The typical case is to not do this. If you're capable of doing the development work for what you want to build on your own, it's exhilarating though. As long as you have external validation (paying customers, ensure you talk to people smarter than you on a regular basis,...) it's nice being able to make your own decisions without worrying about friction.It's a double edged sword with the amount of work you need to do, but if you enjoy what you do, for many who would be crazy enough to do this in the first place, it's mostly a non issue.
You Don't Need A Co-Founder
41–48 of 48 posts
Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#42So, 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…
1. You get what you pay for. A lot of individuals who outsource the development of their "startup idea" end up with a less-than-satisfactory solution because they lacked the capital reasonably necessary to pursue their venture and as a result outsourced to the cheapest developer they could find.
2. Business requirements are a two-way street. Many non-technical folks have a hard time sufficiently describing their business requirements, and even more simply don't have the skill and patience required to work with a technical resource to turn business requirements into functional and technical requirements. You can't blame a technical resource for this shortcoming.
3. In today's market, good developers who are eager to make money generally have no shortage of employment and contracting opportunities. In certain geographic areas of the United States, experienced developers can easily make six figures annually. Outside of the United States, it's not difficult to find freelance developers earning far in excess of the average local wage. Unless you have a personal relationship with a developer and a co-founder relationship grows organically out of that relationship, it's naive to believe that a developer willing to work for you on an equity-only basis is going to be the cream of the crop.
In short, there's a reason there are so many non-technical founders running around like chickens with their heads cut off looking for a technical co-founder: very few good developers want to take your 1 am call so that they can do all the work for free while you sleep.
Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#43I'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.
I love Coworking and even I help run a space here in Madison. I should've mentioned that as one of the major things that keeps me sane.
Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#44So, 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…
I somewhat disagree, and I've seen some examples.
My opinion is that it depends on what your startup's value proposition is.
If you're building Groupon, the example's Sampleboard, or any startup where the development work is standard, I'd say the technical cofounder isn't essential.
He/she can prevent contractors from pulling a fast one, but you're being too biased - most contractors will build to specs, probably not as polished or complete, but more than enough for an MVP.
OTOH, if your startup's value proposition depends on leveraging new technologies, or a complex stack, or delivering something where tech is critical, you need the technical founder/cofounder.
I've seen a Groupon clone founded by a lawyer of all things :) and the outsourcing work was shoddy but the first technical hires patched it up.
Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#45This 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.
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Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#46I have a ton of respect for Adii, but from my experience it is SIGNIFICANTLY harder to do something great without a cofounder. Sure, if your a cereal entrepreneur like Adii or captain crunch, it's doable, but for most of us who are still trying for our first big breakthrough, we need all the help we can get. Almost any startup/product needs two things. A good quality product and users. When speed is important it's ex…
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Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I (the so called "author") also bootstrapped WooThemes successfully to grow to more than 100k+ paying customers, 500k+ users, a team of 33 and 10-figures in revenues. :)
10 figures in revenue? Seriously?
Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder
#48I think that this article is "meh," so let's look at it step-by-step:
1. Emotional Support
Author gets emotional support from wife and admits that you will need someone to help you through the shit-storm that is founding a start-up. But most young entrepreneurs don't have spouses. Seems like a co-founder fits the bill here.
2. External Validation
A couple of points: you should listen to your customers, but your customers are a very bad barometer for gauging big company decisions -- sometimes you need to make changes that they won't like. Changes that are good for the company (or changes that help you pivot) but piss off significant portions of your customer base; the customer is not always right. So if customers are a bad source of validation, what about other entrepreneurs? Let's face it: they are busy with their own projects to give you any meaningful feedback. The author's last point is to "write that down" -- seriously? Just get a co-founder.
3. Ideas / Brainstorming
Brainstorming is not merely spit-balling. Author says that "you want to prevent brainstorming ideas and possible solutions that are inherently not viable or even true" -- but who else knows your company as well as a co-founder? I.e. who else could gauge whether or not solutions are viable (or true)?
Let's ignore the shameless plug here (and the fact that using a website for brainstorming seems prima facie silly); I just want to point out that brainstorming outside of your company is worthless. You, quite obviously, need to brainstorm with someone in your company. Might as well make it a co-founder.
4. Skills / Capacity
It seems pretty obvious that you want to do something in the tech arena, you need to be pretty tech-savvy. If you're not tech-savvy, you need to associate yourself with someone that is. There's a good reason investors don't invest in business people. I remember listening to a talk by some of the people at Mint. One of their anecdotes went something like so: "When you go and pitch to a VC, every programmer is +$50mil in valuation, and every suit & tie "business guy" is -$100mil in valuation."
Apart from the intuitive attractiveness of this train of thought, there also has not (ever) been a successful "business guy" with no tech expertise and no technical co-founder doing much of anything in the start-up world.
Finally, let me just say that the people at YC know what they are doing. They rarely accept single-founder start-ups for a very good (and obvious) reason. The lack of technical expertise is also a big red flag. After all, if I've never seen the inside of an engine why would a bank fund an auto-shop I want to build.