Ask HN: Are there any YC founders married w/kids?

[ryanwaggoner]

Background: we are three founders who are applying for w2009. All three of us are married and both of the other founders have a kid.

From what I've seen, it seems like a lot of the YC teams are young guys just out of college. We're young (mid-20s), but we have a bit more responsibility than we did a few years ago. Just wondering how much of an outlier we are, and if any of the funded YC teams had founders who were married and/or had children.

[staunch]

Wayne Crosby of Zenter

"JR: What was the downside of your experience YC?

Y Combinator requires you to move to either Cambridge, MA (Summer session) or Mountain View, CA (Winter session). The night we submitted our application to Y Combinator, we found out my wife was pregnant with our first child. The hardest decision my wife and I made was me going off to do a startup while she remained in AZ. We bought video phones and used Skype video conferencing every night to stay in touch. The video phones helped a ton, especially since I only made 1 trip back home in the 3 months. Looking back it was absolutely the right decision for me, the family, and our future - but it sucked not being around her for 3 months."

http://pioneerit.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-innoview-with-wayne...

[ryanwaggoner]

Awesome...exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. Thanks!

[sanj]

I'm not a YC applicant. Part of this was because Paul Graham made it pretty clear that he believes that having a family is at odds with a startup: http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html

The charitable part of me wants to believe the "I'm not willing to take responsibility..." angle, but it treads awfully close to discrimination.

I assumed that this would work against us to the point where it wasn't worth applying. The same way that single founder teams are canned almost before they are read.

Note that it doesn't actually matter if this is the case. My impression based on public information led me to this conclusion and YC lost out on a great team and idea. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I'm putting my money where my mouth is: the rest of my cofounders are also all married. Most of us have kids.

We're doing just fine, thanks:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/07/prweb1139914.htm

http://blog.luckycal.com/?p=15

http://gigaom.com/2008/08/25/mobilize-launchpad-contestants-...

[ryanwaggoner]

A little defiant, eh? I like it.

When is it ever worth not applying? I'm sure that certain things hurt your chances in YC's eyes, but hopefully they don't have such blinders on that all of those things are immediate deal-killers. I feel that the exercise of filling out the application is useful in itself, and if they pass, no loss.

[SwellJoe]

My co-founder is married with two kids. We were in winter 2007. Neither of us is young and fresh out of college (I was 32, he was 33, at the time). When we were accepted, I had a house in Austin, a 350Z, a long-time girlfriend, and a dog. The house was sold in record time (to the first person who looked at it, the day before the open house), the Z was sold, the girlfriend got a job at Google, and the dog rode right beside me in the moving truck. My co-founder already lived in Santa Clara, so it wasn't quite as much of an upheaval for him.

[jasonlbaptiste]

tons of respect and congratulations for that.

[josefresco]

Wow a 350z, that must have been rough.

[maxklein]

Being married and having a child is not a liability. The liability comes if the partner requires a lot of attention, and does not allow you to pursue your dreams. I.e, if you're married to a needy person, then you'll not have the flexibility to push limits.

I actually think being married is a good thing, because you are more likely to do things that are safe and that will lead to steady upwards growth, instead of trying to play the lotto and hoping for a blowout.

[ryanwaggoner]

Hmmm...not sure that anyone would characterize founding a web startup as "safe" ;-)

[hooande]

I just completed a YC session and my co-founder was married, but no children. I must say, an entire summer seems like it might put a bit of stress on your relationship.

Let me be very clear! You can definitely do a startup if you have a family. YCombinator and startups are a great opportunity for anyone, regardless of age or family situation.

With that being said, a YC summer can be very intensive. Three full months apart and under stress might be more than you were bargaining for in terms of your relationship with your spouses and family. It seems like if all three of you are in this situation the odds are good that at least one of you will run into a problem.

There were a lot of guys in our class who had serious girlfriends and they all seemed to come out fine. My co-founder is married and our startup is doing just fine. Just think about what could happen, I would hate for that to be a big distraction for you guys.

[iamelgringo]

TipJoy's founders are married and working together.

My wife and I are bootstrapping right now.

[zacharye]

Do you have any general comments on starting a business with your wife. It can be such a stressful environment at times - wondering how you guys have dealt with the downs.

[comatose_kid]

I'm not a YC founder, but I do have a wife and children.

As to your original question: don't worry about it. Just focus on your application, and try to get some sort of basic demo of your idea together.

[ryanwaggoner]

Oh, it's not going to stop us, or even slow us down. If anything, having responsibilities like a wife and kids has focused our energies on what's really important to us.

I was just curious as to how YC might view things like this.

[josefresco]

I'm a founder who's married with two kids (27 years old). One of the reasons I'm not able to join YC on even the east coast (I live a couple hours from Boston) is my family. I can't move them or myself away from them for a 'boot camp', just not feasible.

I think YC is missing out on some great opportunities but that's just my viewpoint.

[comatose_kid]

Perhaps your desire for success doesn't compel you as strongly as your desire for a stable family life.

That's absolutely fine, but my instincts (and some very successful people I know personally) tell me that successful entrepreneurs who start a business with families have to ask their families to make some sort of sacrifice to support their endeavor.

My wife and I have had this very conversation - we live in the Bay Area, but my Dear Wife is very level headed when it comes to prioritizing decisions like this. Life experience counts for more than immediate comfort for her. She comes from an entrepreneurial family, so that probably helps.

[soc]

It could be an advantage. It's nice to have one person in the family with a stable income you can fall back on, while trying to get things off the ground.

[aston]

Tipjoy. The founders are married (to each other) and they have a (really cute) kid.

[geebee]

I get the feeling that YC is based on a different set of values and insights than your typical VC firm is. Just my impression, of course, but I get the feeling that PG is trying out a social "hack".

There's a magical section of life that a lot of people don't take advantage of - the first few years out of college, when your responsibilities and personal needs are very, very low. A lot of people in their early twenties who don't go directly to grad school spend this time as paralegals, programmers for bigCorps, and so forth.

In a way, YC is testing out a perfect hack - showing how a remarkably small amount of money, along with just a bit of encouragement, can completely alter the course of a lifetime - and, if it is successful and spreads as a model, ultimately change the nature of careers and work.

It's not that married founders with kids and a mortgage can't participate, but if "married with kids" describes you (and it certainly describes me), you probably aren't in that state anymore. But it's up to you to decide - I do know a startup founder who is 40 with a wife and little one (his wife works, though, which helps a lot - though in this case, the few grand YC offers would be irrelevant, and he's funded through a more traditional investment approach). I know lots and lots of married programmers with kids who work as early employees of startups. I could recommend this, because if you're very skilled in Silicon Valley, you can probably get a new job quickly - but it's probably nothing like being in YC.

I remember my first few years after college - I lived near the beach in San Diego, my rent was about $325 a month, and I surfed constantly. Then I went to grad school. Wouldn't have been a bad time to try a startup, I suppose.

[electric]

Time for a New Venture Animal: Ymwkcombinator

[aerohacker]

Good line! Count me in!

[aerohacker]

Thanks for posing the question. I'd been wondering the same, Have there been any YC startup people with teenagers??!!!

I suppose having teenagers would be a great way to recruit your first coding employees! Except mine aren't techies at all. Yet.

[SwellJoe]

If they aren't techies by their teens, and they've had access to technology at all, they never will be. And that's OK. Let'em be what they're gonna be.

[davidw]

pg is married! No kids yet, though, afaik.

[icey]

Sure, but pg is also an old bull now. He wasn't married when he started Viaweb.