How to pick a co-founder
Picking a co-founder is your most important decision. It’s more important than your product, market, and investors.
The ideal founding team is two individuals, with a history of working together, of similar age and financial standing, with mutual respect. One is good at building products and the other is good at selling them.
The power of two
Two is the right number — avoid the three-body problem. Think Jobs and Wozniak, Allen and Gates, Ellison and Lane, Hewlett and Packard, Larry and Sergei, Yang and Filo, Omidyar and Skoll.
One founder companies can work, against the odds (hello, Mark Zuckerberg). So can three founder companies (hello, @biz, @ev, and @jack). In three founder companies, the politics can be tough — gang-up votes, jockeying for board seats, etc. — but it’s manageable. Four is an extremely unstable configuration and five is right out. When 4-5 founder companies work, it’s because two founders dominate.
Two founders works because unanimity is possible, there are no founder politics, interests can easily align, and founder stakes are high post-financing.
Someone you have history with
You wouldn’t marry someone you’d just met. Date first. Guess which pair of famous co-founders is in this photo:
Go through something difficult, like a Prisoner’s Dilemma or a Zero-Sum Game. If being ethical was lucrative, everyone would do it!
One builds, one sells
The best builders can prototype and perhaps even build the entire product, end-to-end. The best sellers can sell to customers, partners, investors, and employees.
The seller doesn’t have to be a “salesman” or “business guy”. He can be technical, but he must be able to wield the tools of influence. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs aren’t salesmen, but they are sellers.
Aligned motives required
If one founder wants to build a cool product, another one wants to make money, and yet another wants to be famous, it won’t work.
Pay close attention — true motivations are revealed, not declared.
Criteria: Intelligence, energy, and integrity
It’s not the kid you grew up next to. It’s not the person you like the most. It’s not the hacker most willing to work for free.
It’s someone of incredibly high intelligence, energy, and integrity. You’ll need all three yourself, and a shared history, to evaluate your co-founder.
Don’t settle
If it doesn’t feel right, keep looking. If you’re compromising, keep looking. A company’s DNA is set by the founders, and its culture is an extension of the founders’ personalities.
Pick “nice” guys
Avoid overly rational short-term thinkers. There are bounds to rationality. Partner with someone who is irrationally ethical, or a rational believer that nice guys finish first. Be especially careful with the “sales” guy here.
What you don’t know
Business founders who don’t code use bad proxies for picking technical co-founders (”10 years with Java!”). Technical founders who don’t sell also use bad proxies (”Harvard MBA!”). Learn enough of the other side to have an informed opinion. If you’re not seriously impressed, move on.
FAQs
What if the right guy already has his own startup? Convince him to work on yours part-time — he’ll drop his idea once yours gets traction.
Breakups are hard
If you’re going to fall out with your co-founder, do it early, recover the equity into the option pool to keep the company going, and recruit someone else great to fill the missing slot. Build in founder vesting (a.k.a. the “Pre-Nup”) to keep the breakup from getting messy. Building a great company without a partner is like raising kids without a…...Nearly everything in this topic applies to dating and marriage. Coincidence?
A Good Co-founder is:
1. A pillar. This person is nearly impossible to replace because you trust them and they add incredible value to the team. It’s even more so if you’ve built a friendship and/or working relationship with them over time. Imagine starting from square one and going to a cofounder’s mixer.. I can’t.
2. Full of faith for the vision. They are not only motivated by the outcome but also by the work and the vision. They want to be a part of that vision because it’s something they fundamentally and philosophically believe in.
3. Someone who is not competitive with you. Many people start companies with their best friends, but sometimes this is exactly the wrong approach. Human relationships are complicated and someone you’ve known for years might seem like a good person to start a company with, that is until you start a company with them. Just remember to keep an open mind and that if you’re competitive with your cofounder, it probably won’t work out.
4. Someone you would trust with your life.
5. Complementary. If you have an idea they expand on that idea. If you’re a bit too liberal they’re a bit too conservative. Complementary should not be confused with diametrically opposed. There is such a thing as too different to get a long. A good example of a complimentary founding team would be the two Steves of Apple fame.
6. Unexpected. The cofounder should impress you. Not because they want to or are trying to but because you just happen to be impressed with the quality of their work/ideas/direction or whatever.
7. Challenging. They don’t blindly follow every word and they don’t challenge you on every point. They challenge you when you need to be challenged. After all, you can’t always be right even if you’d like to be.
8. Easy for you to get along with on some other level than just work.Either you have similar political views/principals or you both love Family Guy.. Whatever it is you should easily be able to find stuff to talk about. If you can’t even have a conversation with this person, they probably shouldn’t be your cofounder.
9. Someone who sticks around even when the going gets tough. Real tough. As I’ve experienced first hand startups are extremely trying for spouses, partners, friends, family and everything else. It takes its toll and no one can cross the finish line without paying that price. No one. You’re going to need someone who doesn’t just shine in the initial stages, they also need to shine when shit hits the fan and you’re losing hair, sleep, sanity and whatever else..
10. Someone who puts their money where their mouth is. You’ll know what this means when the time comes.. But the true test of character is when people start putting their own money into the project and they do it with both feet.
11. Well grounded with their ego. I’ve run into this one a few times. You obviously want someone brilliant to cofound your startup with.. But at what price? Some of the most brilliant people I’ve worked with also happened to be paranoid and/or kind of crazy. Not in a good way. Don’t go for the guy with 2 PhDs and the nobel prize in Physics just because his IQ is 270. You have to first make sure they fit into your universe and in a good way. God does not play dice with the universe and neither should you with your startup. Take that Niels!
Pratik
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