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Comment by jcfrei | Hacker News Reader

my advice: dont be a solo founder. chances are that you get totally sucked into your idea without realizing that you're project is going to fail. if you're doing all the work yourself, make sure you release early and dont fail too hard (the longer you wait with the launch the harder the 'waking up' will be). if you got a cofounder chances are a lot higher that you might be building something substantial.

but kudos to you for sticking to your project, it takes a lot of dedication and that's ultimately what makes an entrepreneur.

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How strange that people seems to accept an author writing a book for 10 years, or a screenwriter writing a movie for 5 years, yet when a web developer tries to make a simple web app people go "NO! you have to be in a team! It's TOO HARD!"

I was once trying hard to be a screenwriter, and we in the writing community never accepted any such thing. If someone is putting 10 years into their novel, or 5 years into their screenplay, that is cause for suspicion. The bars of Hollywood are awash with people who tinker with the same pet idea for years and never submit to the public. Writers form writers' groups and seek managers for the same reason founders seek cofounders: to keep themselves from strolling down an interesting but ultimately profitless rabbit hole. Writers have their own version of "artists ship". Writers publish.

Getting external feedback is not the same thing as having a co-founder. I would hope that any solo founder is still talking with people about his or her project.

Those are not good examples, since an author or screenwriter will have people at the end who can help make it work. An editor/publisher or director/actors are essential. A good screenplay could still result in a crappy movie in the end.

(I do believe that a good developer who can code, has people skills, good style, etc. can do it alone.)

I see your point but single founders aren't completely alone either. I think of hosting my Ruby app on Heroku and letting them do sysadmin, leveraging awesome open source code to get to a product faster, and having great advisors as my equivalents of having an agent, an editor, or a publisher.

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