Two creators are not always better than one • Hacker News Board

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#71

Post by cyberferret » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 12:20 AM UTC

Having gone through the solo founder -> co-founder -> back to solo founder route with my latest (bootstrapped) startup, I can honestly concur that:

* The most contentful working time for me was when I had a co-founder. It was good to bounce ideas off someone, and having another person with equal share in the business increased accountability and my motivation to keep pushing.

* The most effective working time for me was as a solo-founder. I felt that I wasn't compromising every decision I made to keep my co-founder happy, and that I could make decisions much more quickly and change direction whenever I wanted.

I think the main problem with the time with a co-founder was that we were too similar. We worked great together and got on well, but there wasn't that spark that pushed the business forward. Since being on my own again and pushing against the limitation of my own personality and abilities, I have managed to grow the business trifold since my co-founder left.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#72

Post by nissimk » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 12:37 AM UTC

ata_aman wrote: post #62

PaulHoule wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is affirmative action for non-technical cofounders if you ask me. The non-technical cofounders who become VCs want to support people who remind them of themselves in the past. This is why founder dating is like dating at a tech school. There are many non-technical cofounders who bring nothing to the table except the desire to make a huge amount of money. That is something to work with, but it is by no mean…

The only flow in the logic for me in the multi-founder scenario is that if the other person is non-technical, they are automatically considered sales etc... by default. So you can get anyone who is not technical and meet the model; regardless of their skills. It's harder to prove someone is not good at sales vs a technical person (more relevant in younger founders). The only argument I can think of against what I jus…

I would think that sales would be easier to measure than tech because successful salespeople have a track record with dollar amounts sold.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#73

Post by jwilliams » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 12:44 AM UTC

mkong1 wrote: post #17

kyleashipley wrote: post #3

From the article: >The research is based on a survey of creators for thousands of Kickstarter projects between 2009 and May 2015. From the paper: >This suggests that the taken-for-granted assumption among scholars that entrepreneurship is best performed by teams should be reevaluated, with implications for theories of team performance and entrepreneurial strategy. The claims in the paper are pretty limited and based…

How many high-growth companies came out of Kickstarter? The ones that jump to mind are Oculus and Pebble, but I can't think of others.

Off the top of my head I’d add Lifx and Nuraphone.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#74

Post by cyberferret » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 1:17 AM UTC

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #20

superplussed wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also hear that it's protection against a founder quitting. Though this to me seems dubious as I would guess that sole founders are much less likely to quit prematurely (for obvious reasons) than a co-founder.

Really doubt that this is true.

Speaking from nearly 40 years experience over several businesses - this is VERY true.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#75

Post by isalmon » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 1:47 AM UTC

I'll share my story.

Solo technical founder. Hired my first sales employee long after I established a product-market fit, got a few paying customers and $300K in annual revenue. I gave him a co-founder title, but we were never equal. It was one of the best decision that I have made. The company would not have been able to survive if 2 of us were equal - we would have gone out of business. Instead, 1 year after I pushed him out we had a moderately successful exit (8 figure).

I think that having a solo founder is beneficial AS LONG AS that one person is great. Otherwise you, as a VC, kind of bet that at least 1 of them will be great and it will all work out.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#76

Post by xyzzy123 » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

nissimk wrote: post #72

ata_aman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only flow in the logic for me in the multi-founder scenario is that if the other person is non-technical, they are automatically considered sales etc... by default. So you can get anyone who is not technical and meet the model; regardless of their skills. It's harder to prove someone is not good at sales vs a technical person (more relevant in younger founders). The only argument I can think of against what I jus…

I would think that sales would be easier to measure than tech because successful salespeople have a track record with dollar amounts sold.

I’ve seen people do really well at sales within one organisation completely fail in another.

Dollar amounts between salespeople are really only comparable within a given company and maybe not even then taking into account different territories, product lines and times.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#77

Post by opportune » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #24

njarboe wrote: post #13

I think the reason Y-combinator and others like to see two or more founders is that at least those two people are willing to work with/for each other. It is a rough filtering mechanism, and probably a very useful one, especially if your philosophy is that technical people make great business founders. More honestly it is "Technical people can make great startup founders, but first filter on if they can recruit one ot…

I think it is affirmative action for non-technical cofounders if you ask me. The non-technical cofounders who become VCs want to support people who remind them of themselves in the past. This is why founder dating is like dating at a tech school. There are many non-technical cofounders who bring nothing to the table except the desire to make a huge amount of money. That is something to work with, but it is by no mean…

There is a common trope that developers lack social skills and business understanding and need a "people person" to "handle the business side." This is basically why almost every technical person at big companies is beholden to PMs (who may not even have any technical background) who get paid just as much, if not more, to write word documents, make powerpoints, and tell you what to do. And while it's true that a lot of developers have bad social skills, I'm willing to guess most developers who want to start a company and raise VC money don't fit that stereotype.

So maybe it's non-technical cofounders implementing a vicious cycle of grifting off the technical people, I think it's more likely it's just due to the fact that we have pervasive negative stereotypes surrounding technical people's ability to do non-technical things.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#78

Post by evrydayhustling » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:12 AM UTC

Critical detail beneath the fold:

> The research is based on a survey of creators for thousands of Kickstarter projects between 2009 and May 2015.

It would be crazy to generalize from this to most VC-backed (or seeking) businesses... and another thing still to compare the massively larger set of small businesses started by individuals without major external funding. Different kinds of firms face incredibly different pressures and failure modes at every stage.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#79

Post by briandear » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #24

njarboe wrote: post #13

I think the reason Y-combinator and others like to see two or more founders is that at least those two people are willing to work with/for each other. It is a rough filtering mechanism, and probably a very useful one, especially if your philosophy is that technical people make great business founders. More honestly it is "Technical people can make great startup founders, but first filter on if they can recruit one ot…

I think it is affirmative action for non-technical cofounders if you ask me. The non-technical cofounders who become VCs want to support people who remind them of themselves in the past. This is why founder dating is like dating at a tech school. There are many non-technical cofounders who bring nothing to the table except the desire to make a huge amount of money. That is something to work with, but it is by no mean…

But when a good part of your company involves marketing, blogging, content marketing, qualifying leads, talking to potential customers, supporting customers, dealing with advertising, going to conferences (where your target customer is,) that’s a huge amount of “non-technical” work that has to get done. Many technical founders consider a non-technical founder as somehow “less important” that the tech, but it’s definitely is the opposite. All the great tech in the world doesn’t mean jack if you can’t sell it.

Re: Two creators are not always better than one

#80

Post by briandear » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

opportune wrote: post #77

PaulHoule wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is affirmative action for non-technical cofounders if you ask me. The non-technical cofounders who become VCs want to support people who remind them of themselves in the past. This is why founder dating is like dating at a tech school. There are many non-technical cofounders who bring nothing to the table except the desire to make a huge amount of money. That is something to work with, but it is by no mean…

There is a common trope that developers lack social skills and business understanding and need a "people person" to "handle the business side." This is basically why almost every technical person at big companies is beholden to PMs (who may not even have any technical background) who get paid just as much, if not more, to write word documents, make powerpoints, and tell you what to do. And while it's true that a lot…

It’s not that technical founders don’t have people skills: they don’t have the time. Going full bore into product development only to be interrupted by a potential customer asking about pricing plans is a big time suck, but it’s vital if you are actually building a real business.