Some sunday night thoughts: I think what determines a great entrepreneur is the edges of their personality. It also determines compaitibility with someone else.
The edges obviously go beyond just the basics. The basics are easy to test. The edges are difficult to figure out and is where I got burned working with someone. As well as founder friends who had conflict.
I talked to a guy this week that went to $300k mrr on his saas in just 2 months after launch. Pure PMF, and his cofounder was grinding after his job and built the platform to that point. But when push came to shove, that cofounder was mentally weak and allowed family cultural pressure get to him. He did not quit his job, rather he quit the startup. One of the most insane cofounder breakup stories I heard given the lack of warning signs before that. The main cofounder was perplexed and was basically venting to me on tuesday when sharing the story.
Examples of the edges: How do they deal with extreme stress? How do they respond when critisized about something they deeply believe in? How willing are they to get rejected time and time again?
These are not easy answers. I personally found this hard to judge in people I work with, with 2 people costing me 3 months of my life just recently. One showed worse warning signs than the other, but both showed signs of cowardice. They were scared of selling a product that wasn’t “good enough” yet while I was still building it. At first they were good. 1 month in they were showing signs of faltering. 2 months in I shared my concerns. 3 months in I couldn’t ignore it and finally split. I wish I found out in week 1. But it took time for me to see that their words did not match their actions.
I still don’t have a working formula to find this out quick. You just have to go deep in the trenches with them and see what they’re made of. Past founder experience is a huge plus but even then not foolproof.
What a rare specimen a real entrepreneur is…