17y ago
- fjabre 17y agooh man.. don't be typing in 'asdfdsaf' into the rows!
- jayliew 17y agohilarious :D
- joubert 17y agoIt seems you can edit without even signing in to Google Docs. Are your edits then anonymous?
- minalecs 17y agofor people just leaving twitter names, how do i send them a message. Sorry I may be one of the only people that only reads twitter (strictly stalker), never use it for actually do messaging or anything else. I followed them, but still don't know how to send message
- jayliew 17y agotype "@thatotherpersonsusername hello there"
- itistoday 17y agoWe need a wiki-style spread sheet so that changes can be reverted. I've seen several rows cleared of their info (80-83), not sure if it's by vandals or not.
- tk999 17y agoIs it working? Some line is missing and empty and some lines only has a word "Java," (may be merge during typing...) May be it is better to build a one / 2 pages UI for that...
- jason_tko 17y agoThis is a great idea. I ran an article on Hacker News a couple of months ago looking for a co-founder at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=941606 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=941606. It was on HN for maybe 1 day on the weekend, so I was concerned I was missing out on the perfect person to work with on a startup. Having something like this (or, better yet perhaps a wiki that tracks edits) is an excellent idea. Kudos Jayliew !
- TristanKromer 17y agoThis is exactly the problem I'm working on. If you're interested in this topic and would be willing to alpha test or otherwise help out, please drop me a line at http://startupsquare.com http://startupsquare.com
- carmenNeghina 17y agoLooks like a great concept. We need more such initiatives. At what stage is the project at the moment?
- TristanKromer 17y agoAlpha alpha alpha. We're going to be letting people in within the next few weeks and the start tuning!
- thesethings 17y agoIf anybody wants to do things to this doc (install Pivot Tables gadget, rearrange columns, do crazy sorts), but is worried about messing up doc for others, remember you can copy it out for yourself with File -> Make a Copy. (Yes it will be slightly out of date eventually, but you can then copy it out again.)
- hassenben 17y agoThis is actually quite dangerous. You can use GData to load the document retrieve all contributors and authors. You can also retrieve the viewers using a cronjob. GData returns a "Person" objects in 3.0 http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/data/Person.html http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/d... and when you know that google docs generates a revision for just clicking around you can retrieve all revisions and email addresses using http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/data/docs/RevisionEntry.html http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/javadoc/com/google/gdata/d... Anyway, it is a great idea... but really not a good idea to use a google doc :-)
- thesethings 17y agoI dunno. I visited the Doc knowing it was in Googlelandia, and before I edited anything, I knew it was logged. I feel privacy data is most dangerous when triangulated from multiples services/tools. It's good to be concerned, but if anything, entering your data here is a far more open book than submitting to any other site that asks these questions.
- po 17y agoSo by quite dangerous you mean that anyone can find out that you've looked at and/or edited that page. Definitely a privacy issue for many people, but I'm not sure I would qualify it as quite dangerous.
- gprisament 17y agoQuick! Someone write a Marriage Problem Solver that can take this spreadsheet as input!
- NEPatriot 17y agoWould it be appropriate to create an open source community project which would keep the current simple interface of google docs but support more users and perhaps store info such as blog links/HN links to posts along with a standardized location?
- bpick 17y agoCan we do one of these for Angel Investing?
- jayliew 17y agoThat's actually an interesting comment, are you an angel investor? For co-founders, everybody wants to pair up .. but for investors and entrepreneurs, the dynamics would appear different, right? In the sense that there's more entrepreneurs than there are investors, and since investors have a finite amount of money, they don't want to be too easily accessible since they can't invest in everybody (and don't want to be pitched to all the time)? If you are on the investor side of the table, do shed some light :)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- bpick 17y agoI'm on the investor side of the table in that I have money and would be happy to invest in a worthy start-up. I'm young and fairly inexperienced, but I don't mind being pitched, and I would be happy to share my email address with interested parties. I think nothing could be more valuable than making funding more accessible to companies that could one day change the world; especially if it could be done well. Maybe we should get to work on this idea...partner. :)
- jayliew 17y ago!! Did you guys see that? I believe an angel investor just said he wants to be pitched :) bpick, if you're looking to angel-invest the YC startup community is a really good place to start scouting, you're at the right place! I don't see any contact info on your HN about page. Can you tell us all how to reach you? My contact info is on my about page
- bpick 17y agoContact info updated. I'm waiting for my cellphone to detonate.
- chubbard 17y agoWasn't this supposed to be done in Wave? ;-)
- bullrico 17y agoThis looked very interesting, so we coded up an app based on some of the comments - it's at findmycofounder.com, more details on Twitter (@FindMyCofounder). We figured we could launch this in 24 hours or so, do try it out in a couple of hours.
- ADRIANFR 17y agoI copied (almost) all entries from the doc in a semantic wiki: http://www.startuplinkup.com http://www.startuplinkup.com Please go and search your entry there, refine it, rename it, etc. Hope this is more manageable than the google doc. Follow @startuplinkup.
- vill-alba 17y agook here something topic related, if you answer in the story style with the negerian king - that would be fun!!! Who is that Co-Founder? I am looking for a Co-Founder/ a Friend who want to build and realize the “Online Music Player 2010” with me. Long and beautiful story short – “I want to create one Music Player which is able to play every music source, the individual user, knows and uses in his daily life.” Music sources changed over the time . Especially the last 10 years! Something has to be improved, to make-all-the-music mixable and enjoyable again. And that is the main direction of pictures I see around that startup. So I checked every stuff in the music-play/consume-field and I want to go in the direction of the usability of the Grooveshark player, which is coded in actionscript. If someone is here who... I´m coming right now from Sydney. I told my story there half Sydney – everyone found the idea great, realizable and wanted to use it. Since I am here, everyone ask me first about my business, revenue model. I give definitely a fuck about money – but I want to start this action /fun/love trip on another way. So if you only want to be the next big thing, I am the wrong partner right now. I see fun, extreme and creative promotion, offline contact to the users, partys, the difficult steps to start and realize something which isn´t there right now and much more stuff, but I have to keep this here short too – and fuck I would do it for free, for myself – if I needn´t money for a little bit more of “cooler through the life” right now. But that is my motivation – to get more of this trip. What ever this can else means. And at the end – build something what the people love and at least... My background is that I am normally studying Media Management in Germany, and that I have already done a lot of projects in my life – so I know how to monetize something! So if you are cool with this, think you are able to build a music player in action script, for the first impression similar to Grooveshark + you can for example! include YouTube content too, than we are on direction! Give me a message and we will see what is possible. Best regards – Lutz Villalba. villa-alba@koeln.de