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Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

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Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#21

Post by 50CNT »

benevol wrote: post #15
throwaway7312 wrote: post #9

I've cofounded 4 different startups. All were good ideas that bled cash or time and flopped, largely due to infighting or founder differences. One cofounder of one of the companies got really nasty about trying to leave with the rights to the company and we other two cofounders just let him have it. He sold the rights and it's now a successful venture-backed startup with soaring profits (two cofounders). Good for tha…

> pick a behind-the-scenes guy if you're a visionary, or make sure you're comfortable as the behind-the-scenes guy if you're partnering with a visionary What's your take on the situation where you are both? (Where somebody is visionary, "knows business" and codes as well.)

Then you don't need a co-founder.

It can still be nice to have one, one guys schleps are another persons hobby. Like I'm good at analysis, but bad at dealing with third-parties. The guy I'm working with is good at dealing with third-parties but is a bit slower at dissecting problems. No worries. There's a number of different other pairings of this kind too, some areas where we have overlap, some stuff one of us needs to figure out, some both of us need to learn. And I think that's pretty cool.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#24

Post by greenspot »

Starting companies is much easier with a cofounder. There's more momentum and pace with somebody together. Especially with first time founders, a team is the driving force when starting a venture.

But unfortunetaly every relationship changes or ends at some point--always. Then, it's about a quick and smooth separation without briging the company in danger. But this rarely happens, the separation is usually a tedious process over many months till the company breaks.

So yes, solo founding is better in the long run but in most cases there will be no founding at all because of momentum lacking.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#25

Post by adwn »

cyphar wrote: post #17
afoihfoina wrote: post #14

The question that most people are interested in is P(Success | Number of Founders) but what the article has answered is P(Number of Founders | Success) for a couple of different metrics of "success". They are not the same question! In particular, the average number of founders for a successful startup might be low, but the chances could still be better with more founders.

mumble Bayes' Rule mumble :P

To apply Bayes' theorem, you also need P(success) and P(number of founders = N) for N = 1, 2, 3,...

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#26

Post by jheriko »

what bugs me about the startup community is how things like raising 10M in funding or exiting by IPO are considered success.

neither of those things have anything to do with building or running a successful business. they are not even desirable imo.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#27

Post by BerislavLopac »

But what is a co-founder exactly? I can't imagine a startup being started, built and brought to an exit by a single person -- every employee contributes to some extent, and in my view an early employee who contributed a great deal should in all fairness be considered a (minority) founder.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#28

Post by throwaway1182 »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #9

I've cofounded 4 different startups. All were good ideas that bled cash or time and flopped, largely due to infighting or founder differences. One cofounder of one of the companies got really nasty about trying to leave with the rights to the company and we other two cofounders just let him have it. He sold the rights and it's now a successful venture-backed startup with soaring profits (two cofounders). Good for tha…

Interesting data point. However, we're happily chugging along with 6 co-founders, bootstrapped to currently 30 mln us$ valuation and we've only just begun.

Then again, your point about "visionaries" (with which you probably mean high-ego people needing a lot of approval) rings true to me. We're all pretty low-key hard-working people with a lot of self-reflection and humility - also it helps it's not the usual failing friends, family or uni buddies combo but we're really more of a casting band with a team mixed and matched from industry professionals by our main founder.

In this very setup, it's actually very enjoyable with a lot of pros: Scaling is much faster and easier with invested veterans at the helm, all important departments are headed by founders, also having same-level people in the same company helps enormously with the more difficult decisions and just professional exchange, growing as leaders and 1-1 mentoring. If - and only if - the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication, this is an amazing way to work and learn.

10/10 would do it again.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#29

Post by BerislavLopac »

eb0la wrote: post #12
huhtenberg wrote: post #8

> Sooooo… You can start a company alone. Should you? Only if you are young and without dependents or if you can afford to write the effort off. Success is one metric, but another metric is the stress levels. Having been through both single- and multi-founder startups I can certainly confirm that former is incomparably more stressful than the latter. Assuming of course you are trying to build a functional company and…

Totally agree. I remember a beautiful family vacation that went wrong because as a solo founder everything that happened got routed to me. If you decide to go solo, you will start hiring very soon just to make stuff happening before you run out of bandwidth. And you'll need really high quality hires... wich need a lot of bandwidth to acquire so plan accordingly (if you can ;-).

Shouldn't they be considered founders too?

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#30

Post by MichaelBurge »

adwn wrote: post #25
cyphar wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mumble Bayes' Rule mumble :P

To apply Bayes' theorem, you also need P(success) and P(number of founders = N) for N = 1, 2, 3,...

It seems like you could get both from the government, since every business needs to be registered with them.
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