The Co-Founder Myth: Why You Might Not Need One | Hacker News Reader

The Co-Founder Myth: Why You Might Not Need One

foundersblock.com

86 pointsmayava18 comments

It's great to read a counter argument to the prevailing wisdom, with data to back it up. I've often thought that the argument that "if you can't find at least one person to join you, then your idea (or you) must not be that great" was a little disingenuous. That statement makes sense in certain contexts, such as when someone has just graduated from university and is living rent free in their parent's basement (it is assumed that their potential co-founders are in a similar situation). It makes less sense when a person is working 9-5 and has a mortgage. It turns out that individuals who are willing to burn the midnight oil for months or years after getting off work because they are passionate about an idea are quite rare. The likelihood of finding a similar individual to partner with within their network of friends, and who will contribute at a commensurate level, is diminishingly small. Perpetuating the above idea does this group a disservice. Instead of rooting for them we are, in essence, saying, “there’s something wrong with you or your idea” per se if you’re a single founder.

Also, how easy a company is to pitch (and therefore find another to join you) is absolutely irrelevant to how good the idea is. If there's a relation, it's most likely inverse -- unless you mean by "good idea", "able to get further funding." (Pets.com was easy to pitch, Google not so much.)

I'm a sole founder. I progress for the same reason I breathe; there's no "not breathing." And because I'm a sole founder, nothing can stop me. No co-founder issues, no arguing. The worst I face is that I can be slowed down. Nothing can stop me.

I see your point, but I would disagree that Google wasn't an easy pitch. Example: "We're the best search engine. If we're better than everyone else and easier to use, more people will use us. We'll use those eyeballs to make money."

Ah, but there were many search engines touting themselves as better. Better won't cut it. Google was so much better that people were willing to switch from Yahoo and the others, and that's an empty pitch. You would have to back that up, and to back it up means already having achieved your goal. Of the two, in my opinion, pets.com had the better pitch.

There are also many ideas that are flights of fancy or long shots that a single person can be "dead set" on but unable to seriously convince anyone else about until it's, well, working. Dyson and his cyclone vacuum cleaner comes to mind.

Couldnt agree more. Also I think 'convincing' anyone to do a startup is amazingly dangerous. Even in the situations that it can be done, it should not be. You cannot, or rather should not convince anyone on doing a startup.

This is one aspect where PG has gone really wrong on his essays, which are otherwise brilliant. As you rightly put it it harms startups more than help.

A related point is that I have never seen equal co-founders in a startup which have succeeded. There is almost always an anchor/leadership which takes a last call.

I had the same bad experience with a cofounder explained in the article, some years ago.

I started a little company in my city with what I believed was a close friend. I had a job and I was still at university, while he didn't and had a wife and a newborn daughter, so I thought he was committed enough. I was wrong because he had backing from his parents that are quite wealthy.

After some months in which I was the only one that made some work (website design), bringing some money in the company while he was losing time with the excuses like "I'm not ready and I don't want to ruin the company reputation (he was the sales guy), he decided that it was better to split our paths. I "sold" my part of the company to him and after one year he closed it full of debts.

From then on I always found myself in a better position doing things alone. They say that the weight is to much to endure for one single founder, but I don't think so. I was always able to endure everything. If you have friends or relatives or a partner in your life, you are never alone. If you need their support, it does not matter if they are in your venture or not.

If you have friends or relatives or a partner in your life, you are never alone.

Yes! I don't think this is said enough.

I was having this exact chat with my wife last night. I'm working as a freelancer while building a startup and she's supporting me 100%. What were talking about is how a husband-wife team would look to potential investors when clearly one person is doing the most of the visible work, but couldn't do as much without the other. And one thing that came up is equity and how that could play out.

I wish I had a good answer.

This is a topic we should discuss more on HN. Both my wife and myself are currently working on an evening MBA program. People are shocked that we are able to do it at the same time, take classes together, etc. I don't understand, because I find that we end up supporting each other, motivating each other, etc.

Along the same lines, I would definitely love to run a company with my wife one day. Most people I meet are aghast when I suggest running a company with a spouse. Is this idea really that rare?

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'm definitely interested in exploring co-founder relationships further. Seems to me that bringing on a "good friend" as a co-founder is a treacherous path (either take off or crash and burn), but most husband/wife, brother/sister, and very very best friends co-founder relationships seem to work out. Perhaps the extreme closeness allows the parties to communicate more openly, be more committed, or better understand and accommodate each others' weaknesses.

I wonder what the optimal similarity/difference threshold is for successful co-founder relationships. You'll want to be different enough so that you can merge your expertise and cover more ground, but then if education / background / philosophies / life stage are too divergent, as in the case with you being in uni and your co-founder running a family, you're likely to disagree on major issues or have different levels of commitment/skill.

This is an "outside" versus "inside" question. From the outside, a team with 2 or 3 is going to be a stronger team than just a person. But this is just a wide generalization, made by folks trying to find patterns. Startups happen in Silicon Valley, by teams of young 20-somethings with more dreams than brains. Most fail, and some change the world.

But there are a lot of guys making money trading collectible buttons on E-bay or some such. And although some folks don't call these a startup, in my mind any business you can scale to a large degree from nothing is a startup. And since we don't have to have the overhead, many former small business ideas are actually startups. In your unique case, being a sole founder might work better.

I tend to think that in the 20-30 age range, you need a cofounder. The team needs breadth of experience and long hours. The coolest startups have the biggest impact, so you have a lot of work to do! Plus 3 people working together are about ten times as effective as one person.

Somewhere between 30 and 40 it probably starts making more sense to go it alone. You know the ropes (hopefully), you're more likely to be playing a safer game, you're going to leverage. Also, oddly enough, under 17 or so is probably single-cofounder territory also.

I can't get past the enormous opportunities colleges offer to get to know closely a group of people over several years. These relationships can be invaluable with startups.

But I think that the conventional wisdom that startups have some certain shape or fit comes a lot more from the social nature of the startup community. VCs and the other hangers-on are always trying to make generalizations, always looking for boxes to put people in. How many single-founder startups are out there, bootstrapping, running under the radar, doing very well? Probably ten for every hotshot team that gets funded.

That's just a guess, and my opinion, and my opinion doesn't matter. If the sole-founder movement is true, it'll happen with or without us encouraging or acknowledging it. And if it's not true, no amount of pontificating and blustering will make it so.

But I'd bet on it.

It is comforting to see some positive stats on one founder startups, it is not easy to find a co-founder that's just as passionate about the product as I'm. I am a firm believer that small team work best! Being a single founder company is very easy to get derailed and overwhelmed, I guess that's why some of the most successful entrepreneurs I see has got amazing focus to deliver and follow through.

Interesting to see the data on this. From a personal perspective, I would just add (as someone who has founded a company with one co-founder but not taken funding) that you should not underestimate the value of the support in taking decisions etc. that come from having someone with you who is equally invested (in an emotional sense rather than just a financial sense).

As a single founder I can confirm that I have a massive amount of freedom, agility, and efficiency. Minimized need to spend time communicating or convincing or debating. My think-do loop and action latency are minimized. I'm allowed to act on and leverage any and all insights I may have. Minimized bureaucracy and paperwork. Minimized chance that somebody else can fuck me over or let me down. Is it perfect? No. You lose some things but I think what you gain is much more important at the earliest stages of a business, especially when small or prerevenue.

Talking with others is good. Drawing on other's talents is good, but ideally it's done in a tactical way where you're still in control and can make the ultimate yes/no decisons to go forward, and retain ability to pivot. And yes, single founder prob most feasible when you have biz skills and tech skills (enough). If not, co-founders look more attractive.

The entrepreneurs I talked to who were successful in a single founder role were either building low-tech consumer-facing web businesses, or had awesome tech skills and were able to bring on supplementary help at lower equity divisions to be treated like co-founders, but without the hefty equity split. After all, these extra team members were brought on after the companies typically got a bit of buzz and traction, so they had reduced risk.

If I were looking to invest in a startup, especially one by college kids, I can see the preference to having 2-3 cofounders. Because it reduces my risk as an investor in the case where one guy gets hit by a bus, and ensures that the cofounders have somebody they can ask for advice who is intimately knowledgable about and vested in the success of their venture WITHOUT necessarily having to lean on me, the investor, all the time -- because my time is finite and to further increase my success chances and happiness I want to spend time on many ventures, plus family and friends and life chores.

As an entrepreneur my bias is to single founder, precisely because that also reduces my risk. and maximizes my time efficiency.

Summary: which number is best depends on your role, whether you are the entrepreneur or merely the outside investor.

Good point about being hit by a bus. Key man risk is something I neglected to discuss in the article.

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