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What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

tik.dev

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Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#11

Post by todd3834 »

no1youknowz wrote: post #9
todd3834 wrote: post #3

Thanks for sharing! I have spent a lot of time as a solo founder and I’ve spent time as a co-founder. I thought it might be helpful to contrast my experiences. As a solo founder I found that the highs were muted and the lows were amplified. This likely won’t be true for everyone but this was very true for me. As a solo founder I often felt like I had no idea if I was working on the right thing because there are so ma…

> As a solo founder I often felt like I had no idea if I was working on the right thing because there are so many things that need to be done. As a solo founder myself. Here's how to solve that problem. If you pre-launch speak to potential customers. If you are post-launch, speak to your customers. Those who are in the weeds and touch your application/competitors application on a daily basis are the ones who will giv…

Great tip! This would be good for companies of any size.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#13

Post by api »

I've been a solo founder for some time. By far the toughest thing for me has been the cognitive load.

I don't mean raw time. I generally have enough time to get done what I need to get done. I'm talking about the sheer number of different things I have to think about and pay attention to. It's more about mental clutter and management of it than time management, at least for my own case.

Burnout can be an issue too and can come from cognitive load and also not having as many peers to give support and energy. It's easy to get down and lose motivation.

Overall I'd say: multiple founders with good chemistry > solo founder > multiple founders with bad chemistry or conflict. I always put being a solo founder on a list of weaknesses, but the thing is that everyone and every team/venture has a list of weaknesses and part of succeeding is recognizing yours and trying to work around them.

Strategies I've found include maintaining time/energy boundaries (e.g. not working weekends unless something is on fire), delegating where possible, managing scope creep (I've had problems with this one!), and looking at it as a marathon rather than a sprint and thinking in terms of endurance. Getting exercise, eating healthy, and trying to get enough sleep help too as with anything requiring one to be fit.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#15

Post by idlewords »

After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time.

Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo:

* A "lumpy" income stream that is hard to model or predict

* The feeling of being on call 24/7

* Having to make a large capital outlay or hire an expensive professional like a lawyer

* Seeing a well-funded competitor appear and start hiring

Anxiety is an odd meta-problem in that if you worry about it, you just make it worse, but some strategy for long-term coping is necessary.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#16

Post by idlewords »

todd3834 wrote: post #3

Thanks for sharing! I have spent a lot of time as a solo founder and I’ve spent time as a co-founder. I thought it might be helpful to contrast my experiences. As a solo founder I found that the highs were muted and the lows were amplified. This likely won’t be true for everyone but this was very true for me. As a solo founder I often felt like I had no idea if I was working on the right thing because there are so ma…

"Statistically your chances of succeeding are higher as a co-founder" is true in the sense that accelerators like YC have this as a selection criterion.

I'd be curious to see if this is true without the selection effect.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#18

Post by therealwardo »

I've been working on a project with a couple people that I don't get a lot of value from as co-founders right now because they aren't designers or engineers. They are trying to help us define the set of requirements given their relationships in the industry, but they have not really done product work before. I keep telling myself how valuable they will be once we launch because they will bring customers. Echoed by the author here:

"When you start a project, you always think that finishing and launching your project is the hardest part. However, after the launch you realize that the most difficult part is just ahead."

Any recommendations for how to handle this kind of co-founder situation?

I'm thinking about working with them to define equity incentives on both sides, but I'm short on other ideas for how to make things feel well balanced in the short term given our unbalanced skill sets.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#19

Post by aj24 »

therealwardo wrote: post #18

I've been working on a project with a couple people that I don't get a lot of value from as co-founders right now because they aren't designers or engineers. They are trying to help us define the set of requirements given their relationships in the industry, but they have not really done product work before. I keep telling myself how valuable they will be once we launch because they will bring customers. Echoed by th…

one thing they could and should be doing is enabling those conversations with potential customers right now so you can validate the product/features you're building as well as have them be ready/aware to use your product when you do launch.

Re: What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

#20

Post by psgibbs »

therealwardo wrote: post #18

I've been working on a project with a couple people that I don't get a lot of value from as co-founders right now because they aren't designers or engineers. They are trying to help us define the set of requirements given their relationships in the industry, but they have not really done product work before. I keep telling myself how valuable they will be once we launch because they will bring customers. Echoed by th…

Without much more detail than this, they don't sound like cofounders. If they're waiting until you launch to go 100%, then you're assuming all the risk right now.

Again take with a grain of salt, bc I have no context, but , if there's one you think is clearly the best, that you like working with them, get them to be a cofounder and make them go all in. They can do lots of manual work to validate the idea/product (ie manually do things you'd like your product to do). If there's noone you could see doing this, then their role is probably not going to grow that much when there is a 'product'.

Also: the product will never be done, and framing launch as a binary event doesn't help you (or your potential cofounders). It's all just a continuous spectrum of trying to cover as much scope/utility as possible for your users, and using a product to try to automate that. After 7 years, you'd be shocked how much stuff my sales cofounder does manually that we had framed as a 'required feature for launch'.

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