- The co-founders met in various ways, including through school, mutual friends, work, and online platforms.
- They have different skills and backgrounds, which complement each other in their startup ventures.
- Some co-founders have been friends for many years, while others met more recently.
- They share a passion for their work and have built trust and strong relationships with each other.
- Some co-founders are married or siblings, adding an additional dynamic to their partnership.

At the S23 batch retreat, we interviewed 60 founders about how they met their co-founders. By compiling their answers together, you get to see their commonalities and differences—and hopefully inspire you to find someone to start a company with. This is the first episode of a new series we're calling Founder FAQ, where we'll ask YC founders about their stories and experience.

If you're looking for a co-founder, sign up for Y Combinator's Co-Founder Matching Platform: https://yc.link/FounderFAQ-cofounder

Thank you to all the companies who volunteered to be interviewed:
HyLight, Kobalt Labs, Contour, Talc, Wattson Health, Sweetspot, Rightpage, Osium AI, Kino AI, Kapa, Flair, PeerDB, Trayd, Nowadays, Hyperbound, Remy Security, Certainly Health, Fleet Works, Sante, Artie, Watto AI, Envelope Money, Study Space Global, Line Build, Greenlite, Gleam, Ohmic Biosciences, Fiber AI, Strada, Letter AI

Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/FounderFAQ-apply
Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/FounderFAQ-jobs

Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 
00:00 - Intro
01:49 - Why This Person?
02:37 - YC Co-founder Matching
03:46 - Outro

We were both French, but actually we met at Stanford in California.

Sai was the first friend that I made in my high school.

We met at Jewish sleepaway camp when we were 10 years old.

She is the technical co-founder and I kind of handle everything else, product, marketing, sales, growth, business ops.

I think a lot of our day-to-day is built on the trust that we've built over 20 years of friendship.

The shared experience was great, but also we have exactly the opposite set of skills in the software engineering space.

Like, Sai's got the product, the front end, and the back end, and I've got the machine learning, the cloud architecture.

So it was like a perfect match on that end.

Yeah, so our mutual friend, Allison, took us

and Stan just started mooching me off for rides, and that's how we met.

Not only mooching you for rides, but also chewing your ear off on my startup idea.

Lucas and I used to work at the same company.

We shared our passion of like, how do we decarbonize our lives?

And we're like, what if we do this like full-time?

And then we decided to quit our jobs and interview folks and try to understand again why

it was in the building decarbonization space moving quicker and this is where we landed.

Alex and I met in 2016 when we were both doing internships in China.

We were working together in the same lab for about 2 and a half years on the project.

Probably when we were both there on Thanksgiving.

I've only done March Madness once in my life, and that 1 time was with Microsoft and I won somehow.

So this guy, the third best bracket, he's looking up like, who the heck beat me?

And that's how he found me and then we've been friends ever since.

We worked together as a side project but then it grew into a startup and it felt like just working with my best friend.

This is probably our fourth company that we've worked on together.

So I matched with Ray's best friend on Tinder.

Not to date, but more like LinkedIn during COVID times.

Through the YC co-founder dating, not dating app, co-founder matching platform.

Through YC, so through the co-founder matching platform.

We met on the YC co-founder matching platform.

It felt very familiar having used the dating apps before.

Finding someone who would share that energy for building in the trucking space was really important.

And also someone who just had a really strong track record of delivering on technical products.

So, managed to find all of that in my co-founder.

We met in person and kind of hit it off and took it from there.

I think the thing I remember most from that dinner is Armin telling me he had pet chickens.

I was like, this guy is quite interesting.

And then from there, I just learned about all the awesome stuff he was doing in ML Ops.

And yeah, we got to talking about building a company together.

Yeah, I was, you know, before that, really hesitant and like fearful of like actually taking that leap of like just quitting, leaving everything behind, sacrificing everything and just going for the plunge.

It really took someone like Ali to just convince me and give me that confidence to just go for it.


Speaker 0: How did you meet your co-founder?

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a funny story.

Speaker 0: So, You wanna take this 1?

Speaker 2: I've never done this before.

Speaker 3: So we met in school.

Speaker 2: College. College.

Speaker 3: College. College. College.

Speaker 1: We were both French, but actually we met at Stanford in California.

Speaker 3: Week 2 of MIT. We went to uni together.

Speaker 1: I was a freshman, she was a junior.

Speaker 0: Sai was the first friend that I made in my high school.

Speaker 1: We met at Jewish sleepaway camp when we were 10 years old. You know, We have no overlapping skills. She is the technical co-founder and I kind of handle everything else, product, marketing, sales, growth, business ops. I think a lot of our day-to-day is built on the trust that we've built over 20 years of friendship.

Speaker 0: We did choir together in high school. The shared experience was great, but also we have exactly the opposite set of skills in the software engineering space. Like, Sai's got the product, the front end, and the back end, and I've got the machine learning, the cloud architecture. So it was like a perfect match on that end.

Speaker 4: Through a mutual friend. Through friend. Skiing. Yeah, so our mutual friend, Allison, took us

Speaker 5: on a group ski trip,

Speaker 4: and Stan just started mooching me off for rides, and that's how we met. Yeah, that's right. Not only mooching you for rides, but also chewing your ear off on my startup idea. Yeah, so we were both coworkers. We worked together.

Lucas and I used to work at the same company.

Speaker 2: We met at Airbnb about 7 years ago. We shared our passion of like, how do we decarbonize our lives? And we're like, what if we do this like full-time? And then we decided to quit our jobs and interview folks and try to understand again why

Speaker 6: it was in the building decarbonization space moving quicker and this is where we landed.

Speaker 4: Alex and I met in 2016 when we were both doing internships in China. We were teammates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both engineers on the

Speaker 3: same team at Bolt. We were working together in the same lab for about 2 and a half years on the project. And how did you realize like, okay,

Speaker 4: this is the person I want to work

Speaker 0: with?

Speaker 7: Probably when we were both there on Thanksgiving.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that could be.

Speaker 8: I've only done March Madness once in my life, and that 1 time was with Microsoft and I won somehow. So this guy, the third best bracket, he's looking up like, who the heck beat me? And that's how he found me and then we've been friends ever since.

Speaker 2: We're sisters and also co-founders.

Speaker 9: We are married. We worked together as a side project but then it grew into a startup and it felt like just working with my best friend.

Speaker 1: Got married and became co-founders.

Speaker 7: This is probably our fourth company that we've worked on together.

Speaker 2: Attempted together. So I matched with Ray's best friend on Tinder. Well, I used Tinder.

Speaker 10: Not to date.

Speaker 2: Not to date, but more like LinkedIn during COVID times.

Speaker 3: How did you meet your co-founder?

Speaker 4: Through the YC co-founder dating, not dating app, co-founder matching platform.

Speaker 0: Through YC, so through the co-founder matching platform.

Speaker 4: We met on the YC co-founder matching platform. It felt very familiar having used the dating apps before. Some swiping right, some swiping left. Finding someone who would share that energy for building in the trucking space was really important. And also someone who just had a really strong track record of delivering on technical products.

So, managed to find all of that in my co-founder. We met in person and kind of hit it off and took it from there.

Speaker 10: We met while working at Project 44. I think the thing I remember most from that dinner is Armin telling me he had pet chickens. I was like, this guy is quite interesting. And then from there, I just learned about all the awesome stuff he was doing in ML Ops. And yeah, we got to talking about building a company together.

Speaker 7: Yeah, I was, you know, before that, really hesitant and like fearful of like actually taking that leap of like just quitting, leaving everything behind, sacrificing everything and just going for the plunge. It really took someone like Ali to just convince me and give me that confidence to just go for it.

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60 Startup Founders Share How They Met Their Co-Founder