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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 wo

by 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.
robg 16y ago
Is there a meaningful difference between friends who decide to do a startup together versus folks who decide to do a startup together and then become friends? The highest profile successes seem to be more an instance of the latter, but then success seems to help smooth any differences of opinion.
- pg 16y ago
  Yes, because in most startups there's a point where things seem hopeless. At that point the startup itself has no power to hold you together, because its expected value is (or appears to be) zero. You need a strong friendship to keep you together. E.g. I know for sure there were lots of times when Rtm thought Viaweb was never going to amount to anything, and only worked on it because I asked him to.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    There would seem to be a huge hack around that - I work with a guy who gets _really_ obsessive about stuff, so much so that he forgets to eat, etc. Maybe you should focus on getting more people who are turned on by an idea, rather than because their friends might get burned.
  - robg 16y ago
    Were Woz and Jobs "friends"? Don't Page and Brin claim explicitly they weren't? It seems more like the shared purpose brought those pairs closer together than where they started or where they would have ended up had they never worked together. That example of Viaweb helps clarify the distinction I'm thinking of. You guys were friends and so worked together despite differing convictions. But what of people who share a common purpose and in so doing become friends? Is there room in your model for that instance of the concept?
    - portman 16y ago
      I don't know about Woz/Jobs, but Page/Brin were definitely friends when they started a company. They may not have been friends when they started collaborating on their first research project, but at the moment they were "co-founders", they had already become friends.
      - robg 16y ago
        A lot had also changed by that point - namely they failed in selling the technology to Excite. Would they have stayed friends had they gotten the $1 million they wanted? Shared trials make and break friendships.
      - dirtyaura 16y ago
        Jobs and Woz, as surprising as it might sound given the difference in personalities, were friends, based on what I've read, which is Woz's interview in Founders at Work and Sculley's Odyssey: Pepsi To Apple.
    - mechanical_fish 16y ago
johnglasgow 16y ago
What are your thoughts the two founders being identical twin brothers?
- pg 16y ago
  So far siblings seem to work well.
slowpoison 16y ago
What would the ideal split be to be called the best of friends? 50-50? I can make a case for that and an uneven split too. Doesn't the split also depend on some combination of effort and potential of each founder?
dabent 16y ago
This is very interesting, and maybe goes against normal reasoning. I've heard the general idea is not to become business partners with friends, but the opposite seems to be true with startups. In the two startups I've been involved in previously, I hung in there because I didn't want to let the other person down. One ended up dissolving, but we remain on good terms. The other is ongoing, where I freelance, but give it my all because I don't want to let the other person down. The third is new, and I just was approached by an old friend who wants to get involved. I thought about it for a second, then realized he's the kind of person I don't want to let down and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.
twitter_v2 16y ago
Hi, just recently applied for the next winter round and thought I would get involved and get a few words in! ;-) So the chances of getting accepted as a single founder (which I am) is harder, but surely having a flexible single founder willing to adapt, either by changing his idea or even to team up with other applicants to form a better foundation to move forward, is equally as good (or as risky) as Friends being co-founders. My point is, founders (friends, coders, family etc) could prove to consume more valuable time managing their personalities rather than getting the job done in the first 3 months to get VC's interested or even be accepted by Y-C as pointed out by "pg" in a previous post. There is clearly huge talent being pitched here and I was just keen to hear if Y-C ever formed new partnerships by connecting people?

by pg 16y ago

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.

robg 16y ago

Is there a meaningful difference between friends who decide to do a startup together versus folks who decide to do a startup together and then become friends? The highest profile successes seem to be more an instance of the latter, but then success seems to help smooth any differences of opinion.

pg 16y ago
Yes, because in most startups there's a point where things seem hopeless. At that point the startup itself has no power to hold you together, because its expected value is (or appears to be) zero. You need a strong friendship to keep you together. E.g. I know for sure there were lots of times when Rtm thought Viaweb was never going to amount to anything, and only worked on it because I asked him to.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  There would seem to be a huge hack around that - I work with a guy who gets _really_ obsessive about stuff, so much so that he forgets to eat, etc. Maybe you should focus on getting more people who are turned on by an idea, rather than because their friends might get burned.
- robg 16y ago
  Were Woz and Jobs "friends"? Don't Page and Brin claim explicitly they weren't? It seems more like the shared purpose brought those pairs closer together than where they started or where they would have ended up had they never worked together. That example of Viaweb helps clarify the distinction I'm thinking of. You guys were friends and so worked together despite differing convictions. But what of people who share a common purpose and in so doing become friends? Is there room in your model for that instance of the concept?
  - portman 16y ago
    I don't know about Woz/Jobs, but Page/Brin were definitely friends when they started a company. They may not have been friends when they started collaborating on their first research project, but at the moment they were "co-founders", they had already become friends.
    - robg 16y ago
      A lot had also changed by that point - namely they failed in selling the technology to Excite. Would they have stayed friends had they gotten the $1 million they wanted? Shared trials make and break friendships.
    - dirtyaura 16y ago
      Jobs and Woz, as surprising as it might sound given the difference in personalities, were friends, based on what I've read, which is Woz's interview in Founders at Work and Sculley's Odyssey: Pepsi To Apple.
  - mechanical_fish 16y ago

johnglasgow 16y ago

What are your thoughts the two founders being identical twin brothers?

pg 16y ago
So far siblings seem to work well.

slowpoison 16y ago

What would the ideal split be to be called the best of friends? 50-50? I can make a case for that and an uneven split too. Doesn't the split also depend on some combination of effort and potential of each founder?

dabent 16y ago

This is very interesting, and maybe goes against normal reasoning. I've heard the general idea is not to become business partners with friends, but the opposite seems to be true with startups. In the two startups I've been involved in previously, I hung in there because I didn't want to let the other person down. One ended up dissolving, but we remain on good terms. The other is ongoing, where I freelance, but give it my all because I don't want to let the other person down. The third is new, and I just was approached by an old friend who wants to get involved. I thought about it for a second, then realized he's the kind of person I don't want to let down and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

twitter_v2 16y ago

Hi, just recently applied for the next winter round and thought I would get involved and get a few words in! ;-) So the chances of getting accepted as a single founder (which I am) is harder, but surely having a flexible single founder willing to adapt, either by changing his idea or even to team up with other applicants to form a better foundation to move forward, is equally as good (or as risky) as Friends being co-founders. My point is, founders (friends, coders, family etc) could prove to consume more valuable time managing their personalities rather than getting the job done in the first 3 months to get VC's interested or even be accepted by Y-C as pointed out by "pg" in a previous post. There is clearly huge talent being pitched here and I was just keen to hear if Y-C ever formed new partnerships by connecting people?