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Ask HN: 280north breaks the mold?

15 points by hammerdr ↗ HN
For several weeks now there has been a plethora of articles describing start up best practices in regards to who to select, who not to select, how many to select and methods for selecting co-founders. However, the most recent Y Combinator exit (and perhaps the largest?) was a group that broke most of the advice given. Does this discredit the advice? Is it the exception that proves the rule?

Specifically, here are some of the disparities between 280N and the common advice:

2 founders. 1 is too little, 3 is a bit too much and 4 is out of the question (except for Reddit?). 2 is just right. 280N is yet another example of a more-than-2-founder company that succeeded.

Business / Technical co-founders. Ross, Tom and Francisco are all wonderful programmers. They all have a degree relating to computer science. Each one contributed significantly to the products that they delivered. None of them are business oriented (though I'm sure that had some business skills and/or picked them up along the way).

Products. 280North didn't create a product and start selling it. They released it for free. Then open sourced the framework they used to build it. They then created a community around that framework. And, finally, they started work on a development tool for the framework and community.

And other interesting notes:

Funding. In order to do this, they took surprisingly little funding.

Engaging the community. They took time to engage the community (their customers?) when they could have been coding new features. Of course, this is advice given by several successful entrepreneurs. They also attended and spoke at conferences.

So, HN, what's up? Is the mold bunk? Are 280N just a special case because they were building a framework and community? I'm interested to hear some feedback! :)

6 comments

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pchristensen
Nah, I'd say they reinforce the mold.

1) I don't ever remember pg saying 3 or 4 is too many founders

2) Lots of YC companies have only programmers

3) Products: They made something people want. That's pg's main harping point - MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE WANT. That's the implicit social contract in YC: If you make something people want, you will get a t-shirt that says "I made something people want." Pricing, open source, community, framework, monetization, etc are all details.

leif
#2 is kind of a defining characteristic of YC-funded companies.
enjo
It certainly helped that they where making a technical play. A non-technical founder would have been a liability really.
mrduncan
2 founders. 1 is too little, 3 is a bit too much and 4 is out of the question (except for Reddit?).

I don't remember PG ever saying that. In fact, if I remember correctly, Flightcaster has something like 5 or 6 founders.

salemh
I just read this same statement a few days back..it may have been from an earlier Essay vs the FAQ, or a interview transcript (more likely).

I don't believe PG holds to hard and set rules regardless.

bl4k
On Business and Tech co-founders, you are correct. I commented on the article and said as much, since even the most cited example of Apple involved two technical co-founders (one of whom just happen to nail the business part, but he relied on a solid technical foundation):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1606957

For everything else, it is a misnomer to believe that a recipe exists for startup success.

If you do not suffer from having to motivate yourself, have solid experience and a good network of friends/advisors/mentors, then being a sole co-founder is not a problem (pg says as much on the yc website iirc).

It is simple, and your points are valid - the answer is that there are no real correct answers in entrepreneurship, only case studies and experience. Anybody purporting or claiming otherwise is misleading you (especially those with little experience to back it up, and what works for some cases might not work in others). Take in what you read and allow it to help you form your own opinion and experience, but nothing should be treated as either gospel or 'right'.

There are tons of examples online of entrepreneurs who copied playbook moved from 37signals or another company and found them not to work in their instance (there was a recent case on HN of a company that dropped their free option to find that they increased revenue by a large multiple).

Most business schools spend a lot of time with case studies, and the reason is not because they give you answers, but a base of information from which you can build your own experience.

(Edit: just to add on the issue of co-founders, I would much rather have two solid and experienced advisors over a single mediocre co-founder).