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|  **Want to start a startup?** Get funded by Y Combinator.  
  
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October 2010

_(I wrote this for Forbes, who asked me to write something about the qualities
we look for in founders. In print they had to cut the last item because they
didn't have room.)_  
  
**1\. Determination**  
  
This has turned out to be the most important quality in startup founders. We
thought when we started Y Combinator that the most important quality would be
intelligence. That's the myth in the Valley. And certainly you don't want
founders to be stupid. But as long as you're over a certain threshold of
intelligence, what matters most is determination. You're going to hit a lot of
obstacles. You can't be the sort of person who gets demoralized easily.  
  
Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman of WePay are a good example. They're doing a
finance startup, which means endless negotiations with big, bureaucratic
companies. When you're starting a startup that depends on deals with big
companies to exist, it often feels like they're trying to ignore you out of
existence. But when Bill Clerico starts calling you, you may as well do what
he asks, because he is not going away.  
  
**2\. Flexibility**  
  
You do not however want the sort of determination implied by phrases like
"don't give up on your dreams." The world of startups is so unpredictable that
you need to be able to modify your dreams on the fly. The best metaphor I've
found for the combination of determination and flexibility you need is a
running back. He's determined to get downfield, but at any given moment he may
need to go sideways or even backwards to get there.  
  
The current record holder for flexibility may be Daniel Gross of Greplin. He
applied to YC with some bad ecommerce idea. We told him we'd fund him if he
did something else. He thought for a second, and said ok. He then went through
two more ideas before settling on Greplin. He'd only been working on it for a
couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, but he got a lot of
interest. He always seems to land on his feet.  
  
**3\. Imagination**  
  
Intelligence does matter a lot of course. It seems like the type that matters
most is imagination. It's not so important to be able to solve predefined
problems quickly as to be able to come up with surprising new ideas. In the
startup world, most good ideas seem bad initially. If they were obviously
good, someone would already be doing them. So you need the kind of
intelligence that produces ideas with just the right level of craziness.  
  
Airbnb is that kind of idea. In fact, when we funded Airbnb, we thought it was
too crazy. We couldn't believe large numbers of people would want to stay in
other people's places. We funded them because we liked the founders so much.
As soon as we heard they'd been supporting themselves by selling Obama and
McCain branded breakfast cereal, they were in. And it turned out the idea was
on the right side of crazy after all.  
  
**4\. Naughtiness**  
  
Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have
a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good.
Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about
observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil.
They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be
redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.  
  
Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what
question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us
discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked
something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not
breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most
attention to when judging applications.  
  
**5\. Friendship**  
  
Empirically it seems to be hard to start a startup with just one founder. Most
of the big successes have two or three. And the relationship between the
founders has to be strong. They must genuinely like one another, and work well
together. Startups do to the relationship between the founders what a dog does
to a sock: if it can be pulled apart, it will be.  
  
Emmett Shear and Justin Kan of Justin.tv are a good example of close friends
who work well together. They've known each other since second grade. They can
practically read one another's minds. I'm sure they argue, like all founders,
but I have never once sensed any unresolved tension between them.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Thanks** to Jessica Livingston and Chris Steiner for reading drafts of this.  
  
  
  
  
  

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