# How do you convince someone to join your startup?

**Author:** Dalton Caldwell
**Type:** Video
**URL:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5b-how-do-you-convince-someone-to-join-your-startup
**YouTube ID:** N8deM6B4eE4

---

[Dalton Caldwell](https://twitter.com/daltonc), Y Combinator partner and founder of imeem and Mixed Media Labs, on how
to convince someone to join your startup.

## Transcript

this is a super common question where they where someone wants to start a startup and they're like well how do I get a co-founder or how do I get my first employees and my advice is the following first you have to convince yourself if you're not fully committed or if you have grave doubts that your idea is any good or it's even worth trying how can you ever convince someone else and people can tell if you don't believe in the thing you're doing and so if you really have that fire that you're onto something that's worth doing and

you're convinced then it's much easier to convince other people to join you and you can tell them that you can tell them how commit you are and frankly the same thing goes for getting your first customers getting your first partners giving your first employees for everyone it all comes down to this core of you being convinced of the story that you're telling it in it being true to you and then your confidence will flow out to everyone else okay so how do you convince yourself and what does it mean to convince yourself do you ever know that feeling where an idea enters your

head and you like can't sleep at night and you can't think about anything else but it and it starts to pervade your thoughts that's a good sign that's a sign that you might have a startup idea or a drive to work on something that'll have the kind of magnetism and power to keep you on it awhile if you just can't get it out of your head if you immediately are cynical about it and you're negative on it and you're just not that excited about it that's a sign that you're not convinced this is

something that comes out in YC companies a lot is I always encourage people to work on the thing that they are very excited about and obsessed with even at the expense of working an idea that may seem easier to raise money for that may seem more commercially viable that may seem more like something that impresses other people and the reason I encourage this is I have consistently seen teams that don't believe in the thing they're doing secretly and they're not convinced by when they run into a rough patch and

everyone always does but when they run into a rough patch they give up and I've seen teams where they really deeply are convinced of what they're working on they're convinced at the very least that they want to keep working together they want to keep their startup going and I've seen those teams overcome almost every kind of setback you can over you you can have you can run out of money and somehow survive you can get in you could have to completely pivot and change your idea but if you believe in what you're doing and in the big sense you can recover from that you could have team

members quit you name it and if there's something deeply held in the mind of the startup founders about why they're doing what they're doing they can keep going right and if you're just like I'm just trying this look you know things won't work out the reason you should work on things that you really care about is the following it would appear that it's equally hard to succeed in a startup that you don't care about and one that

you do and it's almost equally hard to succeed in a startup that's a very ambitious audacious idea as it is to do something super incremental that's not that exciting and if we assume for a second that those are equally difficult to accomplish do you see why you should definitely do on the way more audacious idea or the thing you're way more excited about right what's the point it's almost like if you have to travel a thousand miles to go somewhere you want to visit versus travel a thousand miles

to somewhere that you have you're ambivalent about always go to the place you're much more excited about and the fact is your excitement and enthusiasm about it will encourage the chance that you're actually going to get there so sometimes people ask can you build excitement over time I don't really have anything that I'm that I'm super excited about yet but I have a few ideas absolutely you can get more excited you can follow more in love with an idea or you can fall more in love with entrepreneurship by doing it on the side and kind of discerning if you get more

and more excited about spending time on it or less right like if if it feels like fun it feels like not work to work on your startup or your side project or what have you and it's just something you want to do because it's entertaining or enjoyable to you that's a good sign and I have seen people they kind of do something on the side and it's not exactly meant to be a business but people like it and the positive feedback loop of putting something out in the world and having people recognize it and appreciate it makes them more and more

excited about spending more time on it and so you can definitely get data points from the external world that cause you to take your side project or your idea more seriously and so in conclusion to convince other people to join your startup you first have to convince yourself you

## Transcript

this is a super common question where they where someone wants to start a startup and they're like well how do I get a co-founder or how do I get my first employees and my advice is the following first you have to convince yourself if you're not fully committed or if you have grave doubts that your idea is any good or it's even worth trying how can you ever convince someone else and people can tell if you don't believe in the thing you're doing and so if you really have that fire that you're onto something that's worth doing and

you're convinced then it's much easier to convince other people to join you and you can tell them that you can tell them how commit you are and frankly the same thing goes for getting your first customers getting your first partners giving your first employees for everyone it all comes down to this core of you being convinced of the story that you're telling it in it being true to you and then your confidence will flow out to everyone else okay so how do you convince yourself and what does it mean to convince yourself do you ever know that feeling where an idea enters your

head and you like can't sleep at night and you can't think about anything else but it and it starts to pervade your thoughts that's a good sign that's a sign that you might have a startup idea or a drive to work on something that'll have the kind of magnetism and power to keep you on it awhile if you just can't get it out of your head if you immediately are cynical about it and you're negative on it and you're just not that excited about it that's a sign that you're not convinced this is

something that comes out in YC companies a lot is I always encourage people to work on the thing that they are very excited about and obsessed with even at the expense of working an idea that may seem easier to raise money for that may seem more commercially viable that may seem more like something that impresses other people and the reason I encourage this is I have consistently seen teams that don't believe in the thing they're doing secretly and they're not convinced by when they run into a rough patch and

everyone always does but when they run into a rough patch they give up and I've seen teams where they really deeply are convinced of what they're working on they're convinced at the very least that they want to keep working together they want to keep their startup going and I've seen those teams overcome almost every kind of setback you can over you you can have you can run out of money and somehow survive you can get in you could have to completely pivot and change your idea but if you believe in what you're doing and in the big sense you can recover from that you could have team

members quit you name it and if there's something deeply held in the mind of the startup founders about why they're doing what they're doing they can keep going right and if you're just like I'm just trying this look you know things won't work out the reason you should work on things that you really care about is the following it would appear that it's equally hard to succeed in a startup that you don't care about and one that

you do and it's almost equally hard to succeed in a startup that's a very ambitious audacious idea as it is to do something super incremental that's not that exciting and if we assume for a second that those are equally difficult to accomplish do you see why you should definitely do on the way more audacious idea or the thing you're way more excited about right what's the point it's almost like if you have to travel a thousand miles to go somewhere you want to visit versus travel a thousand miles

to somewhere that you have you're ambivalent about always go to the place you're much more excited about and the fact is your excitement and enthusiasm about it will encourage the chance that you're actually going to get there so sometimes people ask can you build excitement over time I don't really have anything that I'm that I'm super excited about yet but I have a few ideas absolutely you can get more excited you can follow more in love with an idea or you can fall more in love with entrepreneurship by doing it on the side and kind of discerning if you get more

and more excited about spending time on it or less right like if if it feels like fun it feels like not work to work on your startup or your side project or what have you and it's just something you want to do because it's entertaining or enjoyable to you that's a good sign and I have seen people they kind of do something on the side and it's not exactly meant to be a business but people like it and the positive feedback loop of putting something out in the world and having people recognize it and appreciate it makes them more and more

excited about spending more time on it and so you can definitely get data points from the external world that cause you to take your side project or your idea more seriously and so in conclusion to convince other people to join your startup you first have to convince yourself you
