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Comment by randlet | Hacker News Reader

It's tough to find two or more compatible and like minded people who can afford to make (effectively) zero money for an extended period of time. Having VC money makes it possible to support a bigger team from the outset with less financial risk to the founders. This may contribute to the bias towards single founders in bootstrapped companies.

I'm a solo SaaS founder and would absolutely love to have a partner but the few people I've discussed it with have not been able to tolerate the financial risk / lost opportunity cost.

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I am a solo SAAS founder and I would say that other than the financial risk/lost opportunity cost, the major hurdle is finding someone ambitious and driven enough who is willing to slog it out with you. The drive, the ambition and will to do whatever it takes day in, day out is not that easy to find. Especially when you have to find others who may not feel the same about your brand/product/business.

Additionally, the demographics on slide 7 point to the majority of founders being over 30. This age group often coincides with a greater likelihood of having a partner, mortgage, children, etc. Thus the risk aversion for that group is likely also higher.

Finding 2+ people with the risk tolerance alone limiting, much less having a complementary skill set, interests, goals, etc.

I am such a person. I could afford to work for years without money thanks to my high net worth and investments in the tech sector, and have over a decade of software development experience in building robust web scale applications.

Unfortunately, most potential co-founders write me off when they discover I’m ethically challenged.

> ethically challenged

Is that like a euphemism for sociopath?

I'm being slightly facetious, but I don't really know what you mean by "ethically challenged".

Probably a euphemism for worked at Facebook

Perhaps time in prison? In the sense that people assume having gone to prison is a challenge to the default assumption of whether you are a good person.

How are you "ethically challenged"? And what prevents you from simply BSing them so they don't discover this?

What a fascinating response.

> most potential co-founders write me off when they discover I’m ethically challenged.

I would have loved to have come across this comment years ago. I was building a bit of awesome software that turned out to be "illegal" ("PayPal is a bank -- oh, you're a regulator? PayPal isn't a bank!" kind of illegal). It was really interesting, but my cofounder backed out once we ran into regulation designed to keep us out of the market. I wanted to keep going and pretend the regulation didn't exist/apply to us.

> VC money makes it possible to support a bigger team from the outset

Yes. However, in practice, it is very rare to be able to raise money before the founding team has already been working on the business for a few months. Hence, by the time VCs put money into the company, most likely, the founders have already incurred their most significant financial risk.

Find a seasoned co-founder who has had an exit and doesn't need another exit to retire, but does need a mission to stay sharp till then.

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