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Comment by jschveibinz | Hacker News Reader

Investors like cofounders because they don’t like betting on people who either think they can do everything or can’t work with others. Why? Because starting and running a business is really, really hard—-there are many things to do all at the same time—-and the software or other technology is only a small part of job. Solo founders are just not very likely to succeed. There is too much risk.

Oh, and “finding” a cofounder is not something one does by searching on the Internet. It’s a result of being a team player over the years and developing strong working relationships. (Oops, there’s that team player thing again…)

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> Oh, and “finding” a cofounder is not something one does by searching on the Internet.

Why not? I've had serious offers to co-found companies from random seatmates on bus rides between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Frankly, the biggest obstacle I've had is not in finding team-players (with all due respect to everyone reading this, team-players are a dime a dozen; how could any company function if the majority of people in our society weren't team players?).

For me the biggest obstacle (by far), has been, finding people with drive. I mean, think about all the people who struggle to do remote work, how are they going to find the drive to produce when they don't even have a boss anymore?

Good luck going into business with seatmates on bus rides.

If you co-own company and other owner goes into full "steal as much shit as possible" mode and you are left with downfall as a co-owner.

You can get into serious trouble and end up dragged through courts for years instead of building your dream company.

Then to prevent that - you start doing due diligence on "bus seatmates" - then it turns out, instead of building your dream company you are spending money/time on screening people.

In the end "finding people with drive" is also finding people that care about the same stuff as you do.

The second paragraph is so out of touch. You can do everything right, be a “team player” and never find someone willing to work for free, grind after work and start a startup.

Perhaps put another way - as a company grows a good founder needs to be able to locate skilled individuals with an appetite for risk, that are willing to bet on a vision and that founder's ability to execute that vision, and importantly can align with the founder on that vision. VCs help with this later in the growth cycle but the requirement is still there.

Having a good cofounder signals you can align your vision with a similarly high performer and convince them you can execute

If you can find a spouse on the internet, regardless of how and where, then you can also find a friend. Some friends are cofounder material. Intentionally finding cofounders is daunting because there's little or nothing else besides the current venture to encourage their continuity of working together.

If you happen to find a good cofounder or a good spouse, then you don't keep changing them. That team is worth more than the current venture.

The problem of lacking a cofounder is lacking another pair of eyes and another brain who can help moderate wacky ideas. Everything seems like a great idea and a utopia, in isolation. But in the real world, some ideas are better than others. No one person can think of everything exhaustively and can prioritize it.

The spouse analogy works on several levels because "divorces" with cofounders can also be equally messy for everyone involved.

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