Tag Archive for 'co-founder'

Stop Calling Yourself a Rockstar and a Ninja

Published on August 10, 2010 in Entrepreneurship, Finding Co-Founders and Human Resources. 36 Comments Tags: co-founder, co-founder dating, ninja, rockstar.

I understand that you kickass at Guitar Hero and you play a ninja in World of Warcraft, but seriously… can you stop calling yourself a rockstar and a ninja in real life? These hacker terms for “awesome coder” have gotten way out of control.

[UPDATE: Thanks to everyone for pointing out that WoW has no ninja class. Sorry...I'm a Starcraft guy. ]

Rockstars suck!

A rockstar is an heroin addicted egotistical maniac who rakes up enormous hotel bills by throwing TVs out the window and has clauses in their employment contract like “my poodle requires a foot massage by a 6’2″ Russian model.” You want to know why your favorite band broke up? ’cause one of the band members suddenly noticed “I’m a rockstar” and they didn’t need anyone else. Why would you want to hire one in your company let alone choose one as a co-founder?

Know who I want in my company? Tony Levin. That guy doesn’t play one more note than necessary and he ROCKS. He’s what I’d call a lean bass player of the highest caliber. Check out his discography if you don’t believe me or just take Peter Gabriel’s word for it. Listen to the bass line on Sledgehammer. Is he a rockstar? You probably wouldn’t recognise him walking down the street. Do you want him in your garage band? You can’t afford him.

Shinobi

Let’s see, why wouldn’t I want to hire a ninja?

The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination.

Wow…that sounds awesome! Let’s hire a backstabbing assassin for our company! Wait…is he assassinating us or infiltrating us?

The ninja, using covert methods of waging war, were contrasted with the samurai, who had strict rules about honor and combat

Even better! I can start a company with someone who has no sense of honor! That should be great when it comes to protecting our intellectual property!

Hire this girl.

[UPDATE: John Metta has the best picture showing how overused the word ninja is here. Also embedded on the right.]

Seriously guys…I’m sure we can think of some ego flattering terms for a good programmer that don’t immediately imply that hiring them would be an act of blatant stupidity. I’m open to suggestions.

[UPDATE: As many have correctly pointed out, I had to hurriedly strip out these terms from our own site! Yes, this was a tongue in cheek late night post, but that is how ubiquitous these terms are. I actually annoyed myself while trying to write a web site copy without using them. It will take dedication to kill off these evil evil memes.]

Summary of Lessons Learned

A company is a team.
Teams are built from strong individuals
“Strong individual” is not a synonym for “raging egomaniac”
When looking for a co-founder look for a partner, not a rockstar

Cheers,
Tristan

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When Should You Find a Co-founder? Before your idea is even half-baked.

Published on June 8, 2010 in Entrepreneurship and Finding Co-Founders. 0 Comments Tags: co-founde dating, co-founder, entrepreneur, idea.

When Should You Find a Co-founder? I’m going to go with my gut here and say: Before your idea is even half-baked.

I’ve had a couple discussions recently about when is the right time to look for a co-founder. As soon as you have an idea? Once you’ve tested some of your core assumptions? Before you have an idea? There’s no rule and I haven’t seen anything written on the subject.

The Perfect Idea

The goal of your startup is to find a business model that works. If you think you’ve come up with the greatest idea ever, everything is worked out in your head, and you just need to execute, well…you’re probably wrong about everything (or at least most things) and you won’t get the one thing out of a co-founder than you really need: a second opinion.

If there is anything I’ve learned during my own startup journey, it’s that I know nothing and I need to learn as much as possible. I need to learn about my target market, my business model, coding, design, where the best sandwiches downtown are sold, etc.

If your idea is permanently fixed in your head, you’re not really trying to learn, you’re trying to prove to everyone else that you’re right. So why do you need a co-founder at that point? Just to do your bidding? Then you should be hiring someone.

If you want someone to join you in a partnership, it will probably work a lot better if it is actually a partnership. You should both be learning from each other and questioning each others assumptions so you can learn faster. If your co-founder asks you uncomfortable questions, that’s a good thing. Your co-founder should be helping you answer those hard questions. Embrace it.

Half-baked

I think the best time to find a co-founder is when you’re tossing around crazy ideas about changing the world with duct tape and a Swiss army knife. I want to hear more bizarre ideas that might not have occurred to me. I want to be able to throw my idea and my ego under the bridge if my co-founder has a better one.

I also want to make sure that my co-founder has an idea of their own. Preferably more than one. Creative solutions are often a numbers game.

It’s not that some people come up with the top 10% of all ideas. It’s just that there are some people that come up with a lot of ideas. Some are good, many are bad. If you don’t have a lot of them, you won’t be able to sift through and cherry pick the brilliant concept that will drive your business to the next level.

2 Cents

I’m sure many entrepreneurs will ignore this gladly. Some will say, “Determination is the single most important factor in success.” That’s true…sort of.

An entrepreneur driven by pure determination with a preconceived notion and no desire to learn is a bit like a fool wandering around in the dark with map he drew himself twenty minutes ago who refuses to turn on his flashlight. Would you rather invest your life savings in someone who was stubbornly determined to succeed along a single preconceived notion? Or perhaps invest in someone who was determined to learn how to succeed?

To learn as fast as possible, find a study buddy.

Cheers,
Tristan

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No Titles Please – We’re a Startup

Published on May 28, 2010 in Entrepreneurship and Finding Co-Founders. 0 Comments Tags: CEO, co-founder, co-founder dating, startup, startup titles.

I had to laugh out loud when I read this at jacquesmattheij.com:

At some point in the thread he writes: “We are working on that now. It might give us more breathing air but still will keep us with a CEO (him) that I cannot trust professionaly.”

I practically fell off my chair when I read that. A three letter title in a two man company ? What does that make him ? CTO ?

…and then he continues:

Titles are for insecure people that need to have their egos re-inforced or they are for people that have reached a stage in the life of their startup where it starts to make sense to divide the work in to fixed roles, where you have well defined territories and people as a rule will avoid crossing over in to each others territories.

I could not agree more. That’s why we only have one title at startupSQUARE: Co-founder. The Co-founder is responsible for whatever needs to be done, including dealing with the bank, ordering staples, and getting the coffee.

What Title Will I Have?

If you’re on a first date with your co-founder and he/she starts talking about what C-level title they’ll be getting, you should run screaming from the room.

Sure, we have some roles. I do most of the customer development and couldn’t hope to touch the database structure without breaking half the site. None-the-less, we all have to shoulder the burden because we’re always short on manpower. That’s what startup life is. Always short on time, money, and people.

If your co-founder isn’t willing to clean the toilet, find someone else.

Tech Guys

And for a tech guy corollary: If code breaks in a startup, it’s broken and whoever is on hand has to fix it. There is no “fault.” Blame is unimportant, solutions to problems are critical.

If you only have two to four guys programming, everybody better know everyone else’s code because eventually, someone is going to go on vacation or quit. At that point, all the code is “your” code.

I’ve broken “my code” and broken Manuel and Marcel’s code as well do to my own misunderstandings. I’m always heartened when we’re able to look together for solutions and not degenerate into a blame fest.

Again, if your co-founder starts talking about how he/she isn’t willing to deal with an issue because it’s “someone else’s problem”…not a good sign. Find someone who is willing to do what it takes.

There’s another word for people who need a snazzy job title and a narrowly defined set of responsibilities: EMPLOYEE

Cheers,
Tristan

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First Dates and One Night Stands for Co-Founders

Published on May 25, 2010 in Customer Development, Entrepreneurship and Finding Co-Founders. 10 Comments Tags: co-founder, co-founder dating, first dates, open source.

Before you and your co-founders step up to the alter and say “I do”, it’s a good idea to get to know each other a little first. Maybe even play a little footsie.

I’ve been searching and searching for good advice on the subject and consistently come up empty. There’s plenty of advice on how to split up equity, qualities to look for in a co-founder, and even the occasional article on places to go to find entrepreneurs. Why is there zero information on how to vet them? The typical article seems to suggest a good conversation will do the trick, presumably because you’ve just dosed your co-founder with sodium pentathol and wired him to a lie detector.

While there’s no perfect answer for this, just as there’s no perfect first date, I’d like to suggest a few options. (For the record: The perfect first date is always in black tie. Everyone looks good in a tux.)

Open Sources Projects

You might think that an open source project is only for vetting technical guys and gals, but I can’t think of a better way for an MBA to prove their worth than contributing to an open source project. It may be a niche market of engineers with a low price point and low feature expectations, but it’s still a market.

When it comes down to it, the principles of customer development are the same whether you’re getting paid for a product or not. There is always a price tag that’s associated with user adoption even in free products. For example, Facebook and LinkedIn require a significant investment of time to get your profile looking nice. That time is the purchase price, open source is the product, and every open source project should be searching for product / market fit.

A keen business person should be able to significantly contribute to even a purely technical product by talking to customers, defining the minimum viable product, figuring out when to pivot, developing a marketing strategy to popularize it, etc. A really savvy MBA will find a way to turn your open source side project into a business.

Volunteer Work

I admit that I’ve only started giving back to society with volunteer work recently with the BUILD entrepreneurship program. Now that I have, I can’t imagine not doing it. Are your core goals and values aligned with your partner? Try ladling soup for a few hours with them and you’re sure to find out. They can’t deal with the smelly homeless guy? How are they going to deal with a pissed off customer?

Admittedly, this may not work if you’re in a pure for profit business and you want to find someone that is as cutthroat in business as you are. Then again, are you really going to be able to trust someone like that enough to work effectively with them in close quarters for a couple years?

There are plenty of volunteer opportunities that don’t require a long term commitment. Pick something for a weekend and see if your co-founder is willing to lick stamps for 48 hours. If not, will they have what it takes to sell door to door or do manual data entry when the going gets tough?

Hackathon

There are some great events like Startup Weekend which throw a bunch of people into a room together and let them experience the joys and heartbreak of a startup in 48 hours. It’s a sleep deprived and coffee driven bonanza with moments of brilliance.

Many people go to them to find co-founders and pitch their ideas. I think another idea is to try out your new co-founder. Take them to a Startup Weekend or other similar event such as Hacks and Hackers storytelling / hacking event and find out if you can really work with them.

You can join someone else’s project for a weekend and find out some very valuable information. Can your co-founder work in a larger group? Can they handle pressure?

Most importantly, can your co-founder work in a team towards a goal, even if they haven’t 100% committed to that goal? Because there will be times when your co-founder is staring at an empty bank account while you’re scrapping around for angel funding. Will your co-founder bail at the first sign of trouble or stick it out for the long run? If they can’t make it through 48 hours, you might want to keep looking.

Cheers,
Tristan

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Why Get Married on the First Date?…Co-Founder Dating

Published on May 18, 2010 in Entrepreneurship. 0 Comments Tags: co-founder, Customer Development, entrepreneur, founder dating, pitch.

In our customer development interviews with entrepreneurs looking for co-founders I’ve found many pitches follow this general course:

1) My idea is amazing, but I can’t tell you about it.
2) It’s a 100% surefire billion dollar idea, if only I had someone to do __________.
3) I will only tell you about my idea if you commit to indentured servitude for at least one year if not longer.

I find this a bit loopy.

Of course, not all are that bad. Still, many have one of the following three flaws, including the insistence of getting married on the first date.

Stealth Mode

If you can’t tell me what you’re working on, why are you bothering to pitch me? Ok, your resume is weighty and I love the fact that you’re capable of great things, but if you’re working on the latest massage oil targeted at the highly lucrative leper market, I’m not so excited. What can I say? I’m just not that into lepers. It’s not you, it’s me.

When someone asks you to commit to some vague concept based on their resume, it’s almost the equivalent of saying, “You should go down on me because I’ve had a lot of hot girlfriends.” Having a lot of experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’re great in bed, it just makes you more likely to have picked up an unpleasant disease.

The skills you excelled at in a big company will not necessarily do you any good in a startup. It’s a different set of skills that includes being stubbornly determined without being too stubborn, being able to juggle a variety of tasks as well as people, and most importantly the ability to admit what you don’t know and quickly learn to make up for it. Those things are not listed on your resume.

Last comment on this subject, we’ve all heard the excuses and know you don’t want someone to steal your brilliant idea. Let’s face it, if Jeff Bezos came to you ten years ago and told you he was going to sell books on-line, could you have “stolen” his idea? Probably not. It is always possible to give a high level overview without giving away your special sauce and the value for most ideas is in the execution.

Lack of Resources

I know you’re missing resources, every entrepreneur is. I’m working with two great co-founders who have complementary skill sets and there is always something that none of us know how to do. Whether it’s programming, marketing, manufacturing, doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not you are just sitting on your hands until the the perfect someone comes along.

How hard is it to create a landing page? Not that hard. There’s tons of open source stuff that you can copy and just change a few variables. I’m technically weak, but I’ll do what needs to be done. Need a marketing person? If you’re not at least writing a blog and tweeting, why would I want to work with you?

As an entrepreneur, you can not fall back on the “that’s not in my job description” excuse. Because you will always be short of resources. If you’re not rolling up your sleeves and trying, it’s a sure signal that you don’t have what it takes to make a business work.

Commitment and Co-Founder Dating

These days, no one expects to get married after the first date. Why should your co-founder commit to anything other than dinner and a movie for starters?

Working with someone on a startup is a painful procedure. There are lots of ups and downs that will drain your coffers and leave you asking, “Why on earth did I do this?” At worst entrepreneurship is a lottery ticket. At best, it’s a bingo card.

You need someone who you can work in close proximity with for an extended period of time and it makes sense to try out that relationship on some small projects before committing to the big one. (Seth Cohen has one of the nicer metaphors for this. He says he wants to work with someone he could live on a submarine with. There won’t be a lot of shore leave.)

I’ll make a second post this week on good co-founder first dates. If you’ve got any good suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Cheers,
Tristan

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Tag Archive for 'co-founder'

Stop Calling Yourself a Rockstar and a Ninja

When Should You Find a Co-founder? Before your idea is even half-baked.

No Titles Please – We’re a Startup

First Dates and One Night Stands for Co-Founders

Why Get Married on the First Date?…Co-Founder Dating

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