A founder shares lessons from Fountainhop about picking the right co-founder. Finding one while still in school gives you time to test compatibility before stakes get high, and the wrong partner can sink everything.
After e145 Technology Entrepreneurship, we had this idea for kind of this like events calendar that showed you all the events on campus. Because at that time there was nothing like that. And we built this and it was just this little side project. And over that summer we were applying to I think Lightspeed or no, it was StartX. StartX was just getting started. My friend was starting that and he was like, oh, do you want to come do a startup? And you know, we went to these, a couple of friends and I got together, we went, talked to these guys who are advising us, who are supposed to be like the first couple employees at Google. They basically listened to all our ideas for three hours and they're like, you don't have, these are all terrible ideas. Do you have any good startup ideas? And we're like, well, I don't have any ideas, but I built this little app that shows you the events on campus and like all of Stanford's using it and they're like, wow, you're literally the dumbest smart person we've ever met. You have this thing, you have to talk about this nonsense for like three hours and then you're like, oh, we have this thing that everyone on campus is using. Just do that. So that summer we actually took Fountainhop, called it Fountainhop because I love fountain hopping. And basically I actually own fountainhop.com and basically company did super well. The product is going really well. The team kind of imploded and fell apart. I didn't listen to anyone's advice. Worked with a bunch of people who had kind of known socially, but we didn't work well together as a team. Most heartbreaking thing in my life up to that point. And basically like we just ended. Everyone was like, we'll fund the company. This was between my undergrad and coterm years and we, and basically we just shut it down. And I was like, I can't deal with this. Everyone's arguing too much. So big, big, big lesson here. The most important decision you will make in your company, full stop, period, is who your co founder is, right? And I'll tell the story. My co founder, Joe, literally the best person I've ever worked with my entire life and. But this is the single most important decision. The other thing I'll say, like when you're in school is the best time to find your co founder. Everyone here has unlimited free time. I know it doesn't feel like that cause you have all these things to do, like parties and classes and acapella and all this stuff. But Basically, once you're in real life, it's much harder to convince people to quit their jobs and work with you. So if you want to do a startup, the most important thing you need to do now is find your co founder.
O processo de reconhecer limites, mesmo quando a vida parece exigir sempre mais.
Depois de tantas histórias, aprendizados e pausas necessárias, o @interior_iza está de volta
