4 Founders in 3 Continents Who Never Met: Lessons in Building a Co-founding Team
Well, actually we met after we raised the second round.
“How did you guys meet?” is the most common question I get. And it isn’t surprising considering it was one of the best narratives I had to raise capital.
“So we are four founders from three continents. We’ve never met, but our traction is close to 100k in…”.
This immediately got the investor’s attention, and from there we went.
Somewhere along the way of starting a company, fundraising, scaling and selling it, I’ve evolved a way to build a team with a rhythm. In fact, I pride myself, somewhat like Jacob in the “Lost” series, in finding the right people.
Co-founder #1- Design
I cold emailed Chris Luscher sometime in 2012. Chris runs InformationArchitects (IA) with Oliver Reichenstein in Zurich (I was in Bangalore). By then I had already contacted nearly fifty designers. It was an excruciatingly time-consuming task. I emailed everyone from Jeffrey Zeldman to Anthony Lagoon at Underbelly. I did not want to compromise on user experience and was hell bent on going to great lengths to get this right. My bespoke email to Chris, with the right subject and first liners that evolved over time, caught his attention. He replied “Did you hack my email? I have exactly the same thoughts about cooking and publishing; it’s in my email drafts”. Lightning struck. We started to work together, and eventually called our initiative Cucumbertown. Over the years Chris was instrumental in setting the design standards winning us several User Experience accolades. IA put in several of their resources time to time.
Truth be told, I never thought it would work. InformationArchitects billed projects in ranges higher than the seed funding dollars of that time. They are the epitome of design consulting.
Co-founder #2- Design and Front End
Then came Dan Hauk. Dan was the most prominent Tumblr theme creator of that time. And he was in Pennsylvania. I think I was writing to probably almost all of the top individual WordPress and Tumblr theme creators. And tried working with 3–4. In just a few days I realized Dan could do things most people couldn’t even attempt. And between Chris, Arun and I, we had a tempo. No pretension. Only complete trust, and talent.
Co-founder #3- Engineering
Arun was my junior at college. During my undergrad years I kept a close watch on budding juniors and maintained a list of all the people to whom I could reach out. Tried working with a couple, too. Arun and I soon realized we were complimentary and over the years he’s been the Rock of Gibraltar; silently executing everything when things were falling part. Arun and I were the only two founders who met during the early phase.
When I came to the Bay Area, I realized the unfair advantage that local founders had. Most of them were graduating from the best universities and they were in a position to hire the best. I certainly didn’t have this advantage coming from an idyllic town in South India.
If entrepreneurship has taught me life lessons, choosing the right business partners probably ranks among the top three most important decisions.
You get this wrong, and it’s not worth building a company.
So, for entrepreneurs like me who didn’t do the Ivy Leagues, I’ve formulated a difficult but possible playbook. Here it is:
Always be Scouting
I scanned the interwebs for people. I’ve written scripts to pull up names from Dribble, Behance, growthhackers, VC Internal forums, etc. and match them on LinkedIn. Then I figured out a reason and connected. Recently I stumbled on a TechCrunch post about a PM as an instrumental figure at Pinterest. Then one day I requested a Google alumni friend for a connect. I do this all the time.
Work on a trial project with them
The trick here is that I curate all serious tech and other debts. I modularize problems into independent projects. When I get serious with someone, I ask for their help with these projects. Close to when Ramya was leaving BBC, I requested her to do a project on Onam.
The article had some 35,000 FB shares, 150,000+ views etc. Ramya then joined Cucumbertown. Most people drop out at this stage. For the ones who think I am extracting pro bono work, I assure it will go to production only if they join.
I then ask the best people in that field if the candidate’s work is good
In most cases, I don’t know how to judge someone’s work. Rather than entering unknown territory, I reach out to someone who can advise me (and most of these aren’t people I know as well). Serendipitously this has led to situations when they have recommended someone better. I’ve found that people are better at reacting than being asked open-ended questions like “Hey, do you know someone who is good at yyy”?
Work at great companies
I was privileged to work at Zynga at the right time. The network over there taught me to hire the best. Some of them even became my team members at Cucumbertown. If building a company is your long-term strategy then working for a good firm early on is perhaps the best strategy to find potential co-founders.
The hard parts
I have to write a lot of emails and do trial projects. The failure rate of working out is very high. It hurts when someone you’ve been hopeful for does not work out. Especially when it relates to a highly influential role. It hurts more than I can put into words but no matter what, its better to face this kind of disappointment early.
Circa 2012: Arun, Dan, Chris and I had been working together for some time. And the day came when our tiny happy project seemed like it would take off. The first investor committed to contributing 100K, and I asked folks their thoughts on equity split. When no one responded I pulled an online equity calculator and sent a screenshot. I got three “thumbs up” emojis in response. My eyes were moist. I knew we were going to build something beautiful.
Co-founders are like marriage partners without intimacy. The enterprise you are going to build, if it needs to succeed will need every bit of commitment from the founding team. If you cannot get this chemistry right, it’s probably not worth starting up.
But you’ve come this far. If you are determined and you want to build a valuable enterprise, taking the difficult but right decision will look pretty easy.
Good luck!
