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Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

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Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#71

Post by sandebert »

bambax wrote: post #57
sandebert wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you might benefit from starting our joining a mastermind. Is that something you have considered? (I'm not sure how universal "mastermind" is, so here's a link to help explain it a bit, and how to run one: http://www.startupsfortherestofus.com/episodes/episode-167 )

Thank you; I had never heard the term mastermind in that context before. Is it a well-known concept? The second result when googling "startup mastermind" is the post you mention, and the first one is... a reddit thread pointing to that same post. But the idea is exactly what I would need, so thanks!!

Glad to help. I've been in one for about a year or so, and can't recommend it enough.

Not sure how known the concept is, but I think it is fairly well known, especially if you run a bootstrapped startup. And if you're listening to the podcast Startups For the Rest Of Us (recommended!), I'd say it's probably close to 100 percent. One way of finding people for your mastermind is to visit the MicroConf conference, run by the same people as the podcast. (It's a lot easier getting a ticket for the European conference than the US one.)

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#72

Post by whamlastxmas »

seibelj wrote: post #70
jrs235 wrote: post #44

In Fire Someone Today: And Other Surprising Tactics for Making Your Business a Success [1] by Bob Pritchett, cofounder of Logos Research Systems, Inc., chapter 4: There Can Be Only One—Plan for Your Partner’s Departure covers the issue of cofounders. I highly enjoyed and recommend this book. Here's an excerpt from the beginning the chapter: When I was a teenager, I toured a factory and met its owner. Dreaming of havi…

Are affiliate links allowed on HN? I thought they were banned

They should be if not. It's dumb and probably against Amazon ToS.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#73

Post by Eridrus »

morgante wrote: post #53

This is likely putting too much faith in the Crunchbase data. In my experience, Crunchbase very frequently leaves out some founders. Often, only the most prominent founder will be reported, thus underreporting the instances of having 2+ founders.

Came here to say this, and in general any dataset that has a chance of having incomplete data is going to tends towards this same result.

Maybe the problem is less pronounced for "successful" companies, but given my past experience looking at the data, I wouldn't take this at face value.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#74

Post by jeremyjh »

brianwawok wrote: post #63
_lex wrote: post #45

This is pretty bad article because it focuses on # of funded startups, not # of attempted startups. What if 99.999% of startups attempted were attempted by solo founders? It would make you expect that the # of funded startups should also tilt towards solo founders - if all other odds were even, you'd expect 99.999% of funded startups to be solo founders, and it would not mean much.

Is the goal to get funded is the goal to succeed? Success is the metric you want to measure, which is usually exit if not profitability.

It doesn't matter which success metric is used, the point still stands. If you only measure the ratio of solo-founder companies that are successful, you haven't measured anything at all about how likely a solo-founder company is to succeed. We need to know how many of each type failed as well.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#76

Post by forgetsusername »

throwaway7312 wrote: post #9

I've cofounded 4 different startups. All were good ideas that bled cash or time and flopped, largely due to infighting or founder differences. One cofounder of one of the companies got really nasty about trying to leave with the rights to the company and we other two cofounders just let him have it. He sold the rights and it's now a successful venture-backed startup with soaring profits (two cofounders). Good for tha…

>We're profitable, growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range

If you positvely have a feature pipeline that is going to increase the value of your company ten times in less than two years, why isn't that the valuation now?

Silicon Valley math gives me a headache...

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#77

Post by sportanova »

endswapper wrote: post #54

Forget co-founders or not. The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs the greater the likelihood for success. This depends entirely on the founder's or cofounder's ability to manage those inputs. This is why there is a preference for founding teams over solo founders, but it's also why a singular vision and solo founder's ability to distill and manage those inputs may perform better than a team.

> The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs the greater the likelihood for success

But is that really true? Seems like more of an unsubstantiated platitude. "The more colors you use in a painting, the more beautiful it is!" Until you get a brown mess

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#78

Post by amorphid »

nxzero wrote: post #69
rsp1984 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem I find (and one I've seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to start startups are visionaries. It's simpler than that. Most people just prefer slacking off to working their butts off. However it's the narcissists and sociopaths that will call their slacking off being "visionary" while the good guys either just leave or start working their butts off as everybody else. Obvi…

Working your butt off has zero to do with having a executable vision that creates value. Clearly shit needs to get done, but there's only so many hours in the a life of a startup and being able to see what needs to be done ultimately is more important than just getting stuff done. __ "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." - Bill Gates

I do not agree. A person who doesn't work their butt off usually lacks any sort of meaningful perspective derived from hard work.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#79

Post by endswapper »

sportanova wrote: post #77
endswapper wrote: post #54

Forget co-founders or not. The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs the greater the likelihood for success. This depends entirely on the founder's or cofounder's ability to manage those inputs. This is why there is a preference for founding teams over solo founders, but it's also why a singular vision and solo founder's ability to distill and manage those inputs may perform better than a team.

> The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs the greater the likelihood for success But is that really true? Seems like more of an unsubstantiated platitude. "The more colors you use in a painting, the more beautiful it is!" Until you get a brown mess

Yes, it is. I think the sentence that follows the one you quoted provides the required context. It's up to the founder or cofounder to determine and prioritize the value of inputs. This is why such an emphasis is put on the people (often over the idea itself) in startups.

To be clear, I didn't say the greater the number of inputs, i.e. use all of the colors until they are a brown mess.

Re: Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder

#80

Post by kowdermeister »

I couldn't really proceed without a business co-founder. I enjoy building stuff from the idea to a shipped product, but at that point and before it I would totally need support from a co-founder who is good at business, marketing and other magic stuff I find boring and tedious.

You can't just build an universal rule like the title suggests, data is meaningless in individual cases. "Data shows people can live underwater" ;)

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