Hacker News Reader

Comment by icey | Hacker News Reader

I would be especially interested in seeing percentage of single founder applicants (vs total applicants) and percentage of single founder companies accepted (vs total companies accepted).

View on HN

I imagine it's not that high. If I were in PG's shoes, I would be more reluctant to fund single founder groups too for the simple reason that startup ideas go through countless iterations and it's very hard to mold an idea if you have no one to bounce ideas off of. Sure, you could get the opinions of family and friends, but they'll tell you anything because they don't have a stake in the idea.

My guess is that the percentage of single founder applicants is enormous, while the percentage of single founder accepted companies is minuscule. I just wonder how big the gap is.

@icey what makes you think it's enormous? I would think that most people who have a business idea they're confident enough to pursue have it because they've discussed it at length with someone else who's also interested in the idea.

Just a gut feeling. There's no real cost to applying, so why wouldn't a single founder apply?

Given the number of people that post about looking for a cofounder here, I'm just guessing that a lot of people don't have one, but feel that they've got a good enough idea to make a business. Some of them really will have what it takes; but I'm sure the proportion of single founders that apply is quite different that the proportion of single founders that are accepted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com