On Single Founders

I've been a single founder for over 17 years in numerous successful Startups...anyone who thinks that it's a drawback is a fool who's more interested in the fanboy hype world of Startups than in building real businesses. This phenomenon of "needing" co-founders is really a relatively new thing and is dismaying to watch.

I once co-founded a biotech company in New York with a guy. He was the director of research at a smaller investment bank and had tons of contacts in the biotech industry. Between his contacts and my tech skills it was a slam dunk.

That was one of the few times I ever had a co-founder...It was a strategic reason to have a co-founder that fit a very narrow set of criteria...and really one of the only reasons to ever have a co-founder.

To say, on the other hand, "I need a co-founder" by default is just dumb. To treat it like an item to check off the list for creating a startup is insane. But that seems to be where we are these days in the world of startups...