Ask HN: How did you choose your cofounder? Were you right or wrong?

2 pointsshipilovya2y ago2 comments

My friend and I are trying to figure out how people decide to cofound a company together, and how that affects whether it fails or succeeds.

Tell us your story!

1. If you had a bad cofounder experience

- What went wrong?

- What were you looking for in the other person, and what did you miss that led to a bad outcome?

- Did you change how you choose cofounders now based on that experience?

2. If you had a great cofounder experience

- Why was it great?

- What did you guys achieve together?

2 comments

dustingetz2y ago

my hot take is everyone screws this up and the way out is to basically succeed (i.e. reach breakout growth) in your first … year… before the relationship has time to sour - the gravity of success will bind you. Otherwise startup tidal forces are too strong and failure (i.e. lack of success) will rip even strong relationships apart. google facebook msft apple amazon - all succeeded on the first try with the first plan out of the gate

shipilovyaOP2y ago

Interesting, do you feel like your / your founder’s qualities and relationship had any impact on the success of failure of your startup? Would love to hear how things went.

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