Top Green Flags (and Red Flags) When Picking a Cofounder
Much Like Dating There are Critical Pieces of Information to Look Out For
This post is a continuation of the topic of how to pick a kick ass co-founder that is going to set your company off on the right foot.
Picking a co-founder is like picking a spouse. Making a great choice can make your life a whole lot better and making a bad one can doom you to hell.
In this post I cover why you should strongly consider having a founding team of two.
In this post I describe to you a founding pair archetype that is likely to bring success and how you can fit into it & find someone that complements you.
In today’s post we will be going broader and considering the qualities you want and don’t want in a co-founder. Skills are important but I wanted to focus on some lesser considered qualities that affect success in a co-founder.
Quick Shill Before We Get Started
I am passionate about technology and helping budding entrepreneurs find their way in a daunting landscape. I want to expand my reach so I can help more people and make this into a community of practice where we can all help one another grow.
If you know someone that you think would enjoy/benefit from this SubStack would you please take a moment to share?
It would mean the world to me if you’d hit the share button and send to just one friend you think fits the bill.
Ok. Onward.
Green Flags
Startup land seems to have its own weird bizarro world way of behaving that is counterintuitive. Founders come in all different shapes and sizes.
Nevertheless there are a few qualities that are universally undeniably positive when it comes to achieving positive results.
#1 High Level of Initiative
It seems as if 90% of the time as a founding team you are going to be looking at an ambiguous problem with no clear solution. At the end of the day you really just need to figure it out.
Having the initiative and persistence to keep pushing and trying things until you get the result you want is critical.
Unfortunately due to social conditioning, this ability to solve open ended problems is in rare supply. The way the schooling system is set up is to create factory workers and soldiers.
Absorb information. Regurgitate an answer. The key lessons of school are: apathy, conformity, obedience and dependence. You are in the rare few that is going to/has already unlearned these lessons.
Many such cases! Sad!
It is most critical that you find someone that bucks the trends brought about by schooling. Find someone that’s a misfit.
In my experience I’ve found people that fit the bill best are either from entrepreneurial families or in some other way did not fit in in high school (hence
's emphasis on autists lol).You want to look for a track record of starting/building things on their own.
Did they start their own club?
Have they ever hustled selling girl scout cookies or Pokémon cards?
Have they built something *in a self directed way* before?
It could be an aquarium. The specific work itself matters less than the fact that they’re doing things in a self directed way.
You want someone that is an active player in the game of life and not a passive NPC like the majority of people.
This is going to be critical for your business’s ability to solve open ended problems innovate and move forward in a timely fashion.
#2 Integrity
This sounds cliché but it’s doubly true when you’re trying to do something brand new with someone you do not know that well. Listen to your gut. Any hesitancy should be taken seriously. Integrity has multiple aspects you should pay attention to:
Doing what you say you’re going to do: this is massive because so much of the game is just follow through and persistence. Most of the time you’re going to have to try the same thing 10x or attempt 10 different way to do the same thing. If you don’t have someone like that on your team you’re going to miss opportunities.
Honesty with themselves: underrated aspect of integrity. Founding a company often makes your character flaws abundantly clear. It takes a special kind of person that is honest with themselves to improve and to take those lemons and make lemonade.
Honesty with partners: this is important for obvious reasons. You’re going to share bank accounts with this person. You’re ideally going to be able to turn your back on this person. If they’re not fully on the up and up you’re putting yourself at big risk.
Vet your co-founding prospect’s integrity.
I highly recommend trying to either find a mutual colleague who has worked together or just cold calling people who have worked with your potential partner.
#3 Track Record
Depending on the business this can be less important if you nail the two above.
Obviously talent and experience is going to come into play. Vetting your prospect’s track record for
As recommended in the previous post, I recommend you look at your potential co-founder’s background from the perspective of: how do they complement what you do?
If you’re a tech person you need someone connection, sales ability and/or industry expertise.
If you’re a business person you need a tech person that’s flexible and can quickly build out sound solutions for you to try out.
Wrapping Up
Picking a founder is like picking a spouse. You’re going to spend a lot of hours with this person. You’re going to share a bank account with this person.
Do it right.
Beyond the pure skills evaluation, you need to be on the lookout for these traits to set yourself up for success and the lack thereof needs to be met with serious consideration and scrutiny.
You only get one life. Don’t spend years of it dealing with someone who isn’t going to help you move your life and your vision forward in a positive way.
Initiative, Integrity and Track Record is the name of the game when picking a co-founder.
Recommended Reading
Check out the full post here.
TLDR:
#1 - Rework by Jason Fried & DHH- Two Tech Startup GOATs & They’ll Teach You Their Minimalist, Practical Methods
#2 - Atomic Habits by James Clear - Learning the Ins and Outs of Human Behavior Formation Is an Incredibly Lucrative Talent
#3 - High Output Management by Andy Grove - Former Intel CEO Shows You How to Use Engineering Principles to Build a Strong Business
#4 - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink -Â Former Navy Seal Officer Teaches You How to Build a Team of Doers with Initiative
#5 - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Georgetown Professor Shows You How Connectivity is Massively Overrated, Focus is Underrated and How You’re Currently Fucking Up Your Productivity
#6 - Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou - Game Development Expert Teaches You How You Can Play 4D Chess with Incentives & Accelerate Growth on a Massive Scale
#7 - Don’t Just Roll the Dice- Use sound economics & psychology plus the wondrous flexibility of software to come up with a pricing model that actually works