Apply to Y Combinator (Winter 2017)

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2 points·nxzero··3 comments

I've wondered this for a while - why are one-person companies usually not selected? Is there a certain risk that's mitigated by a larger group? Or is it just one of those things were the initial phase involves a ton of work and there's a belief that one person probably can't handle it all/might give up?

Yes, that's correct, while it's not impossible to get in as a solo founder, it's much more common to have multiple cofounders.

My suggestion to get a sense of why having a cofounder makes sense is to just try it. Find someone interested in startups you like being around and pick a problem neither of you are currently working on. Each work on it alone for one day for a set amount of hours, then the next day, work together.

After doing that, you might try bring on a third "cofounder" to see what that's like.

Point is that there's a lot you're able to read about the topic, everyone has an opinion about it, but only way you'll get a feel for it is by seeing what it's like working alone and with cofounders.

Make sense?

COFOUNDER WANTED:

Looking for a cofounder that's interested in applying to YC for this batch.

Only requirement to get started are that we work together on the startup 20+ hours as a team before pressing submit.

Happy to work on your startup, mine, or build one based on YC's existing open requests for startups.

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