7 ms·

The Founder Dating Playbook

164 points by feifan 7y ago

doctorpangloss 7y ago
This affirms my experiences with getting to a venture-funded deal. The stylistic elements of this piece, not its content. Someone who can speak the product managerese--who takes 7,000 words to say something and look thoughtful while doing it--is so essential to getting to a venture-funded deal. Being on the other side of the process she describes sucks. Like nobody wants to be part of this imaginary, psuedo-scientific competition. In reality she just acquiesced to whatever the 6th person demanded. The process wore her down. If the process didn't wear her down, there would be no deal, because the deal only occurs when the product manager character moves along. In quintessential product manager form, the process disguised a completely emotionally-driven decision by providing a post-hoc rational for it.
opportune 7y ago
I find it strange to not just use your personal network to find somebody. I feel like this whole “detached cofounder” thing is for people making an implicit agreement that you both intend to screw each other over if you ever get the opportunity. But if you’re a “product person” I suppose you need someone to actually build the MVP for you so you can’t really do that part alone. Personally I’d rather do it alone than make a huge decision like this with some random. Passing an interview is easy if you know what to say, would be too hard to trust someone to not just try to get a free ride. And it takes a really long time to truly know someone, but it also seems crazy to me to spend up to half a year “cofounder dating” before you get to work; that seems like pseudo-productive procrastination more than anything
- cabaalis 7y ago
  I've been the subject at least one of these cofounder "dates" and the worst part is it was done under the auspices of speaking to someone who's found a modicum of success in a startup. The introduction given to me was that it was a person with an idea who wanted a sort of "mentor" in the space who can help navigate the technology aspects. The actual date consisted of them pitching me and gauging my interest. I was a little turned off. So my suggestion to the author of this article is to add "Be honest about why you're at the coffee shop." I did see this, though: > “‘Where do I find people?’ is one of the biggest questions I get when people ask me for advice. There isn’t a ‘Tinder for co-founders’ app that everyone is on. Sourcing is hard,” says Lin. Anyone up for a new project? :)
  - twic 7y ago
    > Anyone up for a new project? :) Ah, you mean good old 7885 Attend receptions, dinners, and conferences to meet people, exchange views and information, and develop working relationships.
  - opportune 7y ago
    I’m pretty sure that’s basically how accelerators work, unsuccessful accelarees (?) quickly become early employers or cofounders of the more successful ones
- jasode 7y ago
  >I find it strange to not just use your personal network to find somebody. Your sentiment is similar to the top-voted comment in a previous thread about this.[0] It seems insane and uncomfortable because we're using labels for people like "random stranger". But it's a paradox: before people become friends, they're strangers to each other. So how did they ever become friends?!? Before someone was in your personal network, they were previously _not_ in your personal network? So how did that status change?!? By meeting new people and seeing what type of interactions happen. There are no guarantees in life. All we can do is try to meet new people. Not everybody has a "cofounder" already existing in their personal network. (E.g. didn't go to same school at Stanford and not a coworker at a company job.) In that case, they have to grow their personal network with like-minded people who might be a cofounder. The "alternative" of starting a solo business may be less realistic and higher risk of failure than trying to find a cofounder that shares the same goals. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266463
  - opportune 7y ago
    Random stranger may be a label but it’s also an accurate description. I guess to me, it seems strange for someone, especially in tech in the Bay Area, to want to be a founder but have nobody in their personal network that they would like to work with also interested in being a founder who reciprocated that feeling. That is wildly different from what my social circle looks like, and I didn’t go to Stanford. In fact it’s so different that I would characterize it as somewhat of a red flag (very weak personal network? hard to work with, not likable? lazy? little tech exp?); of course, two people in similar situations probably wouldn’t see it that way and that’s fine, I’m just sharing my perspective. I don’t see why starting a solo business is unrealistic unless you lack some core competency in the business you are trying to start. In that case, yes you would need to start a different business. If you have a poor network, have a hard time finding a cofounder, and also have a hard time finding something within your core competency then you should probably be re-evaluating why you’re starting a business at all
    - jasode 7y ago
      >Random stranger may be a label but it’s also an accurate description. Right, and I'm not debating its accuracy; I'm saying that somehow the status changes from "random stranger" to "acquaintance/friend/partner". However, one sometimes has to go out and make an effort (meeting new people) to allow those changes of relationships to happen. >, to want to be a founder but have nobody in their personal network that they would like to work with also interested in being a founder who reciprocated that feeling. [...] I would characterize it as somewhat of a red flag Again, you calling it a "red flag" is fair. But the key is can someone attempt to change that red flag? E.g. the author of this article Gloria Lin went on "cofounder dates" to overcome that instead of just looking at her personal network as a static list of people and just give up. >I don’t see why starting a solo business is unrealistic unless you lack some core competency in the business you are trying to start. I'll take myself as an example... I hypothetically could start a solo business but none of them I can do are interesting to me and therefore I'd fail due to losing motivation. I want to start a B2C business and the one I have in mind is complex enough that it requires a very strong partner (and possibly even 3 cofounders). Most everybody in my personal network is risk-averse and not the folks I'd ask to quit their jobs for an uncertain future. But the limitations of my personal network doesn't squash my desire to build a B2C business. Drew Houston didn't go on a cofounder matchmaking website but it took a friend-of-a-friend to find his cofounder (Arash Ferdowsi) for DropBox.[1] But yes, you still have to cautious because the business relationship can fall apart -- even among coworkers that supposedly knew each other for years before starting a company. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44766487 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44766487
thrwwy487 7y ago
I didn't flag this article, but I consider it very inappropriate. Romantic or sexual analogies should not be used in the workplace or startups. It's just the wrong word to use.
- scient 7y ago
  What? Are you being serious right now? You must be fun at parties.
dumbfoundded 7y ago
My best co-founder is someone who I would almost certainly spend little or no time with outside of work. Our personalities are polar opposites. Together we've bootstrapped a $2.5M ARR business in 16 months. Some thoughts: - Cofounders are high stress and high time relationships. You want to find someone who doesn't burn everything down every time they get stressed. Finding someone who deals with stress in a healthy way is huge. - Don't let the small things get in the way of the big things. You have to have tolerance for each other's mistakes. This was a huge problem for me and a previous cofounder. The way I handle it now with my cofounder is we set a price on mistakes. If you want to take a $1,000 risk, we don't even discuss it. A $10,000, we talk about. - I generally prefer people driven by discipline than passion. Passion cracks under pressure. Discipline keeps working. - Ego. Find someone who doesn't think they're god. I know in the SV hype messiah driven world of startups everyone tries to be the prophet. Avoid these people. For me, someone who has confidence but not arrogance is huge.
- bryanmgreen 7y ago
  All good tips and ones I've learned over time as well. Particularly like the "set a price on mistakes" part. I think communicating there is a healthy amount of mistake-tolerance does wonders for long-term personal and professional growth. Just for curiosity, how do you think you and your co-founder would proceed if there was misjudgement about a $1,000 risk that turned into a $10,000 one?
  - dumbfoundded 7y ago
    Of course, we'd talk about it. If a mistake blows up we have to talk about it. The point I'm trying to get across is that you have to be willing to let your partners make mistakes. Also, you have to trust that your partner is going to learn from their mistakes. I like adding a dollar amount to it because it gets you in the right mindset of focusing on important things. I think as a cofounder, it's your job to step in if you think someone's going to take the company over a cliff. Otherwise, give each other room to grow. Everyone in an early company is required to learn aka make mistakes until you stop making those mistakes.
kadabra9 7y ago
My friends outside of work aren't really technical, nor do they have any interest in startups. I've tried a handful of those founder dating sites, gone to meetups, user groups, met for coffee/beers, and even travelled to meet up with other like minded folks and try to get a feel about who would be a good fit. With the importance of getting the cofounder right, I almost always left feeling like it was too much of a leap to take with someone I just met from some website or meetup. But when I look at my own friends, there aren't any of them I would conceivably work on something significant with. Maybe I need to find some new friends, or maybe its a volume game.
- yr1337 7y ago
  I'm in the same boat as you except I haven't started this dating game yet. I know no one in my (admittedly small) network of friends and acquaintances, who is willing to drop everything and create a startup with me. I'm not in the SV so that doesn't help. I'm trying to come up with a strategy including meetups. But how likely is it that single founders going to these meetings with an idea of their own, are going to give up on it and join someone else? And if someone is going to these meetings without a strongly held idea, then what does that tell me about their intention (free ride?). The only way I can see this working is if 2 founders meet that have an idea so close that they can see merging them. How likely is that considering constraints of time and location... I'm starting to find that the hardest part of my startup is going to be the people factor, which I will say is my biggest weakness. I guess it's good that I'm aware of it at least.
  - lam 7y ago
    To find cofounders, may I suggest that you add in your profile your interests and some ways to reach out to you (e.g., email)?
- danenania 7y ago
  If you're technical, I think anything where you actually get to work on projects with people is going to have a lot more potential than just talking. So hackathons, open source, and other things in that vein. The difficulty here is given you find another technical co-founder, at least one of you needs to be willing to jump hard into sales, marketing, and administrative stuff. But assuming you have that, two strong devs who enjoy working together can make for a formidable team, and it doesn't really take that big of a project to know whether you like working with someone.
crsv 7y ago
I mean it's an interesting idea that someone who hasn't actually founded a successful company with a co-founder has a "playbook" for finding a co-founder. They've been working together 5 months and now that warrants the proclamation of a playbook?
- codesushi42 7y ago
  You must be new here. This same attitude permeates all of tech, especially SV, where folks constantly tout their non-accomplishments publicly. Every idiot is giving advice because every idiot is looking for some. And there are a whole lotta idiots in SV smelling their own farts.
  - ai_ia 7y ago
    I agree 100%. If only the news article/stories followed up what they had touted after two-years it would make a good journalistic report. Or even trying to balance the article by acknowledging the drawbacks of the the system they are advancing. I like to read articles that debunk the previous hypes and put a retrospective article detailing what went wrong. For e.g. MOOCs were touted as game changing to the online education and after years, it hasn't really 'disrupted' anything.
- bradlys 7y ago
  This other piece is on the front-page of HN at the same time. Coincidence? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21131704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21131704
- Topgamer7 7y ago
  Marketing materials, any eyes on the site could translate to viewing more of the site. Viewing more of the site will slowly increase page rank.
heavenlyblue 7y ago
Speaking of the _other_ dating... I had recently been messaged by a dating coach on LinkedIn who specialises in software developers.
burtonator 7y ago
Here's my story about looking for a co-founder for Polar: https://getpolarized.io https://getpolarized.io I'm basically trying to build an integrated reading environment for people like researchers and students. You can kind of think of it like IntelliJ or Visual Studio but for books. I shipped an MVP on Hacker News and right now we have about 5000 MAU. And our users LOVE us. I just found out that Roger Craig. One of the Jeopardy champions used Polar to win Jeopardy. https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-a-jeopardy-champion-remembers https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-a-jeopardy-champi... Now, being a solo founder is tough. A lot of VCs will hold it against you. However, one of the number one failures of a startup is having a bad co-founder. My strategy has been to be VERY conservative here. I identified five co-founders but just haven't had a good fit. I think my biggest advice is to trust your instincts. Unless it feels perfect and you've been working together for a while don't pull the trigger. My plan now is to have sort of running co-founder search and bring them on more as a senior hire with adequate compensation if I'm successful in finding them. It's hard though. I'd go so far as to say it's harder than finding a wife. They need to have your back at all times but unlike a marriage there's no actual love backing the relationship.
peignoir 7y ago
Good article, I wrote a paper a while ago on that subject for startup research based on my experience with startup weekend and the often asked question on where to find a cofounder... I applied these principal for myself and Found 3 great co founder and launched 3 different ventures (one is a cash cow / one is venture backed / one is a non profit) Paper-> https://www.joebarich.com/uploads/2/3/6/8/23683720/co-founder-dev-mvt-final2.pdf https://www.joebarich.com/uploads/2/3/6/8/23683720/co-founde...
kumartanmay 7y ago
Just like finding a spouse is an art, there’s no science behind finding a cofounder. You might a cofounder who does not fit the bill discussed in the thread or the article. We get together to make something work with equanimity.
- trumbitta2 7y ago
  I don't think finding a spouse is an art. You don't typically find a (good) spouse by actively looking for one.
  - kumartanmay 7y ago
    So how is it different in case of cofounders?

164 points by feifan 7y ago

This affirms my experiences with getting to a venture-funded deal. The stylistic elements of this piece, not its content. Someone who can speak the product managerese--who takes 7,000 words to say something and look thoughtful while doing it--is so essential to getting to a venture-funded deal. Being on the other side of the process she describes sucks. Like nobody wants to be part of this imaginary, psuedo-scientific competition. In reality she just acquiesced to whatever the 6th person demanded. The process wore her down. If the process didn't wear her down, there would be no deal, because the deal only occurs when the product manager character moves along. In quintessential product manager form, the process disguised a completely emotionally-driven decision by providing a post-hoc rational for it.

opportune 7y ago

I find it strange to not just use your personal network to find somebody. I feel like this whole “detached cofounder” thing is for people making an implicit agreement that you both intend to screw each other over if you ever get the opportunity. But if you’re a “product person” I suppose you need someone to actually build the MVP for you so you can’t really do that part alone. Personally I’d rather do it alone than make a huge decision like this with some random. Passing an interview is easy if you know what to say, would be too hard to trust someone to not just try to get a free ride. And it takes a really long time to truly know someone, but it also seems crazy to me to spend up to half a year “cofounder dating” before you get to work; that seems like pseudo-productive procrastination more than anything

cabaalis 7y ago
I've been the subject at least one of these cofounder "dates" and the worst part is it was done under the auspices of speaking to someone who's found a modicum of success in a startup. The introduction given to me was that it was a person with an idea who wanted a sort of "mentor" in the space who can help navigate the technology aspects. The actual date consisted of them pitching me and gauging my interest. I was a little turned off. So my suggestion to the author of this article is to add "Be honest about why you're at the coffee shop." I did see this, though: > “‘Where do I find people?’ is one of the biggest questions I get when people ask me for advice. There isn’t a ‘Tinder for co-founders’ app that everyone is on. Sourcing is hard,” says Lin. Anyone up for a new project? :)
- twic 7y ago
  > Anyone up for a new project? :) Ah, you mean good old 7885 Attend receptions, dinners, and conferences to meet people, exchange views and information, and develop working relationships.
- opportune 7y ago
  I’m pretty sure that’s basically how accelerators work, unsuccessful accelarees (?) quickly become early employers or cofounders of the more successful ones
jasode 7y ago
>I find it strange to not just use your personal network to find somebody. Your sentiment is similar to the top-voted comment in a previous thread about this.[0] It seems insane and uncomfortable because we're using labels for people like "random stranger". But it's a paradox: before people become friends, they're strangers to each other. So how did they ever become friends?!? Before someone was in your personal network, they were previously _not_ in your personal network? So how did that status change?!? By meeting new people and seeing what type of interactions happen. There are no guarantees in life. All we can do is try to meet new people. Not everybody has a "cofounder" already existing in their personal network. (E.g. didn't go to same school at Stanford and not a coworker at a company job.) In that case, they have to grow their personal network with like-minded people who might be a cofounder. The "alternative" of starting a solo business may be less realistic and higher risk of failure than trying to find a cofounder that shares the same goals. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266463
- opportune 7y ago
  Random stranger may be a label but it’s also an accurate description. I guess to me, it seems strange for someone, especially in tech in the Bay Area, to want to be a founder but have nobody in their personal network that they would like to work with also interested in being a founder who reciprocated that feeling. That is wildly different from what my social circle looks like, and I didn’t go to Stanford. In fact it’s so different that I would characterize it as somewhat of a red flag (very weak personal network? hard to work with, not likable? lazy? little tech exp?); of course, two people in similar situations probably wouldn’t see it that way and that’s fine, I’m just sharing my perspective. I don’t see why starting a solo business is unrealistic unless you lack some core competency in the business you are trying to start. In that case, yes you would need to start a different business. If you have a poor network, have a hard time finding a cofounder, and also have a hard time finding something within your core competency then you should probably be re-evaluating why you’re starting a business at all
  - jasode 7y ago
    >Random stranger may be a label but it’s also an accurate description. Right, and I'm not debating its accuracy; I'm saying that somehow the status changes from "random stranger" to "acquaintance/friend/partner". However, one sometimes has to go out and make an effort (meeting new people) to allow those changes of relationships to happen. >, to want to be a founder but have nobody in their personal network that they would like to work with also interested in being a founder who reciprocated that feeling. [...] I would characterize it as somewhat of a red flag Again, you calling it a "red flag" is fair. But the key is can someone attempt to change that red flag? E.g. the author of this article Gloria Lin went on "cofounder dates" to overcome that instead of just looking at her personal network as a static list of people and just give up. >I don’t see why starting a solo business is unrealistic unless you lack some core competency in the business you are trying to start. I'll take myself as an example... I hypothetically could start a solo business but none of them I can do are interesting to me and therefore I'd fail due to losing motivation. I want to start a B2C business and the one I have in mind is complex enough that it requires a very strong partner (and possibly even 3 cofounders). Most everybody in my personal network is risk-averse and not the folks I'd ask to quit their jobs for an uncertain future. But the limitations of my personal network doesn't squash my desire to build a B2C business. Drew Houston didn't go on a cofounder matchmaking website but it took a friend-of-a-friend to find his cofounder (Arash Ferdowsi) for DropBox.[1] But yes, you still have to cautious because the business relationship can fall apart -- even among coworkers that supposedly knew each other for years before starting a company. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44766487 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44766487

thrwwy487 7y ago

I didn't flag this article, but I consider it very inappropriate. Romantic or sexual analogies should not be used in the workplace or startups. It's just the wrong word to use.

scient 7y ago
What? Are you being serious right now? You must be fun at parties.

dumbfoundded 7y ago

My best co-founder is someone who I would almost certainly spend little or no time with outside of work. Our personalities are polar opposites. Together we've bootstrapped a $2.5M ARR business in 16 months. Some thoughts: - Cofounders are high stress and high time relationships. You want to find someone who doesn't burn everything down every time they get stressed. Finding someone who deals with stress in a healthy way is huge. - Don't let the small things get in the way of the big things. You have to have tolerance for each other's mistakes. This was a huge problem for me and a previous cofounder. The way I handle it now with my cofounder is we set a price on mistakes. If you want to take a $1,000 risk, we don't even discuss it. A $10,000, we talk about. - I generally prefer people driven by discipline than passion. Passion cracks under pressure. Discipline keeps working. - Ego. Find someone who doesn't think they're god. I know in the SV hype messiah driven world of startups everyone tries to be the prophet. Avoid these people. For me, someone who has confidence but not arrogance is huge.

bryanmgreen 7y ago
All good tips and ones I've learned over time as well. Particularly like the "set a price on mistakes" part. I think communicating there is a healthy amount of mistake-tolerance does wonders for long-term personal and professional growth. Just for curiosity, how do you think you and your co-founder would proceed if there was misjudgement about a $1,000 risk that turned into a $10,000 one?
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  Of course, we'd talk about it. If a mistake blows up we have to talk about it. The point I'm trying to get across is that you have to be willing to let your partners make mistakes. Also, you have to trust that your partner is going to learn from their mistakes. I like adding a dollar amount to it because it gets you in the right mindset of focusing on important things. I think as a cofounder, it's your job to step in if you think someone's going to take the company over a cliff. Otherwise, give each other room to grow. Everyone in an early company is required to learn aka make mistakes until you stop making those mistakes.

kadabra9 7y ago

My friends outside of work aren't really technical, nor do they have any interest in startups. I've tried a handful of those founder dating sites, gone to meetups, user groups, met for coffee/beers, and even travelled to meet up with other like minded folks and try to get a feel about who would be a good fit. With the importance of getting the cofounder right, I almost always left feeling like it was too much of a leap to take with someone I just met from some website or meetup. But when I look at my own friends, there aren't any of them I would conceivably work on something significant with. Maybe I need to find some new friends, or maybe its a volume game.

yr1337 7y ago
I'm in the same boat as you except I haven't started this dating game yet. I know no one in my (admittedly small) network of friends and acquaintances, who is willing to drop everything and create a startup with me. I'm not in the SV so that doesn't help. I'm trying to come up with a strategy including meetups. But how likely is it that single founders going to these meetings with an idea of their own, are going to give up on it and join someone else? And if someone is going to these meetings without a strongly held idea, then what does that tell me about their intention (free ride?). The only way I can see this working is if 2 founders meet that have an idea so close that they can see merging them. How likely is that considering constraints of time and location... I'm starting to find that the hardest part of my startup is going to be the people factor, which I will say is my biggest weakness. I guess it's good that I'm aware of it at least.
- lam 7y ago
  To find cofounders, may I suggest that you add in your profile your interests and some ways to reach out to you (e.g., email)?
danenania 7y ago
If you're technical, I think anything where you actually get to work on projects with people is going to have a lot more potential than just talking. So hackathons, open source, and other things in that vein. The difficulty here is given you find another technical co-founder, at least one of you needs to be willing to jump hard into sales, marketing, and administrative stuff. But assuming you have that, two strong devs who enjoy working together can make for a formidable team, and it doesn't really take that big of a project to know whether you like working with someone.

crsv 7y ago

I mean it's an interesting idea that someone who hasn't actually founded a successful company with a co-founder has a "playbook" for finding a co-founder. They've been working together 5 months and now that warrants the proclamation of a playbook?

codesushi42 7y ago
You must be new here. This same attitude permeates all of tech, especially SV, where folks constantly tout their non-accomplishments publicly. Every idiot is giving advice because every idiot is looking for some. And there are a whole lotta idiots in SV smelling their own farts.
- ai_ia 7y ago
  I agree 100%. If only the news article/stories followed up what they had touted after two-years it would make a good journalistic report. Or even trying to balance the article by acknowledging the drawbacks of the the system they are advancing. I like to read articles that debunk the previous hypes and put a retrospective article detailing what went wrong. For e.g. MOOCs were touted as game changing to the online education and after years, it hasn't really 'disrupted' anything.
bradlys 7y ago
This other piece is on the front-page of HN at the same time. Coincidence? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21131704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21131704
Topgamer7 7y ago
Marketing materials, any eyes on the site could translate to viewing more of the site. Viewing more of the site will slowly increase page rank.

heavenlyblue 7y ago

Speaking of the _other_ dating... I had recently been messaged by a dating coach on LinkedIn who specialises in software developers.

burtonator 7y ago

Here's my story about looking for a co-founder for Polar: https://getpolarized.io https://getpolarized.io I'm basically trying to build an integrated reading environment for people like researchers and students. You can kind of think of it like IntelliJ or Visual Studio but for books. I shipped an MVP on Hacker News and right now we have about 5000 MAU. And our users LOVE us. I just found out that Roger Craig. One of the Jeopardy champions used Polar to win Jeopardy. https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-a-jeopardy-champion-remembers https://superorganizers.substack.com/p/how-a-jeopardy-champi... Now, being a solo founder is tough. A lot of VCs will hold it against you. However, one of the number one failures of a startup is having a bad co-founder. My strategy has been to be VERY conservative here. I identified five co-founders but just haven't had a good fit. I think my biggest advice is to trust your instincts. Unless it feels perfect and you've been working together for a while don't pull the trigger. My plan now is to have sort of running co-founder search and bring them on more as a senior hire with adequate compensation if I'm successful in finding them. It's hard though. I'd go so far as to say it's harder than finding a wife. They need to have your back at all times but unlike a marriage there's no actual love backing the relationship.

peignoir 7y ago

Good article, I wrote a paper a while ago on that subject for startup research based on my experience with startup weekend and the often asked question on where to find a cofounder... I applied these principal for myself and Found 3 great co founder and launched 3 different ventures (one is a cash cow / one is venture backed / one is a non profit) Paper-> https://www.joebarich.com/uploads/2/3/6/8/23683720/co-founder-dev-mvt-final2.pdf https://www.joebarich.com/uploads/2/3/6/8/23683720/co-founde...

kumartanmay 7y ago

Just like finding a spouse is an art, there’s no science behind finding a cofounder. You might a cofounder who does not fit the bill discussed in the thread or the article. We get together to make something work with equanimity.

trumbitta2 7y ago
I don't think finding a spouse is an art. You don't typically find a (good) spouse by actively looking for one.
- kumartanmay 7y ago
  So how is it different in case of cofounders?