what makes a great cofounder

This week, it’s an Ask Me Anything (AMA) - You ask questions. I answer.

We got over 200+ questions from readers - but there was one that stood out from the rest. So I answered it and turned into a whole blog.

Alright, let’s boogie.

Q: Uncle Shaan!

I’m an engineer - looking for a man in finance startup cofounder, but I don’t know what I should be looking for.

As an engineer, i feel like I’m the bachelorette and every dude wants to give me their rose.

What should I be looking for? What makes a great cofounder?

-Devin, from Brooklyn

First of all, the bachelorette gives the roses out Devin. If you’re going to do a reality tv metaphor to the Reality TV Show king (me), you best not miss. 

Second - there’s a great Warren Buffet story about “picking a business partner” that will help you.

Warren was giving a talk to a group of students and he asked them: “If you could pick 1 student in the classroom and you could have 10% of their future earnings - who would you pick and why?”

There are tons of possibilities… The kid from the rich family? The highest IQ? The teacher’s pet?

For Buffett, there are 3 things you want in anyone you work with:

(1) Intelligence, (2) Energy, (3) Integrity. 

To paint a picture - imagine picking a buddy for a long road trip.

Let’s use the inversion test. What if the buddy had the opposite of those 3 traits?

• Low intelligence - you’ll get lost, end up driving in the wrong direction. Or unable to fix a flat tire. 

• Low energy - they’re lazy and have low work ethic, which is very frustrating to partner with. 

• Low integrity - they might just steal your car while you’re taking a leak at a gas station. 

A partner with the opposite traits would be a dumb, lazy, crook. So it passes the inversion test. 

But…I recently found a 4th trait that nobody had ever mentioned - but has been absolutely critical for me. 

That 4th trait is…(wait for it)

OK before I tell you, I’m going to introduce a new segment of Good Friday called the “Random Tangent Box”. This is where I take a quick, fun detour to share something interesting I found while putting this blog post together.

The segment has no sponsor, but we have a mascot. Remember when Michael Jordan, the king of basketball, decided to take a random 2 year detour to play minor league baseball? That was a major tangent.

So please welcome Baseball MJ, our new mascot for the “Random Tangent Box” !!

OK - back to the show. So what’s the 4th trait?

The 4th trait I found is that my cofounder needs to be… down.

Huh? Down? Let me explain.

There are 3 reasons you need a partner who’s down:

#1 - New Ideas Are Fragile.

The same way some people are just great with newborn babies, it’s important to find a partner who’s great with newborn ideas.

What people don’t realize is that a great idea is just a weird idea that grew up. You need a cofounder who can deal with an idea when it’s in it’s awkward teenage braces & acne phase.

For example - look at Airbnb. This is the email that Joe sent his cofounder Brian

This is a weird idea. “Let’s let strangers sleep on air mattreses in our apartment”. He literally ends it with “Ha!”

What started as a half baked, newborn idea grew up into a company worth $73B dollars.

#2 - Ambitious Plans Are Drenched In Uncertainty.

There are no “big sure things”.

I’ll say it again, louder for the people in the back:  THERE ARE NO BIG SURE THINGS in business.

All big things have tons of grey, unknowns. The odds of success seem slim. 

Nearly every great business pivots at some point. Slack was a video game. Twitter was a podcasting app. 

Rarely do you just have an idea and, “bam, we nailed it, first try. Let’s go pop champagne fellas”

You need a cofounder who won’t flinch at uncertainty. 

Why? Because like yawning, flinching is contagious. If they flinch, you flinch. And the two of you will end up taking safe, proven paths (with little upside)

Everyone’s heard the word ‘pivot’ but you don’t really know it until you’ve felt it. You know when you ride a rollercoaster and it starts to drop - and you get that terrible feeling in your stomach for a moment?

Pivoting feels like that. Can your partner stomach making a mid-air U-Turn? 

#3 - Picky Eaters Make For Bad Partners.

Can you share weird, half baked ideas with your partner? 

We all have that friend who’s very religious and conservative. You have to pre-filter your words around them. 

When your partner isn’t down, there’s a tendency to filter your ideas. You soften all the hard edges, rinse off the weirdness to make it more socially acceptable. 

Picky eaters force you to water down your dish. This is a major problem - because when you’re doing something new - weirdness is your edge.

What sounds ‘weird’ today is called ‘unique’ tomorrow. 

Letting strangers ride in your car was a weird idea (Lyft), sending people photos that self destruct was weird (Snap), and trying to create artificial super intelligence was a weird idea (OpenAI).

Avoid rigid, picky people. They lead you to safe, undifferentiated decisions.

One misconception is that people who are down just commit blindly to things.

What looks like ‘blindly saying yes’ is actually them just having a simple filter, and not overthinking it. 

It’s their lack of over thinking that makes them great adventure partners. Even if they are wrong 1 out of 10 times, they move 10x faster than over-thinkers, and so they get 10 times more shots on goal. 

My business partner Ben is a great example. 

We’ve worked together for nearly 5 years, and I can’t wait to do another 20.  He’s the best. We’ve built & sold companies together, done random projects together and traveled together.

Nobody is more down than Ben. Whatever the mission, whatever the uncertainty, whatever needs to be done. He’s down to do it. There’s zero hesitation.

To clarify, someone who’s down isn’t just a yes man. They don’t just obey commands.

Down is about being comfortable where most are uncomfortable: uncertainty, change, and risk.

Down is about being cocky enough to take big swings, and still humble enough to do grunt work. They can have decades of experience, but be down to start a new path as an absolute beginner. 

Is being down absolutely required? Maybe not. 90% of life is safe, predictable and figured out.

But for all the great adventures in life: traveling, starting businesses, making art, having kids– these are acts that require daily leaps of faith. 

If your cofounder is down, the journey is way more fun, and you’re more likely to hit big. 

So for life’s great adventures, here’s your cofounder checklist: 

1/ Energy…do you feel drained, or energized after meeting?

2/ Intelligence…Are they sharp, fast learner, who figures things out quickly? 

3/ Integrity…would they unplug your phone charger to plug theirs in?

4/ Down…are they cocky enough to swing big, humble enough to start small, and do they have the stomach for a roller coaster ride? 

Good luck out there,
-Uncle Shaan

That’s a wrap for today’s Good Friday.

Now do me a small favor… tell me what you think!

I wrote it. You read it. How was it?

P.S. - we’re gonna be posting these weekly on the blog too.