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You Don't Need A Co-Founder

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Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#21

Post by jscore »

logicallee wrote: post #14

This writer misses one of the most important issue, which would be under his heading "Validation". Validation isn't (just) internal! It's not that you (necessarily) need convincing your 'idea' is any good. Validation is external. The fact that two people are both working on something makes 'something' 1000x more real than if some guy is working on it. There's always going to be information asymmetry between internal…

Yep, you hit the nail on the head.

http://codepreneur.tumblr.com/post/57717923667/why-you-reall...

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#22

Post by joeblau »

This is a pretty good article, I share a lot of the same sentients, but I'm on the other side of the fence. I"m on the technical side, although I've started making friends who are business minded in the area which has helped out a lot. I think that the right co-founder makes your team progress at more than 2x your normal speed.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#23

Post by jfoster »

samsonasu wrote: post #17

I've been objectively successful as a single founder over the past few years, so its definitely possible. I've hired, fired, pivoted, and made more money than I made mistakes but I always felt the lack of a cofounder has been holding me back. There is only so much emotional weight I can offload onto my amazing wife, and although some of the people I've worked with (contractors, clients) have made amazing contribution…

Do you talk to other founders much? I am a solo founder, but in a co-working space. I can bounce ideas off of or ask for help from many of the other founders there. That makes it feel like it's no big deal that I'm a solo founder.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#24

Post by __chrismc »

Major_Grooves wrote: post #6

A very familiar scenario for me. As a solo non-technical founder I've so far build my startup using funding via Seedrs (crowd equity funding in the UK) and contractors in the UK and Russia. I got some decent VC interest, but they all say they will only invest if I have a technical co-founder. Hence, I go off spending 50% of my time looking for a co-founder. It's like deciding that within 2 months you need to find you…

Is there a way you can continue without VC? It sounds like you're compromising yourself/business and don't really want to.

To continue your marriage analogy: don't do it if your heart isn't in it. The inevitable misery and divorce aren't worth it.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#25

Post by [deleted] »

bachback wrote: post #16
[deleted] wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I don't think so. It really depends on the leverage that the sole founder has. If he can bootstrap and has very high Return on Equity, he doesn't need capital. I think the point is really that there is very little reason not to give early employees a good chunk of capital, because it is requirement to work hard. The author of the article bootstrapped a business, but that's not necessarily the same as a high growth st…

[deleted]

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#26

Post by ericevans »

The YC people deal with enough startups to see probabilities. They have data, and they say the odds improve dramatically with cofounders.

This article (mostly) doesn't dispute that, and explores ways to perhaps compensate for the lack of a cofounder and redress those odds a bit. That seems useful as a source of ideas, as long as we keep it in the right category.

It is in a different category from the YC statement, which was based on numbers. YC didn't draw conclusions about cause/effect, they just correlated. That's pretty solid ground. This article puts up several specific possible causes of the cofounder advantage and then possible solutions, which might work, if the cause/effect inference is right. Two layers of inference, based on anecdotal evidence.

The article made me think about the issue in a different way. I thought it was valuable in that way. I'd be really interested to know if people with data have correlated solo startup success with any other factors. Does anyone know of any such attempt?

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#28

Post by 1angryhacker »

Please stop posting sales pitches on HN that masquerade for the first 75% as a blog post giving unbiased advice before coming up with the line "and that's where my company comes in".

The article is clearly biased based on the product and this should be called out immediately.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#29

Post by adii »

logicallee wrote: post #14

This writer misses one of the most important issue, which would be under his heading "Validation". Validation isn't (just) internal! It's not that you (necessarily) need convincing your 'idea' is any good. Validation is external. The fact that two people are both working on something makes 'something' 1000x more real than if some guy is working on it. There's always going to be information asymmetry between internal…

I don't agree. Whether you're a solo founder or have 10 co-founders, you won't succeed if you're building something that no one wants. You can get customer validation regardless of whether you have co-founders or not.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#30

Post by mattzito »

Major_Grooves wrote: post #9
ccozan wrote: post #3

So, the takeaway from the article is: don't co-found with someone technical, hire/outsource them. Well, I could say: good luck! You either get some half-assed solution or something ( if you oursource ) you don't even asked for, because they didn't understand your business requirements ( because of the language, distance, culture, etc). Don't fall for this. Really, get yourself a technical co-founder. Amaze him. You c…

Getting yourself a technical co-founder is really, really difficult. It takes up a lot of time that is not business-building. I was very lucky that the contractor I am working with is one of the best developers I have ever worked with. He really feels like part of the company, and knows the product inside out. Of course the weakness is that if I can't afford to pay him any more, there's nothing I can do with the site…

If this person is so critical, why would you not bring them into the fold and make them an employee or co-founder? Because you really are setting yourself up for disaster when they can just walk at anytime.
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