Are Co-Founders in the Same City Really an Advantage to a Start-Up?

Re:Are Co-Founders in the Same City Really an Advantage to a... by jasonfried on Monday July 21, 2008 @12:17AM (#251950)

FWIW, David and I worked together 7 time zones apart for 4 years or so before he finally came to Chicago in 2006.

David wrote the code for Basecamp in Copenhagen and I designed the interface in Chicago.

The distance was a big advantage to us. It helped us each focus on what we were good at without too much meddling. When you're close it's real easy to spend time worrying about stuff that doesn't matter. When you're further apart you tend to actually focus on the work since that's the only thing you can do.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but that was our experience.

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Re:Are Co-Founders in the Same City Really an Advantage to a... by rantfoil on Monday July 21, 2008 @05:20AM (#252107)

I would echo these sentiments. Sachin and I worked on Posterous.com remotely (I was in Mountain View and he was in NYC) for the months before we applied and were accepted to YC Summer 2008. We could work independently for long stretches and get large pieces of functionality done fast just over IM.

In fact, we've found this summer in Cambridge that the times we've been really able to crank out code are the weekends when one of us is traveling and one of us hangs back at the ranch. Complete control over distractions = gigantic productivity boost.

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Re:Are Co-Founders in the Same City Really an Advantage to a... by tonystubblebine on Monday July 21, 2008 @12:51AM (#251977)

Jason, would you say that one of your major strengths is finding ways to take advantage of whatever situation you find yourself in? I'd wager that 37s would have done just fine if you'd started in the same city. So maybe the lesson to the poster should just be: stop worrying and get back to business.

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