How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
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Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#2Am I the only one that really doesn't like Quora's answer summary? Especially for a question like this, because some (somewhat contrary) valuable opinions are essentially ignored in favor of a catchy one liner.
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#3At the meta-level, this thread's an example of the potential of a system like Quora. It's been open for nine months and still attracts good new responses that get voted up. The brief bios add a lot, and so do the pictures. If you just want a quick answer, the top answer (or the top three) are fine; if you want to delve in more, all the different perspectives and experiences add a lot of value. Impressive.
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#4Its not. Start on your own, keep the equity, and in 6 months you can hire the same person for just a salary and only 1 or 2%
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#5Am I the only one that really doesn't like Quora's answer summary? Especially for a question like this, because some (somewhat contrary) valuable opinions are essentially ignored in favor of a catchy one liner.
Agreed, the answer summary is very weak on this question and I've seen that on a lot of others too. Anybody can edit an answer summary to improve it, but I very rarely do: it's too hard to do justice to individual answers without imposing my own viewpoint. Also, they've set it up so there's a lot more incentive to put work into an individual answer than work on the summary.
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#6Its not. Start on your own, keep the equity, and in 6 months you can hire the same person for just a salary and only 1 or 2%
Doing that worked well for me in my first company, which lasted 10 years. But I didn't get to that point on the second one and I burnt out working on it completely on my own. It was working, but still too early to hire and a cofounder would have definitely helped push on.
Had the wrong cofounder on the third one though, and I can't stress enough how important having the right cofounder is after that experience. It wasn't all bad, and could have been much worse, but enough to know how important a choice that is.
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#7Its not. Start on your own, keep the equity, and in 6 months you can hire the same person for just a salary and only 1 or 2%
For me, there is way too much to do. I think networking is about 2/3rds of a full-time job in itself. Hiring is a pain, even with the empirical approach of trying people out with contracting. I definitely could use a cofounder.
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#8It appears that the strong bias against single founders (at least from the investment community) may be softening a bit. In a recent talk at DogPatch Labs, Mark Suster advised starting a company on your own and then hiring a cofounder: http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-suster-entrepreneur-advi...
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#9Its not. Start on your own, keep the equity, and in 6 months you can hire the same person for just a salary and only 1 or 2%
Doing that worked well for me in my first company, which lasted 10 years. But I didn't get to that point on the second one and I burnt out working on it completely on my own. It was working, but still too early to hire and a cofounder would have definitely helped push on. Had the wrong cofounder on the third one though, and I can't stress enough how important having the right cofounder is after that experience. It wa…
I've been in both situations. I've had cofounders, who weren't quite as motivated as me, at which point I felt, "I might as well have done this alone". Then I tried doing it myself and found myself overwhelmed and thinking "wouldn't it be nice to have some support". Wonder if there are any articles on how one could go about finding a good co-founder that you would "jive" with. BTW, which one is worse, going it alone or bad co-founder(s)?
Re: How much more difficult is it to build a startup with a single founder?
#10Being the technical co-founder I found it really helpful to get the manager / sales person onside.
He does all of the "help me understand" when things need clarity. He also keep me on track and not mucking around on the internet ( except the occasional hacker-news comment ;] )
Another bonus I have found is that having a non-technical mind allows him to put a unique perspective. One example is he wanted a list of all of the new pages on the internet every day ... I initially laughed at this, but after talking to him and going backwards and forwards his query turned back into a product that we ended up selling. I never would have thought of it had there not been his zany idea.
Coming from somebody who was the single founder for 5 months, I would say, much more difficult doing it yourself.