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You Don't Need A Co-Founder

publicbeta.co

31–40 of 48 posts

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#31
As a solo technical founder, I more or less agree with these points. I can color them a little bit from my own experience.

1. Add in maturity. Building a product and selling it is hard. You can be harder, though. this may get easier as you get older? While it's nice to have someone to support you, it is not necessary. You can be a lone wolf and absolutely kill it. It's a mindset.

2 & 3 together. External validation can/should come from outside the day-to-day. 1 person's head is an echo chamber. 2 or 3 people can turn into an even more convincing one. A small council of real customers and a regular small round-table meeting with other entrepreneurs takes care of it.

4. I believe in acquiring the skills yourself. Business and tech problems collapse into a single idea when you have all of the skills yourself (sometimes even just at an "intern" level). For capacity, this is a problem. You usually need more horsepower for bigger problems. I'd adapt this point to focus more on local outsourcing. You should be still be the architect and foreman though. So you should know how to code and mock things up perfectly.

If the tech people don't get it, it is always your fault. You have not explained it correctly or you have the wrong people. The first is more likely if you don't know how to build a web app at all or can't mock it up to the actual UI element detail. Of course, sometimes it is the latter. Just not usually. :)

founder = solo business owner in a smaller niche area. Points also apply to a much larger business I'm starting now.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#32

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.

Please stop creating throwaway account for the sole purpose of outing someone. If you want people to take you seriously - put your karma where your mouth is.

p.s: I don't mean to shoot down your claim by the way

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#33
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…

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. :)

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#34
post #29

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.

[deleted]

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've thought about that, but he's an employee at an agency in Russia. I doubt he can afford to work for sweat equity, if I happen to run out of money, and it also might be considered a bit unethical to poach a developer from an agency.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#36
post #5
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…

I've done both and I can definitely attest that outsourcing the technical bits of your new startup is beyond tricky. It is however not impossible. The point here is that taking a technical co-founder onboard isn't your only option; it's totally possible for you to get to V1 (by outsourcing technical tasks), generate initial revenue and hiring a developer (with some equity) instead (as an example).

Why is everybody so eager to give away equity?

The big reason to not have a cofounder is because 100% of a two million dollar business can be life changing. Half of that is more like a feather in your cap.

Paul Graham and VC firms are looking for billion dollar businesses. 5% of such a company shared here and there doesn't matter so much. But those sorts of businesses present shitty expected value to a founder. You want full ownership of a higher probability bet.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#37
post #11

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…

Why not go with the contractor? You already have a decent working relationship.

You mean get him as a co-founder or continue with him as a contractor? He's based in Russia which makes him becoming a co-founder a bit more tricky.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#38
I 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 extremely difficult for one person to do these very different tasks exceptionally well. As a CTO (who isn't overly technical, just enough to build prototypes, PM, and lead the team) I feel completely overwhelmed just thinking about having to do all that our CEO does on the business and growth side.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#39
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…

You want someone you can call up at midnight with some half-baked ideas so they will work 4-5 hours getting ready for your feedback in the morning? And working for equity since you'll be lining up investment once the product is ready, right?

Well, Thank God the ideas man is getting his rest, I guess.

Re: You Don't Need A Co-Founder

#40
"But do you really need a co-founder? Even if you’re not technical and you think you need a technical co-founder?"

I relish the day when non-technical co-founders and single founders fall by the wayside and technogeek types learn how to sell themselves. It's largely an introvert/extrovert personality thing, where technologists are convinced they should keep to interacting with computers and not other people -- but it's just not true. There's no reason why they shouldn't do both aspects of work as the technology-side of the business is the one that generates the value and it doesn't make good business sense to share profits with someone who only sells the value you create when you can just do that part yourself.

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