10 ms·

What We Look for in Founders

362 points by anateus 16y ago

JimboOmega 16y ago
That fifth item, like the post originally mentioning as something that dooms startups, gets me every time. Having a solid co-founder seems to be the hardest part, and honestly, it helps with all the others. It helps you be more flexible since two people can see things more ways. Gives you more imagination by the same route. It helps you be more determined since one can pull the other up if he/she gets too demoralized. Finding a co-founder is hard, though. I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability to sell something seems vital in getting a startup going.
- deleted 16y ago
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- BrandonM 16y ago
  > I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability to sell something seems vital in getting a startup going. I agree. One of the best assets for a good founder with tech-skills is a business/marketing founder. She can keep the ball rolling on the business things that would halt or slow software development, and during development she can be out discussing the product with potential customers. Once a MVP has been developed, she obviously becomes the sales and marketing manager. > Finding a co-founder is hard, though. Are you single? Notice that I said "she" above? Consider joining a dating site and trying to meet some cool women who have business or marketing backgrounds (obviously women that you would like to date as well). I've only been on OKCupid for a month, and I've already met a couple really cool, driven women who would be an amazing asset to a startup. I'm not saying to jump straight into a relationship just so that you can start your startup. My intent was simply to point out one way of meeting a potential cofounder, a way you probably never considered. There are countless other "hacks" that can be employed for meeting cofounders; you just have to put yourself into situations where you're likely to meet the kind of people you'd like to meet. It's really that easy.
  - ramanujan 16y ago
    You probably don't want to do that. A new relationship is a green sprig which must be carefully tended, not an oak tree capable of bearing heavy load.
    - BrandonM 16y ago
      I didn't mean to jump into a startup with someone that you've only been in a relationship with for a short time. I was just trying to point out a way of meeting a cofounder that others may not have considered. While it's clearly not a good idea to cofound a startup with a new significant other, I completely disagree with characterizing a new relationship as a "green sprig." If the relationship is so tenuous that it can't handle a little stress and strain, then is it really worth trying to "tend" into a long-term relationship? From experience, that just delays the inevitable breakup. Characterizing a new relationship like that also carries the implicit assumption that it's the last relationship you're capable of having. While I do my best to avoid hurting anyone, if a relationship is not working out there are other relationships to be had.
  - JimboOmega 16y ago
    As my story goes, I met someone about 6 months into my year-long startup experiment. As luck would have it, she had relevant skills... and she did help a lot with my startup, but not on the level of a co-founder. She isn't that interested in cleaning up the existing mess and the subject matter and targeted audience don't really interest her. That startup sort of burned out, for reasons not worth going into. If we could find a new idea on a topic we're both passionate about (like travel), we'd pursue it. Also, she's more technical (front-end) while I'm also technical (back-end), and neither of us have much business/marketing background.
    - BrandonM 16y ago
      That's excellent! So why did you say having a co-founder is the hardest part? Surely there's some way you can help the world doing something that interests the both of you.
- MrFlibble 16y ago
  Marketing is crucial indeed. It irks me to no end that so many have faith in the "If we build it they will come" business model. Word of mouth only goes so far. You can have the best site in the entire world but if nobody knows about it you will fail. While there are numerous companies doing variants of most ideas out there, more often than not it is the one with the most market visibility who ultimately gains traction, even if that product is less impressive than the competition.
adammichaelc 16y ago
"He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications." Very interesting.
mrchess 16y ago
Wish I knew about the emphasis about hacking a system question and I would have elaborated on my application.... Although it is a difficult question to put emphasis on IMO because it also makes you in a way "reveal" your bad morals... which I am sure many people don't feel comfortable doing. Why would you ever want to openly admit you beat ie. cheated a system be it government, academic, or private? Not to imply that I ever have... err... gotta run!
- edanm 16y ago
  I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to "beat" a system. Sometimes it involves a win-win situation.
- wolfrom 16y ago
  I think it depends on the system. Making a system more efficient often depends on bending the rules. We had trouble coming up with examples for our application, because most of the "hacking" we've done isn't anything to brag about. But at the same time, we do need to show that we're willing to ask forgiveness later if we can't get permission now.
- araneae 16y ago
  Right. Like I started forging the report cards I gave to my parents starting in 8th grade. I'm not proud of that. Would I really put that on an application?
  - raganwald 16y ago
    I have no idea what Y Combinator thinks about the answer to that question. But if Paul asked me to help out by reviewing some applications, I'd probably send you an email asking how that was to your advantage.
    - deleted 16y ago
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    - mrchess 16y ago
adammichaelc 16y ago
I can attest to the part about intelligence not being as critical as you might think. The last company I started was with a guy who was brilliant. He dreamed in code and had been hacking since he was 6 or 7. But he had a hard time finishing, and so I couldn't depend on him. I think the startup failed for multiple reasons and I definitely shoulder a large part of the failure, but next time I do a startup I will make absolutely sure that anybody I start it with is absolutely dependable and determined to finish.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  If everything was about raw intelligence, the world would be a totally different place today. I have a similar story as yours - I once worked with a guy with a genius level IQ, but he had trust issues and he was horrible with money. As in the OP, it's really a recipe of traits that make a startup successful.
araneae 16y ago
I have a pretty good friend on here that has The Best answer to the "hacked" question, and I would never, ever be co-founders with him because he's impossible. There's often a trade-off between "naughtiness" and "friendship."
- bobf 16y ago
  I thought pg's comment on "naughtiness" was interesting, as I was tempted to use a shorter version of the story I'll relate below in response to the "hacked" question, as it was a very recent experience. I ultimately shied away from using it as my answer, as I thought it might be a little socially unacceptable ("naughty"). At Startup School, there was a line of several hundred people waiting for lunch, which consisted of a dozen or so different kinds of pizza stacked in piles of 7-10 boxes each. We had a group of 3-4 people, looked at the line, and someone said, "This line is ridiculous. How can we hack this system?" Someone suggested going somewhere else on campus to eat, but we wanted to stay and mingle. Someone else in the group knew people farther up in the line, and suggested skipping ahead in the line. Ultimately, I simply squeezed through near the front of the line, grabbed a whole box of pizza, and took it back for our group to share. This kept our group from further clogging the line and seemed much more efficient than 3-4 of us waiting to select our 1-2 pieces each. Hopefully no hungry Startup School attendees were upset by our line hackery, as we thought it was a pretty win-win hack.
  - Jun8 16y ago
    See, I think that's an example of the "bad hack" because it has the potential of damaging people, e.g. what if I was standing in that line for 15mins ahead of you and because you took that box of pizza, just when my turn comes the pizza runs out (you think it's unlikely? Then you haven't been to the wild world of college-student-after-event-pizza-eating). My definition of a hack is to add value to the an existing system by modifying a property, not changing a zero-sum situation in your favor. for example, in your case, the number of pizzas are fixed, so it's a zero-sum situation. A better hack I usually propose in situations like this is to use both sides of the table, simple but generally people tend to pick pizza from one side only.
maxklein 16y ago
I bet 80% of people reading that list are thinking: This describes me perfectly.
- raganwald 16y ago
  I was about to post how this list makes me question leaving BigCo. I must be in the 20%, I don't think I have any of these qualities, and behold, my bank account tells me that none of my ventures have succeeded.
  - edanm 16y ago
    If you've worked on several ventures, I would guess you're more determined than most of the population. Most people only talk or dream of actually working on projects, and never actually do anything with it.
    - raganwald 16y ago
      Thanks! Your kind words are much appreciated. I sometimes have the wrong kind of determination. I created a program for managing classified ads, a desktop database-backed app that integrated with Aldus (yes, that long ago) PageMaker. I did some stuff I'm proud of, including finagling my way into the booth with Aldus at MacWorld and posing for a picture with Guy Kawasaki (a hero of mine those days)... And yes, I sold my software in Canada, the US, and even South America. But my pricing model was all wrong, I didn't grasp that the reason my competition charged 3-5x the amount that I charged (US$795) was that it cost so much to sell software at that time, the cost of ramen was irrelevant. It took me a while to figure this out. I think the turning point was when I looked out of my apartment window and realized that the bank had towed my car away. Anyways, I had the persistence of a bull, but as the OP notes, a little flexibility would have gone a long way.
    - deleted 16y ago
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  - slantyyz 16y ago
    But you're pretty well known (at least in some programming circles in Canada) and you've been involved in some pretty successful ventures. That should count for something. --edit by ventures, i mean senior roles in other people's ventures
edanm 16y ago
2 questions on the "friendship" issue: 1. How do you judge whether co-founders are good friends? I'm guessing a simple "how long have they been working together" test is a good indication, but anything else? 2. What level of feedback do you usually give teams that didn't make it? Especially teams that got to the interview stage but didn't make it through? I'm wondering if you've ever told a team your suspicions that they're not good enough friends (I'm assuming if you did, you phrased it better than that.)
- baran 16y ago
  I think its less of a friendship issue and more of the ability to "get" each other. My co-founder and I have been working for almost 1.5 years on our startup. We have gone through so many iterations, we can see into each others minds. When an issue comes up, I know exactly what he is thinking and vis-versa. This ability is invaluable during negotiations, meetings, etc. I don't think of us being on a friendship level, but its something greater. Its been said, its almost like your married to your co-founder - an analogy which is pretty much true. Your futures are tied together.
- pg 16y ago
  There are a lot of ways. Many of the questions on the YC application are at least partially about this. When and how did the founders meet? What have they worked on together? Even the stock split sometimes tells us a lot. Yes, we've told groups that we weren't funding them because their friendship didn't seem strong enough to withstand a startup. You'd be surprised some of the meltdowns we've seen in interviews.
  - edanm 16y ago
    Do you mostly care about groups sticking together long enough to get to profitability? Or are you also concerned about the founders having the same mindset?
    - pg 16y ago
      Just sticking together. They don't have to have the same mindset. E.g. Jobs and Wozniak.
bradly 16y ago
Definitely finding a co-founder has been the hardest part for me. Not living in the valley currently, you don't have as big of a pool to find people. Also, the type of person that makes a great co-founder(smart, determined, etc.) usually have good things going on already. The people that I talked to that would have been great to work with were all doing great work currently and couldn't commit. It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for startups.
- nkassis 16y ago
  I've had the same issue, all the best people I know are happy where they are. But I've managed to get some of them to agree to help me part time
- rmorrison 16y ago
  It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for startups. I feel like that would be somewhat counter-productive for YC. They're looking for people who are going to be Flexible and Determined to make the startup happen, regardless of what obstacles get thrown in the way. Finding a co-founder is one of the first real obstacles, and will definitely not be the hardest one over the life of the startup. By exemplifying the qualities listed in this essay, a single founder should be able to find at least one solid co-founder.
  - bradly 16y ago
    Well I believe my startup will be successful even without a co-founder, so I don't think wanting to meet a co-founder makes someone less determined. Even though I am confident I can make this happen on my own I would still rather have a co-founder than not for all the reasons that PG describes. If better startups comes from an event that helps founders connect, I think it would be a good thing for everyone.
- portman 16y ago
  It sounds like you're trying to find a cofounder amongst people you don't currently know. I'm not aware of any examples of successful cofounders who hadn't previously worked together. What about your current colleagues? Long lost friends from university? Neighbors?
brlewis 16y ago
The running back metaphor appeals to me. I wonder how far you can take it. Running backs pivot for something that will completely stop them. The fact that getting downfield will take a long time does not make them pivot. Does this analogy make a good rule of thumb for startup pivot decisions?
- baran 16y ago
  If my startup is a running back, I feel like I'm Barry Sanders.
- slantyyz 16y ago
  The metaphor can only go as far as the person to whom you are using it with likes or even cares about American football.
- access_denied 16y ago
  > The running back metaphor appeals to me. I wonder how far you can take it. That's an easy one: you can take it as far as the American border outside thereoff nobody knows what a running back actually does.
noelsequeira 16y ago
A year and a half into our first startup, I can see why determination (or should I go out on a limb and say downright stubbornness) is so highly rated. We built a decent product in roughly 6 months, and began engaging with enterprise customers. 6 frustrating months of trade shows / cold calls / presentations later, we had a couple of potential customers but things seemed way too stagnant; their intent to purchase just wasn't apparent. We were running low on cash and the first visible cracks in our patience were emerging, but we stayed put. And that's probably because we've known each other for over 5 years and each of us didn't want to let the others in the team down. And then suddenly a month later we received our first purchase order. Okay, it wasn't exactly sudden - we'd followed up a million times with the client and iterated on the product each and every time. But nothing else had changed, we hadn't done anything significantly different in that one month. And that had us convinced that patience can be a real virtue. We've not exactly dug ourselves out of a hole yet, but we're getting there (with several promising leads in the pipeline) and more importantly, a repeat order as well as a testimonial from our first customer. EDIT: Just in case you thought the story above was manufactured, here's the a link to the testimonial [PDF] http://creativeriot.com/resources/[Enpower]%20CoreLogic%20-%20Case%20study.pdf http://creativeriot.com/resources/[Enpower]%20CoreLogic%20-%...
Keyframe 16y ago
My accountant (with eons of experience): Worst thing you can do when founding a company is to found it as a partnership Take it as you will. My personal take is that, if partnership (among several founders) is really strong (friendship from this essay) - then it's certainly better than doing it alone - backed by high profile success stories. On the other hand, I've seen too much companies fall apart because of the partnership - not their business (I have two personal experiences with it). Question is how do you judge a friendship among founders? Can you spot the weakest link?
- scott_s 16y ago
  Consider that perhaps your accountant has a different perspective. Accountants don't get involved until the company makes enough money to need an accountant. So his perspective, which he may not realize, may be "Given that a company succeeds, it's better to have been started by a single person." PG has a different perspective. He's less concerned with questions which assume a company has succeeded; he's more concerned with questions about whether or not a company will succeed. So PG's perspective is more "A company is more likely to succeed with multiple founders." My point: the two perspectives seem mutually exclusive, but they may not be.
  - Keyframe 16y ago
    Accountants don't get involved until the company makes enough money to need an accountant. Actually, here in Croatia every form of company is obliged by law to have a licensed accountant (working for them or contract). You can't do your own paperwork - and TBH I wouldn't want to, it is too much liability if something goes wrong when filing papers.
    - btilly 16y ago
      And that fact would constitute a major drag on ever developing a startup culture. See http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html for some of the other ones.
      - 16y ago
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- brk 16y ago
  So. Fix it. Not sure what your personality mismatch was, but I would tend to believe it's something you could alter/improve/change if you consciously wanted to. Of course, if you REALLY can't get over the "sting" of a simple rejection, then you might find that the never-ending stream of "no"'s and doubts you run across in trying to get something off the ground would be more than you were able to deal with.
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Alex3917 16y ago
"We thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would be intelligence." Being intelligent in Silicon Valley matters about as much as the price of tea in China. It's not that being intelligent isn't important, it's that there is such an oversupply of intelligent people that being intelligent really doesn't add that much value or differentiate you. Especially since everyone you meet is more than happy to tell you what to do, along with the market itself.
- mlinsey 16y ago
  Higher than average intelligence is in oversupply, but super-genius intelligence never is. However, there are diminishing returns to ever-higher intelligence for most startups.
- pjscott 16y ago
  The price of tea in China actually varies by orders of magnitude depending on the tea. Some teas are surprisingly fancy, especially in a country with a long history of tea-drinking.
javadi82 16y ago
I thought my browser didn't load the complete article because I couldn't see your obligatory "thanks to X, Y and Z for reading this"...and I kept scrolling. Thanks for the great article, btw.
- pg 16y ago
  Oops, fixed; thanks.
jdp23 16y ago
> They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. or more accurately, "not the rules we think matter".
- pg 16y ago
  If you wanted to be that accurate, you could prepend "I think" to every statement in every essay written. That's implicit, except in proofs.
  - jdp23 16y ago
    Here though it's in a context about morality and proprietries, and what's "naughty" vs "evil". So I think it's especially valuable to emphasize the subjectivity.
kmak 16y ago
Running back comment is somewhat amusing, if only because a recent article on ESPN said that Chris Johnson's total yardage is down because he's always aiming for the HR, thus lowering his average yardage, trying to find and create space that aren't available. I guess sometimes you got to take what they give you, but for YC they aim only for the HR, so it's not that relevant.
Omnipresent 16y ago
where does the imagination of 'will this work?' come in? Or do you need to have determination of pursuing all ideas you believe 'will work'. Eventually, one will work?
Andrew_Quentin 16y ago
PG, Aren't you misleading the young by so strongly suggesting that their start up needs a friend. Was it Mark... the Facebook founder who created the empire by himself? Perhaps it is your opinion that friends do better, but to so strongly state it as a requirement aren't you perhaps implicitly disproving any sole founder start up and if so you are, why would you?
- starkness 16y ago
  Even that Mark had two cofounders: Chris and Dustin. And they were all roommates.
chegra 16y ago
It is pretty hard to change who you are at the core. But the thing about it is that you have your own way of succeeding. You see at some point in life, you more than likely have succeeded. Instead of determination, you have passion. Instead of flexibility, you are a perfectionist. Instead of imagination, you can communicate well. Instead of being naughty, you are efficient. Instead of a partner, you are well connected. The things that pg talks about takes years to develop, especially naughtiness and partnership. So instead of spending two years building a friendship to apply to yc, just go build the business. Inevitably, someone will want to join you when it is finished built. So yes, if you are undetermined, inflexible, unimaginative, goodie to shoe, friendless, go build your dream. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
- mcyger 16y ago
  Well said. There's no one "perfect person" that will succeed, although the article by PG would imply otherwise (since YC only wants entrepreneurs and start-ups that will be successful...hence the application/interview questions). The key is to use your core strengths to your advantage.
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- dabent 16y ago
  "So instead of spending two years building a friendship to apply to yc, just go build the business. Inevitably, someone will want to join you when it is finished built." I just connected with an old friend who saw something I just built and wants to join in. If you build something that's cool, people will indeed want to join in.
- ig1 16y ago
  I imagine if you build something cool and get traction, YC will consider you even as a single founder.
  - pg 16y ago
    We do fund single founders. There were 2 this summer. We just have a higher threshold with single founders, because it's harder to succeed as one. The last 3 of the 5 we'd compromise on if the person was good in other respects. Only the first 2 are essential. It's hard to imagine a startup succeeding without at least one person who was determined and flexible. It's just the nature of the domain.
makeramen 16y ago
Huh, first thing I thought was "can I go back and change my answer to that 'describe something you hacked..' question?" There are so many ways to interpret that question from the way the worded it.
- mrchess 16y ago
  My thoughts exactly, I had no idea that that was the intention of that question especially since it had no context.
atomical 16y ago
"As soon as we heard they'd been supporting themselves by selling Obama and McCain branded breakfast cereal, they were in. And it turned out the idea was on the right side of crazy after all." How about Sarah Palin tea?
hasenj 16y ago
I'm still skeptical about the whole co-founder thing. Sure, maybe if you're building youtube or justin.tv, and you need to talk to investors or talk face-to-face to potential clients or make deals with giant media corporations gasp then you probably can't do it as a single-founder. But, there is a large space of problems that can be solved by a single founder. But I suppose if you're determined enough you won't be bothered too much by people telling you must have a co-founder. So instead of looking for a co-founder, look for problems that are small enough to be solve-able by you, but hard enough that a big company can't solve it properly.
- jedberg 16y ago
  The purpose of a cofounder is not to help alleviate load. It is to have someone tell you no, that your idea/implementation/justification sucks. They question your moves and make you justify them. Having a cofounder keeps you in check and keeps you from straying too far off the successful path.
  - hasenj 16y ago
    This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders with you. AFAIK, PG's argument is that it's a lot of stress doing a startup on your own.
    - ammmir 16y ago
      i'm looking for a co-founder, but i don't feel it's imperative to find one at the idea or pre-prototype stages. not having a co-founder shouldn't stop anyone from pursuing their idea or working on a prototype. if it does, you're missing ingredient #1: determination.
    - jedberg 16y ago
      > This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders with you. Sure, but it is much more effective when someone is in the venture with you, and their success is tied to yours. Your friends and family are much more likely to just say "yeah, that's a good idea". No risk on their part.
johnrob 16y ago
I think YC should consider removing the "describe your idea" portion of the application. I can imagine that there's some value in it for the reviewers, but I'm pretty sure its presence inevitably causes applicants to over value it (and under value the people portion). Every time a YC partner gives advice about applying, emphasis is always made about how important the team is (as opposed to the idea). The data might be signaling something here. If there was nowhere to describe your idea in the application then it would be obvious how important the team is.
jdavid 16y ago
#friendship Maybe you should ask, if you don't have a co-founder, why? And what would you look for in a good 1st hire/ partner?
jdavid 16y ago
#naughtiness if you are looking for a less than kosher time a founder hacked the system. maybe you should ask for that. i know personally would have put a more vulnerable answer up there.
rexreed 16y ago
Is lack of distractions or possessing some financial independence anywhere on the list of what is good for founders? By this I mean -- if there are financial or non-startup distractions, could this be detrimental? Does not having a family to take care of rank more favorably than not? Just askin.
jdavid 16y ago
Questions #Determination " maybe you should ask for a time when you saw something through, something that was tough, and at your core hard to do. basically what was your last marathon?" # flexibility " when were your basic assumptions challenged, and how did you adapt or over come them? "
spenrose 16y ago
My concern about Paul's vision has always been (2), flexibility. It is my humble belief that you should care what you succeed at, not just that you succeed at something. On this point Paul seems to be leading in the opposite direction from Tim O'Reilly ("work on stuff that matters"), and I wish he would do a 180.
- wmf 16y ago
  It is my humble belief that you should care what you succeed at I know how you feel, but if that empirically produces a lower probability of success then what can you do?
  - spenrose 16y ago
    You can fail, pick yourself up, and try again. You can increase your probability of doing good, and accept the tradeoff WRT business success. I should add that I think Paul presents a very clear vision of why he thinks this is not a problem: his mantra about finding a problem a real person needs solved and solving it (substitute actual quotation here). My objection is that where this leads you is to unexploited niches in the market ecosystem -- returning to Tim's language, to focus on capturing value rather than creating it. I suspect Paul tart rejoinder would be that a happy customer is much better evidence of value created than fuzzy dreams of do-gooderism are. I believe he is partly wrong. I hope he will speak for himself on this topic.
  - bjelkeman-again 16y ago
    I'd rather be moderately successful doing something that matters than very successful selling sugared water.
    - bobf 16y ago
      If you become successful at <random common, unimportant thing>, you can leverage that to pursue <really great idea>. One example that comes to mind is Andrew Mason's Groupon talk at Startup School. Before Groupon, the Groupon guys ran "The Point", which tried to organize people to solve societal problems, including such ambitious, world changing ideas like building a climate dome over Chicago to avoid the brutal winters there. Obviously, the climate dome was never built, and "The Point" pivoted into Groupon. Although I don't think Andrew Mason has enough leverage/money/etc. to build that climate dome, he's certainly a lot closer today with Groupon's success than he was previously.
jdavid 16y ago
I suppose these are good questions for a potential co-founder. I wonder if one could check a box on their application to add it to the co-founder pool?
gojomo 16y ago
Kind of reminds me of D&D abilities... Dtr 16 Flx 15 Img 18 Nty 16 Frd 14 ...though the value placed on 'naughtiness' is more like a preference for a 'chaotic good' alignment.
sstoneii 16y ago
The "hacking the system" question on the application was probably the hardest one for me. While nothing just sticks out in my mind of hacking something I would say that I do and accomplish what most people can't do on a daily basis. In dealing with people; a smile always helps, the right attitude and disposition can start a movement, and looking at things from a "how could I fail?" point of view ALWAYS changes the rules of what a so called deal breaker is. example: When I applied to college in 1999 I was accepted right away however my parents made entirely too much money for me to get adequate loans and grant money. So I used my graduation money from HS and had my parents to pack up all must stuff and drive me down to the financial aid office(425 miles away). After a bit of sincere "asking" and explaining the situation I was in. VIOLA!!! Money started raining on my college dream. Saying all that to say I was a good looking kid, with a personality you had to see (because writing does not convey everything), and had I not been determined to have them tell me no to my face I would have never attended that school. Did I hack anything? By no means...did I use what I had to have the circumstances in my favor? Absolutely!
HiroshiSan 16y ago
Wonderful post, I especially love the part about naughtiness, when it's time for me to apply to ycombinator I will share my little ninja hack that I used for about 2 months ;). I didn't know about airbnb until now, thanks for introducing me to the site.
ig1 16y ago
+1 for determination. I've been involved in the early stages of a number of non-profits, time-and-time again it's clearly been determination above all else that drives success. I recently read "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas" (It's sort of like Founders at Work but about non-profits), and again reading all the founders stories, it's clear the single factor that unites them is their determination about their cause.
ptn 16y ago
pg: would you show an example of an impressive answer to the question about hacking a system to one's advantage?
- msg 16y ago
  How about Dick Hamming's thing at Bell Labs about crediting programming help in scientific papers? (from You and Your Research) I also did a second thing. When I loaned what little programming power we had to help in the early days of computing, I said, "We are not getting the recognition for our programmers that they deserve. When you publish a paper you will thank that programmer or you aren't getting any more help from me. That programmer is going to be thanked by name; she's worked hard." I waited a couple of years. I then went through a year of BSTJ articles and counted what fraction thanked some programmer. I took it into the boss and said, "That's the central role computing is playing in Bell Labs; if the BSTJ is important, that's how important computing is." He had to give in. You can educate your bosses. It's a hard job. In this talk I'm only viewing from the bottom up; I'm not viewing from the top down. But I am telling you how you can get what you want in spite of top management. You have to sell your ideas there also.
- philwelch 16y ago
  I'm not pg, but this is probably the best place to tell one of my favorite stories. The highway navigational signs in LA are notoriously confusing, especially this one sign in particular which didn't make sufficiently obvious an exit onto I-5. So some local took note of the sign and started to work. He found out exactly what paint colors to use, cut some sheet metal the right way, and made a North I-5 shield. Then he made himself a counterfeit Caltrans (California highway department) uniform, went to the sign, and altered it with the counterfeit shield to point out the exit. (He even made the shield dirty, to make it seem like it had been there for some time rather than being newly installed.) It was nine months before the highway department even noticed--and when they did, they didn't even change it back. It stayed up for years until the sign was completely replaced--complete with this guy's alteration. I don't know if that qualifies as hacking a system to one's advantage, or even as a hack, but I think it gets at the underlying personality trait. Links: http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-real-public-service/ http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-... http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html
ScottBurson 16y ago
This surprises me: You do not however want the kind of determination implied by phrases like "don't give up on your dreams". I would put it diifferently. Don't give up on your dreams, but ask yourself which is more important to you: to have a successful high-growth startup, or to do something in particular? If there is a specific thing you want to do or build, then be prepared for the (likely) possibility that it won't make a good startup. It might make a great hobby or even a successful lifestyle business. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it -- it just means YC will not be able to help you. But maybe your dream is to have a fast-growing, high-impact startup, and it doesn't matter so much exactly what it is, as long as it's somewhere in the general area you're interested in. Then perhaps YC may want to get involved. You're still pursuing your dream, I would argue, it's just a different kind of dream from a particular project that someone else might want to do.
markkat 16y ago
Oh cool. Then YC will either pick us, or my friends and I will unceasingly try countless creative ways to change their mind, and they might not all be legal. Your choice, YC. ;)
varun43in 16y ago
I'm currently the only founder for my startup and have a CS/Engineering background. I find that almost everybody I talk to seem to think its crazy or impossible for a single person startup to succeed. I wonder what the whole deal is about: - is it because they feel its too much work for one person? - they assume that one person cannot be motivated/determined enough to make a startup successful? - or is it just based on the fact that most of the successful startup were stared by 2-3 person teams.. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this guys..
- yurylifshits 16y ago
  Just search "single founder". There were tons of threads on that. http://searchyc.com/single+founder http://searchyc.com/single+founder
Mz 16y ago
I'm golden on all counts ...except for the general lack of friends. :-/ (Do grown sons who are insanely loyal make a good substitute? I'm hoping they do. :-D) Um, not that I am applying to YC. Just hoping to escape BigCo and go do my own thing.
zbruhnke 16y ago
I found the "things you've hacked" question very interesting. My answer to it was something that is not actually "legal" so i was a little wary of putting it, but it puts noone in real danger and was an example of what was basically my first endeavor into embedded programming and RFID. I hope the YC crew saw it as something fun and interesting and not criminal lol but it any case I found it relevant to the topic and really enjoyed the question
addoway 16y ago
I am firm believer that if you know you are going to succeed, then you will no matter what you are working on. It might not be your current project and it might not be the next, but it will come. You need the right energy, positive attitude, and patience.
hariis 16y ago
What would be the value of this article? You are who you are. Some are innate qualities and some are simply the cards that you have been dealt with. You have to become what you want to be with what you got and then some one will write an article some day mentioning you as a reference and the qualities you have as the key to being a founder :)
- Estragon 16y ago
  This is discussed elsewhere in the thread. Search for Dweck
matthewharden 16y ago
Like all "lists," I would take and file away as a "best practice;" particularly one that comes from Paul Graham. Just don't let the list limit you from executing the plan for your dream. YC even has a place for this on their application...it's called "hacking the system!" The lesser of these have achieved greatness. Many said I would never finish college and law school while being married, but two bar exams later...
jswinghammer 16y ago
I struggled to think about how I would answer the "Naughty" question. I thought about it for awhile and remembered something that happened almost 15 years ago. I hated high school with a passion that still surprises me when I look back on it. My high school allowed kids who got accepted to college to go and have school pay for it while getting credit for college and high school. This sounded great to me but getting accepted was going to be a challenge because I wasn't a great student and I was only 15 at the time. I met with the admissions officer at the college I wanted to attend and she wasn't sure at all about me. I had reviewed the course catalog before the meeting and made her a suggestion. I said "If I take a 400 level course and get an "A" would that prove to you that I'm up to doing college level work?" She said yes and I suggested that I take a course on the history of World War 2. World War 2 was a mild obsession of mine from 13-14 and I still to this day remember reading pages and pages of statistics about shipping losses during various times during the war. I knew every imaginable detail about virtually anything that had to do with World War 2. She didn't know this of course and warned me many times about what I was getting myself into in signing up for this course. I was accepted with the provision that we would review my grades after the semester was over. I received the highest grade in the class and the entire course catalog was open to me until I graduated from high school. This ended up working in my favor in many ways but the most obvious benefit was that I graduated high school with virtually all of my liberal arts electives done without having to pay anything for it. Not sure if this is the spirit of the question or not but it seems like it to me.
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Sounds pretty bad ass to me. Damn, nice work. I think it boils down to this: Do you tolerate bullshit or do you proactively stack the deck for personal advantage? In this case you leveraged the hell out of a unique personal quirk and created an opportunity for yourself that wouldn't otherwise exist. To use a poker analogy (Thanks, Tony Hsieh), you picked the table where you knew you could win. You knew you'd do better at the college level and you exploited information asymmetry with both the college administrator and your college-level peers. This is the very essence of how successful people and businesses work. You also showed some moxy and cunning with someone much older and more powerful than you, which is unusual at that age. You thought many moves ahead and won, reaping huge upside. That's 98th percentile at least, man.
QuantumGood 16y ago
In #1 and elsewhere they reference "a certain threshold of intelligence." So isn't that #6?
iphoneedbot 16y ago
Thing I noticed about successful startups with friends as co-founders is that they are pretty young and both have entrepreneurial spirit. (Plus, the requisite complimentary skill-set) Those are surprisingly uncommon combinations What if your circle of friends are not entrepreneurial? What if your friends that /are\ entrepreneurial already have startups? --then, of course; you'd have to find a co-founder (thats not a friend) or motivate a friend to be entrepreneurial - but, that in itself almost defeats the spirit of #5. I do believe friends are very important, families as well. 1) They'll keep you motivated. 2) They'll give you advice/input. 3) They'll give you support; (tech expertise, business feedback and connections, etc..) The quarter back, and the running back need not be friends to win the championships.
JonathanFields 16y ago
PG - Great list of attributes to guide us. What I also found really interesting is a trait that's not on the list - "Tolerance For Ambiguity." I've seen so many creative endeavors move from freedom to constraint too early or sometimes even flat out fold, not because it was the right time, but because the founders/artists/creators couldn't handle living in the question long enough to make the leap to stunning. Curious whether that's something you look for and, if so, how?

362 points by anateus 16y ago

That fifth item, like the post originally mentioning as something that dooms startups, gets me every time. Having a solid co-founder seems to be the hardest part, and honestly, it helps with all the others. It helps you be more flexible since two people can see things more ways. Gives you more imagination by the same route. It helps you be more determined since one can pull the other up if he/she gets too demoralized. Finding a co-founder is hard, though. I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability to sell something seems vital in getting a startup going.

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BrandonM 16y ago
> I'm also surprised that none of these points mention marketing - an ability to sell something seems vital in getting a startup going. I agree. One of the best assets for a good founder with tech-skills is a business/marketing founder. She can keep the ball rolling on the business things that would halt or slow software development, and during development she can be out discussing the product with potential customers. Once a MVP has been developed, she obviously becomes the sales and marketing manager. > Finding a co-founder is hard, though. Are you single? Notice that I said "she" above? Consider joining a dating site and trying to meet some cool women who have business or marketing backgrounds (obviously women that you would like to date as well). I've only been on OKCupid for a month, and I've already met a couple really cool, driven women who would be an amazing asset to a startup. I'm not saying to jump straight into a relationship just so that you can start your startup. My intent was simply to point out one way of meeting a potential cofounder, a way you probably never considered. There are countless other "hacks" that can be employed for meeting cofounders; you just have to put yourself into situations where you're likely to meet the kind of people you'd like to meet. It's really that easy.
- ramanujan 16y ago
  You probably don't want to do that. A new relationship is a green sprig which must be carefully tended, not an oak tree capable of bearing heavy load.
  - BrandonM 16y ago
    I didn't mean to jump into a startup with someone that you've only been in a relationship with for a short time. I was just trying to point out a way of meeting a cofounder that others may not have considered. While it's clearly not a good idea to cofound a startup with a new significant other, I completely disagree with characterizing a new relationship as a "green sprig." If the relationship is so tenuous that it can't handle a little stress and strain, then is it really worth trying to "tend" into a long-term relationship? From experience, that just delays the inevitable breakup. Characterizing a new relationship like that also carries the implicit assumption that it's the last relationship you're capable of having. While I do my best to avoid hurting anyone, if a relationship is not working out there are other relationships to be had.
- JimboOmega 16y ago
  As my story goes, I met someone about 6 months into my year-long startup experiment. As luck would have it, she had relevant skills... and she did help a lot with my startup, but not on the level of a co-founder. She isn't that interested in cleaning up the existing mess and the subject matter and targeted audience don't really interest her. That startup sort of burned out, for reasons not worth going into. If we could find a new idea on a topic we're both passionate about (like travel), we'd pursue it. Also, she's more technical (front-end) while I'm also technical (back-end), and neither of us have much business/marketing background.
  - BrandonM 16y ago
    That's excellent! So why did you say having a co-founder is the hardest part? Surely there's some way you can help the world doing something that interests the both of you.
MrFlibble 16y ago
Marketing is crucial indeed. It irks me to no end that so many have faith in the "If we build it they will come" business model. Word of mouth only goes so far. You can have the best site in the entire world but if nobody knows about it you will fail. While there are numerous companies doing variants of most ideas out there, more often than not it is the one with the most market visibility who ultimately gains traction, even if that product is less impressive than the competition.

adammichaelc 16y ago

"He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications." Very interesting.

mrchess 16y ago

Wish I knew about the emphasis about hacking a system question and I would have elaborated on my application.... Although it is a difficult question to put emphasis on IMO because it also makes you in a way "reveal" your bad morals... which I am sure many people don't feel comfortable doing. Why would you ever want to openly admit you beat ie. cheated a system be it government, academic, or private? Not to imply that I ever have... err... gotta run!

edanm 16y ago
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to "beat" a system. Sometimes it involves a win-win situation.
wolfrom 16y ago
I think it depends on the system. Making a system more efficient often depends on bending the rules. We had trouble coming up with examples for our application, because most of the "hacking" we've done isn't anything to brag about. But at the same time, we do need to show that we're willing to ask forgiveness later if we can't get permission now.
araneae 16y ago
Right. Like I started forging the report cards I gave to my parents starting in 8th grade. I'm not proud of that. Would I really put that on an application?
- raganwald 16y ago
  I have no idea what Y Combinator thinks about the answer to that question. But if Paul asked me to help out by reviewing some applications, I'd probably send you an email asking how that was to your advantage.
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adammichaelc 16y ago

I can attest to the part about intelligence not being as critical as you might think. The last company I started was with a guy who was brilliant. He dreamed in code and had been hacking since he was 6 or 7. But he had a hard time finishing, and so I couldn't depend on him. I think the startup failed for multiple reasons and I definitely shoulder a large part of the failure, but next time I do a startup I will make absolutely sure that anybody I start it with is absolutely dependable and determined to finish.

slantyyz 16y ago
If everything was about raw intelligence, the world would be a totally different place today. I have a similar story as yours - I once worked with a guy with a genius level IQ, but he had trust issues and he was horrible with money. As in the OP, it's really a recipe of traits that make a startup successful.

araneae 16y ago

I have a pretty good friend on here that has The Best answer to the "hacked" question, and I would never, ever be co-founders with him because he's impossible. There's often a trade-off between "naughtiness" and "friendship."

bobf 16y ago
I thought pg's comment on "naughtiness" was interesting, as I was tempted to use a shorter version of the story I'll relate below in response to the "hacked" question, as it was a very recent experience. I ultimately shied away from using it as my answer, as I thought it might be a little socially unacceptable ("naughty"). At Startup School, there was a line of several hundred people waiting for lunch, which consisted of a dozen or so different kinds of pizza stacked in piles of 7-10 boxes each. We had a group of 3-4 people, looked at the line, and someone said, "This line is ridiculous. How can we hack this system?" Someone suggested going somewhere else on campus to eat, but we wanted to stay and mingle. Someone else in the group knew people farther up in the line, and suggested skipping ahead in the line. Ultimately, I simply squeezed through near the front of the line, grabbed a whole box of pizza, and took it back for our group to share. This kept our group from further clogging the line and seemed much more efficient than 3-4 of us waiting to select our 1-2 pieces each. Hopefully no hungry Startup School attendees were upset by our line hackery, as we thought it was a pretty win-win hack.
- Jun8 16y ago
  See, I think that's an example of the "bad hack" because it has the potential of damaging people, e.g. what if I was standing in that line for 15mins ahead of you and because you took that box of pizza, just when my turn comes the pizza runs out (you think it's unlikely? Then you haven't been to the wild world of college-student-after-event-pizza-eating). My definition of a hack is to add value to the an existing system by modifying a property, not changing a zero-sum situation in your favor. for example, in your case, the number of pizzas are fixed, so it's a zero-sum situation. A better hack I usually propose in situations like this is to use both sides of the table, simple but generally people tend to pick pizza from one side only.

maxklein 16y ago

I bet 80% of people reading that list are thinking: This describes me perfectly.

raganwald 16y ago
I was about to post how this list makes me question leaving BigCo. I must be in the 20%, I don't think I have any of these qualities, and behold, my bank account tells me that none of my ventures have succeeded.
- edanm 16y ago
  If you've worked on several ventures, I would guess you're more determined than most of the population. Most people only talk or dream of actually working on projects, and never actually do anything with it.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    Thanks! Your kind words are much appreciated. I sometimes have the wrong kind of determination. I created a program for managing classified ads, a desktop database-backed app that integrated with Aldus (yes, that long ago) PageMaker. I did some stuff I'm proud of, including finagling my way into the booth with Aldus at MacWorld and posing for a picture with Guy Kawasaki (a hero of mine those days)... And yes, I sold my software in Canada, the US, and even South America. But my pricing model was all wrong, I didn't grasp that the reason my competition charged 3-5x the amount that I charged (US$795) was that it cost so much to sell software at that time, the cost of ramen was irrelevant. It took me a while to figure this out. I think the turning point was when I looked out of my apartment window and realized that the bank had towed my car away. Anyways, I had the persistence of a bull, but as the OP notes, a little flexibility would have gone a long way.
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- slantyyz 16y ago
  But you're pretty well known (at least in some programming circles in Canada) and you've been involved in some pretty successful ventures. That should count for something. --edit by ventures, i mean senior roles in other people's ventures

edanm 16y ago

2 questions on the "friendship" issue: 1. How do you judge whether co-founders are good friends? I'm guessing a simple "how long have they been working together" test is a good indication, but anything else? 2. What level of feedback do you usually give teams that didn't make it? Especially teams that got to the interview stage but didn't make it through? I'm wondering if you've ever told a team your suspicions that they're not good enough friends (I'm assuming if you did, you phrased it better than that.)

baran 16y ago
I think its less of a friendship issue and more of the ability to "get" each other. My co-founder and I have been working for almost 1.5 years on our startup. We have gone through so many iterations, we can see into each others minds. When an issue comes up, I know exactly what he is thinking and vis-versa. This ability is invaluable during negotiations, meetings, etc. I don't think of us being on a friendship level, but its something greater. Its been said, its almost like your married to your co-founder - an analogy which is pretty much true. Your futures are tied together.
pg 16y ago
There are a lot of ways. Many of the questions on the YC application are at least partially about this. When and how did the founders meet? What have they worked on together? Even the stock split sometimes tells us a lot. Yes, we've told groups that we weren't funding them because their friendship didn't seem strong enough to withstand a startup. You'd be surprised some of the meltdowns we've seen in interviews.
- edanm 16y ago
  Do you mostly care about groups sticking together long enough to get to profitability? Or are you also concerned about the founders having the same mindset?
  - pg 16y ago
    Just sticking together. They don't have to have the same mindset. E.g. Jobs and Wozniak.

bradly 16y ago

Definitely finding a co-founder has been the hardest part for me. Not living in the valley currently, you don't have as big of a pool to find people. Also, the type of person that makes a great co-founder(smart, determined, etc.) usually have good things going on already. The people that I talked to that would have been great to work with were all doing great work currently and couldn't commit. It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for startups.

nkassis 16y ago
I've had the same issue, all the best people I know are happy where they are. But I've managed to get some of them to agree to help me part time
rmorrison 16y ago
It would be really awesome if YC put on some type of match-making event for single founders to find co-founders in person. Like a speed dating event for startups. I feel like that would be somewhat counter-productive for YC. They're looking for people who are going to be Flexible and Determined to make the startup happen, regardless of what obstacles get thrown in the way. Finding a co-founder is one of the first real obstacles, and will definitely not be the hardest one over the life of the startup. By exemplifying the qualities listed in this essay, a single founder should be able to find at least one solid co-founder.
- bradly 16y ago
  Well I believe my startup will be successful even without a co-founder, so I don't think wanting to meet a co-founder makes someone less determined. Even though I am confident I can make this happen on my own I would still rather have a co-founder than not for all the reasons that PG describes. If better startups comes from an event that helps founders connect, I think it would be a good thing for everyone.
portman 16y ago
It sounds like you're trying to find a cofounder amongst people you don't currently know. I'm not aware of any examples of successful cofounders who hadn't previously worked together. What about your current colleagues? Long lost friends from university? Neighbors?

brlewis 16y ago

The running back metaphor appeals to me. I wonder how far you can take it. Running backs pivot for something that will completely stop them. The fact that getting downfield will take a long time does not make them pivot. Does this analogy make a good rule of thumb for startup pivot decisions?

baran 16y ago
If my startup is a running back, I feel like I'm Barry Sanders.
slantyyz 16y ago
The metaphor can only go as far as the person to whom you are using it with likes or even cares about American football.
access_denied 16y ago
> The running back metaphor appeals to me. I wonder how far you can take it. That's an easy one: you can take it as far as the American border outside thereoff nobody knows what a running back actually does.

noelsequeira 16y ago

A year and a half into our first startup, I can see why determination (or should I go out on a limb and say downright stubbornness) is so highly rated. We built a decent product in roughly 6 months, and began engaging with enterprise customers. 6 frustrating months of trade shows / cold calls / presentations later, we had a couple of potential customers but things seemed way too stagnant; their intent to purchase just wasn't apparent. We were running low on cash and the first visible cracks in our patience were emerging, but we stayed put. And that's probably because we've known each other for over 5 years and each of us didn't want to let the others in the team down. And then suddenly a month later we received our first purchase order. Okay, it wasn't exactly sudden - we'd followed up a million times with the client and iterated on the product each and every time. But nothing else had changed, we hadn't done anything significantly different in that one month. And that had us convinced that patience can be a real virtue. We've not exactly dug ourselves out of a hole yet, but we're getting there (with several promising leads in the pipeline) and more importantly, a repeat order as well as a testimonial from our first customer. EDIT: Just in case you thought the story above was manufactured, here's the a link to the testimonial [PDF] http://creativeriot.com/resources/[Enpower]%20CoreLogic%20-%20Case%20study.pdf http://creativeriot.com/resources/[Enpower]%20CoreLogic%20-%...

Keyframe 16y ago

My accountant (with eons of experience): Worst thing you can do when founding a company is to found it as a partnership Take it as you will. My personal take is that, if partnership (among several founders) is really strong (friendship from this essay) - then it's certainly better than doing it alone - backed by high profile success stories. On the other hand, I've seen too much companies fall apart because of the partnership - not their business (I have two personal experiences with it). Question is how do you judge a friendship among founders? Can you spot the weakest link?

scott_s 16y ago
Consider that perhaps your accountant has a different perspective. Accountants don't get involved until the company makes enough money to need an accountant. So his perspective, which he may not realize, may be "Given that a company succeeds, it's better to have been started by a single person." PG has a different perspective. He's less concerned with questions which assume a company has succeeded; he's more concerned with questions about whether or not a company will succeed. So PG's perspective is more "A company is more likely to succeed with multiple founders." My point: the two perspectives seem mutually exclusive, but they may not be.
- Keyframe 16y ago
  Accountants don't get involved until the company makes enough money to need an accountant. Actually, here in Croatia every form of company is obliged by law to have a licensed accountant (working for them or contract). You can't do your own paperwork - and TBH I wouldn't want to, it is too much liability if something goes wrong when filing papers.
  - btilly 16y ago
    And that fact would constitute a major drag on ever developing a startup culture. See http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html http://www.paulgraham.com/america.html for some of the other ones.
    - 16y ago

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brk 16y ago
So. Fix it. Not sure what your personality mismatch was, but I would tend to believe it's something you could alter/improve/change if you consciously wanted to. Of course, if you REALLY can't get over the "sting" of a simple rejection, then you might find that the never-ending stream of "no"'s and doubts you run across in trying to get something off the ground would be more than you were able to deal with.
- deleted 16y ago
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Alex3917 16y ago

"We thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would be intelligence." Being intelligent in Silicon Valley matters about as much as the price of tea in China. It's not that being intelligent isn't important, it's that there is such an oversupply of intelligent people that being intelligent really doesn't add that much value or differentiate you. Especially since everyone you meet is more than happy to tell you what to do, along with the market itself.

mlinsey 16y ago
Higher than average intelligence is in oversupply, but super-genius intelligence never is. However, there are diminishing returns to ever-higher intelligence for most startups.
pjscott 16y ago
The price of tea in China actually varies by orders of magnitude depending on the tea. Some teas are surprisingly fancy, especially in a country with a long history of tea-drinking.

javadi82 16y ago

I thought my browser didn't load the complete article because I couldn't see your obligatory "thanks to X, Y and Z for reading this"...and I kept scrolling. Thanks for the great article, btw.

pg 16y ago
Oops, fixed; thanks.

jdp23 16y ago

> They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. or more accurately, "not the rules we think matter".

pg 16y ago
If you wanted to be that accurate, you could prepend "I think" to every statement in every essay written. That's implicit, except in proofs.
- jdp23 16y ago
  Here though it's in a context about morality and proprietries, and what's "naughty" vs "evil". So I think it's especially valuable to emphasize the subjectivity.

kmak 16y ago

Running back comment is somewhat amusing, if only because a recent article on ESPN said that Chris Johnson's total yardage is down because he's always aiming for the HR, thus lowering his average yardage, trying to find and create space that aren't available. I guess sometimes you got to take what they give you, but for YC they aim only for the HR, so it's not that relevant.

Omnipresent 16y ago

where does the imagination of 'will this work?' come in? Or do you need to have determination of pursuing all ideas you believe 'will work'. Eventually, one will work?

Andrew_Quentin 16y ago

PG, Aren't you misleading the young by so strongly suggesting that their start up needs a friend. Was it Mark... the Facebook founder who created the empire by himself? Perhaps it is your opinion that friends do better, but to so strongly state it as a requirement aren't you perhaps implicitly disproving any sole founder start up and if so you are, why would you?

starkness 16y ago
Even that Mark had two cofounders: Chris and Dustin. And they were all roommates.

chegra 16y ago

It is pretty hard to change who you are at the core. But the thing about it is that you have your own way of succeeding. You see at some point in life, you more than likely have succeeded. Instead of determination, you have passion. Instead of flexibility, you are a perfectionist. Instead of imagination, you can communicate well. Instead of being naughty, you are efficient. Instead of a partner, you are well connected. The things that pg talks about takes years to develop, especially naughtiness and partnership. So instead of spending two years building a friendship to apply to yc, just go build the business. Inevitably, someone will want to join you when it is finished built. So yes, if you are undetermined, inflexible, unimaginative, goodie to shoe, friendless, go build your dream. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

mcyger 16y ago
Well said. There's no one "perfect person" that will succeed, although the article by PG would imply otherwise (since YC only wants entrepreneurs and start-ups that will be successful...hence the application/interview questions). The key is to use your core strengths to your advantage.
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dabent 16y ago
"So instead of spending two years building a friendship to apply to yc, just go build the business. Inevitably, someone will want to join you when it is finished built." I just connected with an old friend who saw something I just built and wants to join in. If you build something that's cool, people will indeed want to join in.
ig1 16y ago
I imagine if you build something cool and get traction, YC will consider you even as a single founder.
- pg 16y ago
  We do fund single founders. There were 2 this summer. We just have a higher threshold with single founders, because it's harder to succeed as one. The last 3 of the 5 we'd compromise on if the person was good in other respects. Only the first 2 are essential. It's hard to imagine a startup succeeding without at least one person who was determined and flexible. It's just the nature of the domain.

makeramen 16y ago

Huh, first thing I thought was "can I go back and change my answer to that 'describe something you hacked..' question?" There are so many ways to interpret that question from the way the worded it.

mrchess 16y ago
My thoughts exactly, I had no idea that that was the intention of that question especially since it had no context.

atomical 16y ago

"As soon as we heard they'd been supporting themselves by selling Obama and McCain branded breakfast cereal, they were in. And it turned out the idea was on the right side of crazy after all." How about Sarah Palin tea?

hasenj 16y ago

I'm still skeptical about the whole co-founder thing. Sure, maybe if you're building youtube or justin.tv, and you need to talk to investors or talk face-to-face to potential clients or make deals with giant media corporations gasp then you probably can't do it as a single-founder. But, there is a large space of problems that can be solved by a single founder. But I suppose if you're determined enough you won't be bothered too much by people telling you must have a co-founder. So instead of looking for a co-founder, look for problems that are small enough to be solve-able by you, but hard enough that a big company can't solve it properly.

jedberg 16y ago
The purpose of a cofounder is not to help alleviate load. It is to have someone tell you no, that your idea/implementation/justification sucks. They question your moves and make you justify them. Having a cofounder keeps you in check and keeps you from straying too far off the successful path.
- hasenj 16y ago
  This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders with you. AFAIK, PG's argument is that it's a lot of stress doing a startup on your own.
  - ammmir 16y ago
    i'm looking for a co-founder, but i don't feel it's imperative to find one at the idea or pre-prototype stages. not having a co-founder shouldn't stop anyone from pursuing their idea or working on a prototype. if it does, you're missing ingredient #1: determination.
  - jedberg 16y ago
    > This can be done by friends/relatives who are interested in supporting you without having the technical skills or free time to actually be co-founders with you. Sure, but it is much more effective when someone is in the venture with you, and their success is tied to yours. Your friends and family are much more likely to just say "yeah, that's a good idea". No risk on their part.

johnrob 16y ago

I think YC should consider removing the "describe your idea" portion of the application. I can imagine that there's some value in it for the reviewers, but I'm pretty sure its presence inevitably causes applicants to over value it (and under value the people portion). Every time a YC partner gives advice about applying, emphasis is always made about how important the team is (as opposed to the idea). The data might be signaling something here. If there was nowhere to describe your idea in the application then it would be obvious how important the team is.

jdavid 16y ago

#friendship Maybe you should ask, if you don't have a co-founder, why? And what would you look for in a good 1st hire/ partner?

jdavid 16y ago

#naughtiness if you are looking for a less than kosher time a founder hacked the system. maybe you should ask for that. i know personally would have put a more vulnerable answer up there.

rexreed 16y ago

Is lack of distractions or possessing some financial independence anywhere on the list of what is good for founders? By this I mean -- if there are financial or non-startup distractions, could this be detrimental? Does not having a family to take care of rank more favorably than not? Just askin.

jdavid 16y ago

Questions #Determination " maybe you should ask for a time when you saw something through, something that was tough, and at your core hard to do. basically what was your last marathon?" # flexibility " when were your basic assumptions challenged, and how did you adapt or over come them? "

spenrose 16y ago

My concern about Paul's vision has always been (2), flexibility. It is my humble belief that you should care what you succeed at, not just that you succeed at something. On this point Paul seems to be leading in the opposite direction from Tim O'Reilly ("work on stuff that matters"), and I wish he would do a 180.

wmf 16y ago
It is my humble belief that you should care what you succeed at I know how you feel, but if that empirically produces a lower probability of success then what can you do?
- spenrose 16y ago
  You can fail, pick yourself up, and try again. You can increase your probability of doing good, and accept the tradeoff WRT business success. I should add that I think Paul presents a very clear vision of why he thinks this is not a problem: his mantra about finding a problem a real person needs solved and solving it (substitute actual quotation here). My objection is that where this leads you is to unexploited niches in the market ecosystem -- returning to Tim's language, to focus on capturing value rather than creating it. I suspect Paul tart rejoinder would be that a happy customer is much better evidence of value created than fuzzy dreams of do-gooderism are. I believe he is partly wrong. I hope he will speak for himself on this topic.
- bjelkeman-again 16y ago
  I'd rather be moderately successful doing something that matters than very successful selling sugared water.
  - bobf 16y ago
    If you become successful at <random common, unimportant thing>, you can leverage that to pursue <really great idea>. One example that comes to mind is Andrew Mason's Groupon talk at Startup School. Before Groupon, the Groupon guys ran "The Point", which tried to organize people to solve societal problems, including such ambitious, world changing ideas like building a climate dome over Chicago to avoid the brutal winters there. Obviously, the climate dome was never built, and "The Point" pivoted into Groupon. Although I don't think Andrew Mason has enough leverage/money/etc. to build that climate dome, he's certainly a lot closer today with Groupon's success than he was previously.

jdavid 16y ago

I suppose these are good questions for a potential co-founder. I wonder if one could check a box on their application to add it to the co-founder pool?

gojomo 16y ago

Kind of reminds me of D&D abilities... Dtr 16 Flx 15 Img 18 Nty 16 Frd 14 ...though the value placed on 'naughtiness' is more like a preference for a 'chaotic good' alignment.

sstoneii 16y ago

The "hacking the system" question on the application was probably the hardest one for me. While nothing just sticks out in my mind of hacking something I would say that I do and accomplish what most people can't do on a daily basis. In dealing with people; a smile always helps, the right attitude and disposition can start a movement, and looking at things from a "how could I fail?" point of view ALWAYS changes the rules of what a so called deal breaker is. example: When I applied to college in 1999 I was accepted right away however my parents made entirely too much money for me to get adequate loans and grant money. So I used my graduation money from HS and had my parents to pack up all must stuff and drive me down to the financial aid office(425 miles away). After a bit of sincere "asking" and explaining the situation I was in. VIOLA!!! Money started raining on my college dream. Saying all that to say I was a good looking kid, with a personality you had to see (because writing does not convey everything), and had I not been determined to have them tell me no to my face I would have never attended that school. Did I hack anything? By no means...did I use what I had to have the circumstances in my favor? Absolutely!

HiroshiSan 16y ago

Wonderful post, I especially love the part about naughtiness, when it's time for me to apply to ycombinator I will share my little ninja hack that I used for about 2 months ;). I didn't know about airbnb until now, thanks for introducing me to the site.

ig1 16y ago

+1 for determination. I've been involved in the early stages of a number of non-profits, time-and-time again it's clearly been determination above all else that drives success. I recently read "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas" (It's sort of like Founders at Work but about non-profits), and again reading all the founders stories, it's clear the single factor that unites them is their determination about their cause.

ptn 16y ago

pg: would you show an example of an impressive answer to the question about hacking a system to one's advantage?

msg 16y ago
How about Dick Hamming's thing at Bell Labs about crediting programming help in scientific papers? (from You and Your Research) I also did a second thing. When I loaned what little programming power we had to help in the early days of computing, I said, "We are not getting the recognition for our programmers that they deserve. When you publish a paper you will thank that programmer or you aren't getting any more help from me. That programmer is going to be thanked by name; she's worked hard." I waited a couple of years. I then went through a year of BSTJ articles and counted what fraction thanked some programmer. I took it into the boss and said, "That's the central role computing is playing in Bell Labs; if the BSTJ is important, that's how important computing is." He had to give in. You can educate your bosses. It's a hard job. In this talk I'm only viewing from the bottom up; I'm not viewing from the top down. But I am telling you how you can get what you want in spite of top management. You have to sell your ideas there also.
philwelch 16y ago
I'm not pg, but this is probably the best place to tell one of my favorite stories. The highway navigational signs in LA are notoriously confusing, especially this one sign in particular which didn't make sufficiently obvious an exit onto I-5. So some local took note of the sign and started to work. He found out exactly what paint colors to use, cut some sheet metal the right way, and made a North I-5 shield. Then he made himself a counterfeit Caltrans (California highway department) uniform, went to the sign, and altered it with the counterfeit shield to point out the exit. (He even made the shield dirty, to make it seem like it had been there for some time rather than being newly installed.) It was nine months before the highway department even noticed--and when they did, they didn't even change it back. It stayed up for years until the sign was completely replaced--complete with this guy's alteration. I don't know if that qualifies as hacking a system to one's advantage, or even as a hack, but I think it gets at the underlying personality trait. Links: http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-real-public-service/ http://www.good.is/post/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-... http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html http://www.ankrom.org/freeway_signs.html

ScottBurson 16y ago

This surprises me: You do not however want the kind of determination implied by phrases like "don't give up on your dreams". I would put it diifferently. Don't give up on your dreams, but ask yourself which is more important to you: to have a successful high-growth startup, or to do something in particular? If there is a specific thing you want to do or build, then be prepared for the (likely) possibility that it won't make a good startup. It might make a great hobby or even a successful lifestyle business. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it -- it just means YC will not be able to help you. But maybe your dream is to have a fast-growing, high-impact startup, and it doesn't matter so much exactly what it is, as long as it's somewhere in the general area you're interested in. Then perhaps YC may want to get involved. You're still pursuing your dream, I would argue, it's just a different kind of dream from a particular project that someone else might want to do.

markkat 16y ago

Oh cool. Then YC will either pick us, or my friends and I will unceasingly try countless creative ways to change their mind, and they might not all be legal. Your choice, YC. ;)

varun43in 16y ago

I'm currently the only founder for my startup and have a CS/Engineering background. I find that almost everybody I talk to seem to think its crazy or impossible for a single person startup to succeed. I wonder what the whole deal is about: - is it because they feel its too much work for one person? - they assume that one person cannot be motivated/determined enough to make a startup successful? - or is it just based on the fact that most of the successful startup were stared by 2-3 person teams.. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this guys..

yurylifshits 16y ago
Just search "single founder". There were tons of threads on that. http://searchyc.com/single+founder http://searchyc.com/single+founder

Mz 16y ago

I'm golden on all counts ...except for the general lack of friends. :-/ (Do grown sons who are insanely loyal make a good substitute? I'm hoping they do. :-D) Um, not that I am applying to YC. Just hoping to escape BigCo and go do my own thing.

zbruhnke 16y ago

I found the "things you've hacked" question very interesting. My answer to it was something that is not actually "legal" so i was a little wary of putting it, but it puts noone in real danger and was an example of what was basically my first endeavor into embedded programming and RFID. I hope the YC crew saw it as something fun and interesting and not criminal lol but it any case I found it relevant to the topic and really enjoyed the question

addoway 16y ago

I am firm believer that if you know you are going to succeed, then you will no matter what you are working on. It might not be your current project and it might not be the next, but it will come. You need the right energy, positive attitude, and patience.

hariis 16y ago

What would be the value of this article? You are who you are. Some are innate qualities and some are simply the cards that you have been dealt with. You have to become what you want to be with what you got and then some one will write an article some day mentioning you as a reference and the qualities you have as the key to being a founder :)

Estragon 16y ago
This is discussed elsewhere in the thread. Search for Dweck

matthewharden 16y ago

Like all "lists," I would take and file away as a "best practice;" particularly one that comes from Paul Graham. Just don't let the list limit you from executing the plan for your dream. YC even has a place for this on their application...it's called "hacking the system!" The lesser of these have achieved greatness. Many said I would never finish college and law school while being married, but two bar exams later...

jswinghammer 16y ago

I struggled to think about how I would answer the "Naughty" question. I thought about it for awhile and remembered something that happened almost 15 years ago. I hated high school with a passion that still surprises me when I look back on it. My high school allowed kids who got accepted to college to go and have school pay for it while getting credit for college and high school. This sounded great to me but getting accepted was going to be a challenge because I wasn't a great student and I was only 15 at the time. I met with the admissions officer at the college I wanted to attend and she wasn't sure at all about me. I had reviewed the course catalog before the meeting and made her a suggestion. I said "If I take a 400 level course and get an "A" would that prove to you that I'm up to doing college level work?" She said yes and I suggested that I take a course on the history of World War 2. World War 2 was a mild obsession of mine from 13-14 and I still to this day remember reading pages and pages of statistics about shipping losses during various times during the war. I knew every imaginable detail about virtually anything that had to do with World War 2. She didn't know this of course and warned me many times about what I was getting myself into in signing up for this course. I was accepted with the provision that we would review my grades after the semester was over. I received the highest grade in the class and the entire course catalog was open to me until I graduated from high school. This ended up working in my favor in many ways but the most obvious benefit was that I graduated high school with virtually all of my liberal arts electives done without having to pay anything for it. Not sure if this is the spirit of the question or not but it seems like it to me.

danilocampos 16y ago
Sounds pretty bad ass to me. Damn, nice work. I think it boils down to this: Do you tolerate bullshit or do you proactively stack the deck for personal advantage? In this case you leveraged the hell out of a unique personal quirk and created an opportunity for yourself that wouldn't otherwise exist. To use a poker analogy (Thanks, Tony Hsieh), you picked the table where you knew you could win. You knew you'd do better at the college level and you exploited information asymmetry with both the college administrator and your college-level peers. This is the very essence of how successful people and businesses work. You also showed some moxy and cunning with someone much older and more powerful than you, which is unusual at that age. You thought many moves ahead and won, reaping huge upside. That's 98th percentile at least, man.

QuantumGood 16y ago

In #1 and elsewhere they reference "a certain threshold of intelligence." So isn't that #6?

iphoneedbot 16y ago

Thing I noticed about successful startups with friends as co-founders is that they are pretty young and both have entrepreneurial spirit. (Plus, the requisite complimentary skill-set) Those are surprisingly uncommon combinations What if your circle of friends are not entrepreneurial? What if your friends that /are\ entrepreneurial already have startups? --then, of course; you'd have to find a co-founder (thats not a friend) or motivate a friend to be entrepreneurial - but, that in itself almost defeats the spirit of #5. I do believe friends are very important, families as well. 1) They'll keep you motivated. 2) They'll give you advice/input. 3) They'll give you support; (tech expertise, business feedback and connections, etc..) The quarter back, and the running back need not be friends to win the championships.

JonathanFields 16y ago

PG - Great list of attributes to guide us. What I also found really interesting is a trait that's not on the list - "Tolerance For Ambiguity." I've seen so many creative endeavors move from freedom to constraint too early or sometimes even flat out fold, not because it was the right time, but because the founders/artists/creators couldn't handle living in the question long enough to make the leap to stunning. Curious whether that's something you look for and, if so, how?