3 ms·
It's striking that choosing a cofounder one barely knows is a common problem. I'm trying to get something going with my best friend (I've known him since we wer
by gms 13y ago
It's striking that choosing a cofounder one barely knows is a common problem. I'm trying to get something going with my best friend (I've known him since we were six years old), and people we meet will sometimes ask us if we would consider bringing on some guy they know as a third cofounder.
The people who band together for a startup after having known each other for a month would never marry someone they have only known for a month. Clearly the message that startups are a big deal for any relationship hasn't sunk in as it has with marriages.
- dmk23 13y agoIt is an obviously foreseeable problem because the whole "startup echo chamber" keeps pressuring everyone to have co-founders for sake of having co-founders. Better to be a single founder covering for everything than sign on "co-founders" you cannot get along with or do not see pulling their weight or having significant disagreements on how the company should be run and the rewards distributed.
- balls187 13y agoChoosing your best-friend isn't a guarantee that you won't have co-founder issues either. One of you has to be the CEO, and if you are both used to being equals, the one who isn't CEO has to deal with the fact that their role is less than the CEO. There will be times where the demands for your time will be greater than theirs, and vice versa, and if one of you is strongly technical, while the other isn't, you may see an imbalance of work, especially when you're building your MVP. Business & startups in particular, come with an enormous amount of stress, and may put you two at odds with each other, which can be tough, as the two of you, under different circumstances, might have been each others coping mechanism.
- gms 13y agoYou are absolutely correct. I made a mistake in not mentioning these potential pitfalls.