John_Maxwell_IV comments on Who Wants To Start An Important Startup? - LessWrong

41 Post author: ShannonFriedman 16 August 2012 08:02PM

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Comment author: AngryParsley 14 August 2012 03:38:11AM *  9 points [-]

I think the biggest problem with your proposal is that it's hard to do a startup with founders who don't know each other well. The founders and early employees will face long hours, stress, and possibly financial woes. Some background history and an interview aren't enough to ensure that someone won't flake. The best co-founders are friends who have worked together previously. As Paul Graham says:

And the relationship between the founders has to be strong. They must genuinely like one another, and work well together. Startups do to the relationship between the founders what a dog does to a sock: if it can be pulled apart, it will be.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 14 August 2012 04:41:27AM *  3 points [-]

Anecdotally, Dropbox was founded by two guys who had just met each other.

But yeah, this is probably true in general. Maybe the best we can do is start making friends with people who we might like to start startups with later, as a preliminary step?

I'd like to make friends with a web designer, myself.

Comment author: Reichart 17 August 2012 04:08:59PM 2 points [-]

"Anecdotally, Dropbox was founded by two guys who had just met each other."

No, not anecdotal. While I appreciate Paul Graham's cherry picked examples just like the next person, having looked at the history of hundreds of companies, it is all over the map. In general, you can't "create" success, you can simple try to avoid or mitigate failure. "People" make great companies, by being great about making it work.

But, sadly, and I really mean, sadly, monetarily successful companies (which may not be great companies) are for the most part simply created by having a product people want to buy. You can have a staff of imbeciles selling sugar to children.