5 ms·

I briefly floated a profile on there, though I decided to take a new full time job and focus on that for a while instead. While on the platform, I was flooded

by waprin 5y ago

I briefly floated a profile on there, though I decided to take a new full time job and focus on that for a while instead. While on the platform, I was flooded with non technical people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA. I guess if they could credibly raise money/sell product then maybe it would make sense but I was highly skeptical of the value add, and I got the feeling a lot of them were looking for a free dev to build some big product that they now get to shop around to investors, taking 50% of the equity for doing so. The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important. For some reason SWEs make more money than designers in industry but whenever you’re at startup network events it always seems SWEs outnumber designers 3 to 1. And likewise I didn’t see many people with design portfolios on this platform. I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. It seems YC is geared towards situations where you go all in, work hard full time on the project etc. That would be a situation where I would most care about a strong relationship that I think would be much easier to build in person.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
nicoburns 5y ago
For me it would be sales and the "business" side of things. And perhaps some domain expertise. I can do design competently enough to make it work (I do most the design work at my current company despite nominally being the lead software engineer). The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.
- OnlineGladiator 5y ago
  > The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of already having started my own company), but start with the obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell themselves to investors, customers, and future employees.
- kilbuz 5y ago
  What other side of a startup is there, besides "business"?
- robocat 5y ago
  > The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with them - you can then tell real talent from their real world effects, even if it is not your own skill set. Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is integrity - if you can’t trust them then their other skills don’t matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult.
yarcob 5y ago
> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.
- waprin 5y ago
  Well even if I want to find someone local, doesn’t mean I can just walk outside and find them, especially since the pandemic shut down most events in the Bay Area. Dating apps seem pretty popular and I think vast majority of people on those platforms are looking for someone local.
  - yarcob 5y ago
    It took many years before dating platforms became viable. I remember trying some dating websites early on, and there just weren't any people in my area at all. It was fun looking at the profiles, but it wasn't actually useful for meeting people yet. I would assume that a cofounder matching platform with 16000 profiles has a similar problem, it's just too few people to bother looking for local matches.
- jasode 5y ago
  >Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby. Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious screen shots but it says you can filter on location. Thus, a "global" matching platform becomes a local one. It's not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping for a local person to appear. It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby potential co-founder in a subset on a popular website such as YC is more likely than a local website such as lasvegas.craigslist.org
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. I got the impression that many of the people using these services felt they had already exhausted their local networks and decided to look more broadly. I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full-remote companies anyway. That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. The co-founder relationship is too important.
ctvo 5y ago
> The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go very far with a single contractor designer picked up from dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you well into later funding rounds. Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that happen.
- waprin 5y ago
  By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the programming too. There are some pretty good people out there who aren't that expensive. But there's a bunch of risks with that approach and they are similar to the ones where you outsource design - you will constantly have to re-hire if you need pivots, there might be major friction switching people, and the costs can start to add up. It's not 100% analogous, freelance design is a bit cheaper, it's easier to spot bad designers etc, but I think the analogy somewhat holds. Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    > By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the programming too. The market for developer talent and designer talent are visibly different. Different in terms of supply, compensation (as a factor of supply), and risk (due to the compensation!). Risk here is you mostly take the word of the developer they're competent. We come up with elaborate interview processes for this (if you have an idea for a better process... ). For a designer, a portfolio clearly demonstrates they're competent. This makes outsourcing and freelancing more viable, increasing supply, and driving down the overall costs, in my opinion. I won't touch on actual skill / investment in becoming a good designer vs. developer except to say I think there's differences there too, at least outside of the tail. I would circle back to my second point, that even if you have an excellent designer, someone still needs to implement it and not make it janky. I think it explains, as a whole, why people gravitate towards engineering co-founders if they don't have the skillset. > Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design. I don't think Airbnb won on design or would consider design its moat. Designers can also be excellent leaders and executives.
kirillzubovsky 5y ago
> "people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA" I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little.

by waprin 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

nicoburns 5y ago

For me it would be sales and the "business" side of things. And perhaps some domain expertise. I can do design competently enough to make it work (I do most the design work at my current company despite nominally being the lead software engineer). The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset.

OnlineGladiator 5y ago
> The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. I'm not pretending this is the best way to approach it (I'd approach it very differently, but I have the benefit of already having started my own company), but start with the obvious: ask them what they'd contribute and just let the questions flow naturally from there. If they can't sell themselves to you, they almost certainly can't sell themselves to investors, customers, and future employees.
kilbuz 5y ago
What other side of a startup is there, besides "business"?
robocat 5y ago
> The problem I have is that I have no idea how one would go about evaluating someones capability at that skillset. I am a typical engineer type, and the few times I have correctly picked someone was when I was working directly with them - you can then tell real talent from their real world effects, even if it is not your own skill set. Also one critical attribute when selecting a co-founder is integrity - if you can’t trust them then their other skills don’t matter. Working closely with someone gives you a chance to judge that - it is otherwise very difficult.

yarcob 5y ago

> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. If I wanted to find someone in my city, a global website would be the last place I'd look. Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby.

waprin 5y ago
Well even if I want to find someone local, doesn’t mean I can just walk outside and find them, especially since the pandemic shut down most events in the Bay Area. Dating apps seem pretty popular and I think vast majority of people on those platforms are looking for someone local.
- yarcob 5y ago
  It took many years before dating platforms became viable. I remember trying some dating websites early on, and there just weren't any people in my area at all. It was fun looking at the profiles, but it wasn't actually useful for meeting people yet. I would assume that a cofounder matching platform with 16000 profiles has a similar problem, it's just too few people to bother looking for local matches.
jasode 5y ago
>Maybe the people who use a global matching platform are more interested in finding someone with specific skills / interests rather than someone who lives nearby. Maybe there's a misunderstanding because there are no obvious screen shots but it says you can filter on location. Thus, a "global" matching platform becomes a local one. It's not is if one is endlessly scrolling 15000 profiles hoping for a local person to appear. It's still a relative numbers game. Finding a nearby potential co-founder in a subset on a popular website such as YC is more likely than a local website such as lasvegas.craigslist.org

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I’m surprised so few people care about where there cofounder lives. I got the impression that many of the people using these services felt they had already exhausted their local networks and decided to look more broadly. I also suspect that many of these founders plan to build full-remote companies anyway. That I said - I agree. I'd want my co-founder to be local if at all possible, even though I've worked remotely for many years. The co-founder relationship is too important.

ctvo 5y ago

> The #1 skill I am always hoping to find someone with that I vibe with is design. No matter what you build, both UX design and a consistent visual aesthetic are very important Is it surprising? Design is cheap, and outsourced. You can go very far with a single contractor designer picked up from dribbble.com (think ~1-5k USD max for the entire MVP and marketing site). The quality is excellent and will last you well into later funding rounds. Another thing to consider is products that differentiate on UX are much harder to launch. And when they do, it's more engineering than design that ensures it succeeds. I think about SnapChat. It's great to say X would be a great user experience, but boy, good luck finding a skilled iOS dev to make that happen.

waprin 5y ago
By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the programming too. There are some pretty good people out there who aren't that expensive. But there's a bunch of risks with that approach and they are similar to the ones where you outsource design - you will constantly have to re-hire if you need pivots, there might be major friction switching people, and the costs can start to add up. It's not 100% analogous, freelance design is a bit cheaper, it's easier to spot bad designers etc, but I think the analogy somewhat holds. Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design.
- ctvo 5y ago
  > By that logic, you can hire a freelance dev to do all the programming too. The market for developer talent and designer talent are visibly different. Different in terms of supply, compensation (as a factor of supply), and risk (due to the compensation!). Risk here is you mostly take the word of the developer they're competent. We come up with elaborate interview processes for this (if you have an idea for a better process... ). For a designer, a portfolio clearly demonstrates they're competent. This makes outsourcing and freelancing more viable, increasing supply, and driving down the overall costs, in my opinion. I won't touch on actual skill / investment in becoming a good designer vs. developer except to say I think there's differences there too, at least outside of the tail. I would circle back to my second point, that even if you have an excellent designer, someone still needs to implement it and not make it janky. I think it explains, as a whole, why people gravitate towards engineering co-founders if they don't have the skillset. > Consider that the #1 market cap YC company of all time - AirBnB - was started by 2 founders with a background in design. I don't think Airbnb won on design or would consider design its moat. Designers can also be excellent leaders and executives.

kirillzubovsky 5y ago

> "people who didn’t have much besides an idea and an MBA" I've not tried any co-founder dating sites, but this rings hilarious true based on a few conversations I've had in the past. Basically X-airbnb-stripe-froogle-box employees, who were able to raise tens of millions based on an idea, and nothing else, now looking for "co-founders" to whom they are willing to give 1% of equity. Made me lol a little.