Re:Find a co-founder (inspired by news.yc threads)
by sharpshoot on Sunday March 11, 2007 @08:44AM
(#3576)
"1) The productivity of the startup is mainly the sum of the traits of each individual. Plus, to a lesser extent, the synergies between them."
I would argue the synergies between cofounders to be the single most valuable entity in a partnership. You may have complementary skills but if you don't come together and are able to do incredible things that are spurred on by eachother. Spark is key - this linear trait argument isn't correct at all. Never compromise without spark.
You don't know by chatting with someone - best to work on something non trivial together and figure out if you get on.
My thinking is that YC's problem is mainly figuring out how likely people are to MSPW and how fun they will be to work with.
I am trying to think out how the co-founder problem differs from the YC problem, but I'm not sure which assumptions to use:
1) The productivity of the startup is mainly the sum of the traits of each individual. Plus, to a lesser extent, the synergies between them.
2) The productivity of the startup is mainly an emergent phenomenon that is difficult to predict from looking at either of the two co-founders alone. Plus, to a lessor extent, the traits of each individual. (For example, the output of someone working with Steve Jobs is different than their output in other circumstances.)
Whether it's more of case 1 or more of case 2 matters when figuring out in which direction to take the community, because in each case you are going to want a different systemic design to bring out the different salient factors. (Of course it could actually be case 1 for some startups and case 2 for other startups, which would make the problem even more difficult.)