21–30 of 53 posts
Like in so many things, it's best to minimize the hand-wringing and make a decision based on your personal working style, who's available to join you, and how badly you want to be funded by an entity with a strong bias against solo founders.
Forgive me my ignorance, but why is it such a disadvantage having a single founder? Think about it: if the founder is a Jack of all trades, gets the product out and hires specialized staff when the startup gets revenue, why would he need a cofounder?
Startup founders get tired now-and-again. Knowing a co-founder is working while you're resting is a source of invaluable relief against the pressure to get things done. Long-term, this kind of emotional stability prevents burn-out. That's important because startups don't die, founders quit.
Question for anyone: if you're not a single founder, how did you meet your co-founders?
I met my first co-founder in college and my second one through the local tech scene. In both cases I made sure that these were people that I could get along with before anything. Skills are picked up along the way but if you don't work well together it's going to be a painful ride. Co-founding is like getting married, except without the sex.
> A lone founder never wastes time I find it quite difficult to agree with this statement based on personal experience. For me, it is quite easy to try things to see if they work which often leads to going round in circles until a solution becomes obvious. I found that when working with other people, it is a lot easier to put ideas out there and you usually get the weak points shown to you right away. Also, having sa…
As someone who went through YC as a single-founder, then got a co-founder, then became a single-founder again after a year I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been meaning to write an article about this experience, and I guess this post has given me motivation to actually do it. There are so many misconceptions from both sides about the other. Hopefully I can find time in the next few weeks to write it all do…
As someone who went through YC as a single-founder, then got a co-founder, then became a single-founder again after a year I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been meaning to write an article about this experience, and I guess this post has given me motivation to actually do it. There are so many misconceptions from both sides about the other. Hopefully I can find time in the next few weeks to write it all do…
As someone who went through YC as a single-founder, then got a co-founder, then became a single-founder again after a year I've been on both sides of this fence. I've been meaning to write an article about this experience, and I guess this post has given me motivation to actually do it. There are so many misconceptions from both sides about the other. Hopefully I can find time in the next few weeks to write it all do…
How do you cope with self motivation? To who do you talk to when you have problems, or questions, or feel like just throw everything away to get a 100k job? To be a single founder, do you need to be as good in the marketing/business side than in software and technologies?
Motivation is easy for me ... I love what I'm doing. Even on bad days. When it's too much though just do something else, or pick some low hanging fruit and knock out some easy achievements. You might have to just make yourself work sometimes, cause if you leave it too long it'll become another dead project/game/whatever.
Who do you talk to? Users. In my case I was fortunate enough to have lots of users including some really great, accomplished people.
You do have to wear every hat and that can make you uncomfortable but you just have to man up and do it, a cofounder's not going to insulate you from everything you're not good at / not comfortable at.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Startup founders get tired now-and-again. Knowing a co-founder is working while you're resting is a source of invaluable relief against the pressure to get things done. Long-term, this kind of emotional stability prevents burn-out. That's important because startups don't die, founders quit.
A very valid point. If you are a solo founder, nothing happens unless you make it happen and as you experience the downs it becomes very easy to lose momentum. Co-founders can provide a good counter balance and keep progress steadier.
" 1. Single Founder
Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.
What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.
But even if the founder's friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage. Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.
The last one might be the most important. The low points in a startup are so low that few could bear them alone. When you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a way that seems to violate conservation laws. Each thinks "I can't let my friends down." This is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and it's missing when there's just one founder."
> A lone founder never wastes time I find it quite difficult to agree with this statement based on personal experience. For me, it is quite easy to try things to see if they work which often leads to going round in circles until a solution becomes obvious. I found that when working with other people, it is a lot easier to put ideas out there and you usually get the weak points shown to you right away. Also, having sa…
The biggest problem was that we didn't really have a template for making decisions. Up to that point, our only goal had been getting into an accelerator, which we somehow expected to solve all our problems. And I'd already decided that I'd rather lead a startup than get a PhD, so I was very focused on that goal, while they were more focused on schoolwork. So the way decisions were made before the summer was that I'd say "I did some research, and think we should do this" and they'd say "OK." It was very unilateral. Once we started working together full-time, though, that wasn't tenable, and there was a very fine line I had to walk, to provide both autonomy and a sense of direction. And we never could come to an arrangement that made everyone happy.
That's not to say that I would have been more successful as a single founder—I had pretty minimal dev experience at the time—but there's a very good reason that one of the YC application questions is "Please tell us about an interesting project, preferably outside of class or work, that two or more of you created together." If you don't have a good answer for that, my advice is to hold off on doing YC and just figure out something substantial that you can build together.