How to answer "How Did You and Your Cofounders Meet?"
At tech events and when talking with investors I'm often asked where myself and my cofounder know each other from.
Beyond the obvious, what kind of information are people looking get a better sense of with this question? What information is good to include or emphasize when answering?
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You could add some humor and say you met on craigslist – Henry The Hengineer 14 years ago
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I can think of so many unhelpful answers, like "We both happened to be at Murphy's Bar in Stockton when two biker gangs started a fight, so we each grabbed a barstool and covered the other guy's back. In fact, we came up with the idea for this startup in a cell waiting for someone to go bail." – Bob Murphy 14 years ago
2 Answers
They are probing to see how deep your relationship is and if it's been tempered in the crucible of turmoil, chaos and change.
I would emphasize, if it's true, that you worked together on some great project as either peers or boss/employee. It's also good to mention that, if true, you worked at multiple places together.
The other thing they are trying to glean is if you complement each other's skill sets and together make a stronger team.
Startups are all about getting stuff done quickly and efficiently while having a ton of fun. At times, it's crazy nuts and people that know each other well understand how to motivate each other through tough times.
It's kind of like remodeling your house. At some point, you will turn to your partner and say "why the heck did we do this?" and hopefully, they reply "because dear, think how wonderful it will look when it's done!"
I had a personal experience on this question and i think my investors are quite impressed because i got an offer from them.
Actually my partner is from my college and we do know each other since 9 years and never thought of starting a business and he knows that i have keen interest in movie industry and used to talk about that day and night and after we completed our college we parted and later on he was doing his MBA and i was working on my business plan related to movie industry and somehow through friends got to know about my b-plan and he was interested in it and that way we got along as he was in to business and marketing and i was in to product enhancement :)
