7/17/2023 0 Comments Evolve stage 2 founderIn this exclusive interview, Lin presents that rigorous approach in full, from how she found potential partners and handled early conversations to how they ideated and prototyped together to narrow in on a more specific idea. It’s a detailed, step-by-step playbook for thinking through all the potential pitfalls that can ruin even the best of co-founder relationships. While the Review has covered co-founder considerations before, from getting vulnerable about painful “divorces” to applying a framework for strategically assembling a founding team, we’ve never seen a process like Lin’s. And judging from threads on Reddit, countless questions on Quora, and all the “first dates” filling up coffee shops in SOMA, the carefully designed hunt for a co-founder is already afoot. Now we’re working on Siteline together.”Īs the next generation of company builders takes shape and new founder mafias spin out of places like Stripe, it stands to reason that more co-founder stories won’t fit the traditional mold, and will instead look a lot more like Lin’s. Eventually, I met Joel Poloney and everything clicked. Just like real-life dating, sometimes it seemed like I was going to end up alone. I ended up ‘dating’ six different potential co-founders over the course of a year. “I knew I didn’t want my search to be random or unfocused, so I honed my process and took my time. And once you step outside of that pool, it gets harder to meet someone,” says Lin. You have to both want to do a startup - requiring similar levels of high-risk tolerance - and be available at the same time, which depends on life and financial circumstances. “Most of the co-founder stories I’d heard fell in this bucket of former co-workers pairing up to go after an idea. “When I left to start a company, there were a few spaces I was interested in, but I didn’t have a specific startup idea so I set my sights on finding a strong co-founder to work with.”īut she quickly found that was easier said than done. My experiences as a product leader were strongest when I was partnering closely with an engineering leader,” says Lin. “I always wanted to team up with someone. We’re talking about co-founder dating.Īs the first head of product at Flipboard and the first PM hire at Stripe, Lin’s seen founding teams in action - and knew what she was looking for as she set out to build a company of her own. Gloria Lin has gone on a lot of dates in the past year.
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