
Two creators are not always better than one - contingencies
http://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/2-founders-are-not-always-better-1
======
evrydayhustling
Critical detail beneath the fold:

> The research is based on a survey of creators for thousands of Kickstarter
> projects between 2009 and May 2015.

It would be crazy to generalize from this to most VC-backed (or seeking)
businesses... and another thing still to compare the massively larger set of
small businesses started by individuals without major external funding.
Different kinds of firms face incredibly different pressures and failure modes
at every stage.

~~~
arjun_tina
Exactly! This headline is totally misleading!

------
njarboe
I think the reason Y-combinator and others like to see two or more founders is
that at least those two people are willing to work with/for each other. It is
a rough filtering mechanism, and probably a very useful one, especially if
your philosophy is that technical people make great business founders.

More honestly it is "Technical people can make great startup founders, but
first filter on if they can recruit one other person to work with them." In
any team of two, most of the time there was one person that had the idea and
drive and asked the other to join them. A technical person with this type of
skill, that is willing to spit the ownership of a company with someone else,
is much more likely to have the skills and talents to run a high growth
startup than someone who has not recruited their first person to join them.

I would imagine that when interviewing a pair of founders, whether consciously
or not, people place one of them into the CEO role and the other into the CTO
role. Don't most startup teams split up work like this pretty quickly?

~~~
PaulHoule
I think it is affirmative action for non-technical cofounders if you ask me.

The non-technical cofounders who become VCs want to support people who remind
them of themselves in the past.

This is why founder dating is like dating at a tech school. There are many
non-technical cofounders who bring nothing to the table except the desire to
make a huge amount of money. That is something to work with, but it is by no
means enough in a world where billions of people are hungry.

~~~
darkerside
Paul Graham had a great article on Lisp. In his view, Lisp programmers love
Lisp because it offers extremely powerful features in a way that other
programming languages don't. Those who don't understand Lisp are (rightly)
skeptical. Their thought process goes something like, "I don't need these
features, and I do my work just fine". In other words, they don't know what
they're missing out on, and so it appears useless to them.

I've found this pattern of human thinking to repeat itself in countless places
in my life. From politics to programming and everything in between, systems
look like unusable chaos when you don't understand it and have not been able
to derive a controlled benefit from it. Once you learn how to use it,
everything falls into place, and you immediately see how blind others are to
the system as you now understand it (the curse of knowledge).

Working with people effectively is a skill, and one as rare as competent
programming. And when you don't know how to do it, it looks useless or
arbitrary.

~~~
tokyodude
The problem is there's no easy way to know which things will actually make you
more productive and which won't. Will switching to lisp make me more
productive or will it just mean I have to re-write 30 libraries from scratch
that aren't written in lisp? Will that productivity multiply as I hire more
people or will the fact that it's hard to find lisp programmers mean my
options to expand will be limited? Does lisp work well on large teams or does
the fact that it's typeless and every programmer makes their own DSL macros
mean that it's actually harder to share knowledge?

Will switching from framework X to framework Y really increase my
productivity? Is it a matter of not understanding how Y is so much more
efficient to build thing than X or is it just hyperbole/marketing/cult.
Switching to different product management software, different game engine,
different 3d software, different wiki system, etc etc .. How can I know. If I
believed everyone I'd be switching every week.

~~~
darkerside
For Lisp in particular, you're probably right about many of the tradeoffs. You
won't benefit from a large ecosystem, you won't find as many job candidates
(albeit likely a higher quality of average candidate), and it's probably not
the best language for large decentralized teams that need to coordinate
development (although, what language is?).

The lack of knowing you reference is exactly what I'm riffing on here. There
are people who have leveraged Lisp features to huge benefit, and there's just
no easy way to explain those features to people who don't use Lisp. "There's
no way to say it in that language". To outsiders then, Lisp looks like a back-
patting cult with no tangible benefits and yet an air of elitism. Similarly,
those with "people skills" can't always explain the mental framework and
skills they've built up to make themselves excellent at working with other
people, but they can easily recognize those skills in another.

EDIT: Here's the article.
[http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

The whole thing is well worth the read, but for what I'm talking about here,
you could skip down to read about the Blub paradox.

------
robterrin
I'm a teaching assistant for a class called Entrepreneurial Finance at my alma
mater, which always has a good draw of entrepreneur and investor guest
speakers.

One of the recent speakers was Kent Collier, CEO of Reorg
([https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/reorg-
research#secti...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/reorg-
research#section-overview)), an information service to the buy-side that
focuses on arcane and opaque information, particularly bankruptcy. They are a
smash hit that only took $1.3M in financing that now does $1M a week in
revenues.

His view is that solo founders and preferable. The reason he gave was that it
takes such a clear and unambiguous vision, with total dedication to that
vision, that any space between multiple founders creates drag and can kill the
startup.

~~~
mojuba
> takes such a clear and unambiguous vision, with total dedication to that
> vision

This is very true. For most startups building a product is not just an ongoing
engineering/business development task as much as it is an ongoing product
development task. Your vision of the product (if you have one) is something
that is most difficult to share with others. I think a great entrepreneur is
closer to being an artist than to anything else: imagine two painters trying
to create one painting at the same time. At times it can get as absurd.

That is not to say you don't need co-founders but maybe, just maybe, sometimes
one of the founders needs a slightly dominating position in defining (and
refining) the product in the process.

------
kyleashipley
From the article:

>The research is based on a survey of creators for thousands of Kickstarter
projects between 2009 and May 2015.

From the paper:

>This suggests that the taken-for-granted assumption among scholars that
entrepreneurship is best performed by teams should be reevaluated, with
implications for theories of team performance and entrepreneurial strategy.

The claims in the paper are pretty limited and based on a questionably
representative sample. Extrapolating to "solo founders are better" seems like
a leap at this stage. The results seem interesting and worthy of further
evaluation, though!

~~~
mkong1
How many high-growth companies came out of Kickstarter? The ones that jump to
mind are Oculus and Pebble, but I can't think of others.

~~~
mojuba
Interestingly enough, both Oculus and Pebble were started by sole founders.
Others even though officially titled "co-founders" joined later if I'm not
mistaken.

------
trjordan
Two founders are better than one when one of the key problems you will face is
hiring. One founder hasn't proven they can recruit. Two founders have proved
they can convince at least one other idiot to join them.

This is important for VC businesses, where hiring quickly is the only way to
grow. But it's not important for smaller businesses, where cash management
matters more.

~~~
airocker
Is being able to recruit the most important trait? I think it is overall
selling that matters. Why can selling potential not be demonstrated by other
means? Playing with human relationships can come later.

~~~
icedchai
I'd argue that "recruiting" is a form of selling. Especially in the beginning,
when you're selling the dream...

~~~
airocker
In the initial phase, we can only sell to people who trust us. Becoming a co-
founder is a big commitment and a challenge to long-term relationships. Why
can't it be something like, get five customers you know using your
product/service. I have been through a bad co-founder divorce and I think it
is bad advice that co-founder will increase your success chances. I think the
mostly one co-founder gets a free(er) ride. Werner Vogels in his startup
school lecture says "Have you seen a group with one head monkey and a
leiutenant monkey?"

------
modi15
I think most of the research like these are pretty much useless. This is
because they assume that the success of a startup has correlation with the
founders/co-founders - there well might be, but imo the biggest correlation
with success is time.

Some startups go bust when they are launched in an unfavourable climate -
sometimes the tech is too raw, othertimes the market is just not ready. Move
them a couple of years before or after and they take off. Lots of startups
which take off, dont keep the momentum - market forces disrupt startups a lot
more than the other way around.

When a startup takes off, often for no fault of the founders/co-founders - it
creates a strong incentive for the founders to keep aligned and work together.
If a startup does not take off it creates a strong incentive for founders to
NOT work together.

Often when a startup takes off - or if it raises a big round from a huge VC it
creates a strong signal for co-founders to get on board. Case in point is
dropbox - they got accepted into YC and it allowed the founder to 'hire' a co-
founder.

~~~
burtonator
You're right but the investors and founders can't control for time.

so you optimize for the variables you CAN control.

------
Vanderson
I am a solo founder. And I didn't see any mention of actual income value of
the "successful" businesses in this article. I suspect you can easily get more
successful very small businesses a leg up in sheer numbers alone just from
personality conflicts wrecking multi-founder businesses.

I had a partner very early on, and it didn't work out. And it was really nice
having someone on board that really cared about success the same way I did.
Not an employee, client, friend or family member. But another "me" as part of
the group.

If I could go back in time, and truly fix the problems, I would rather have
kept my co-founder.

Also, they end with this, so maybe there is more to this story.

> _...are already working on their next paper, which looks specifically at co-
> founding teams, and what factors determine their success and failure._

~~~
avinium
In your view, why didn't it work out?

~~~
Vanderson
Personal problems with co-founder. I wasn't mature enough (I really had a lot
of personal issues myself) to truly help that person overcome their issues.
Eventually he stopped being productive and just played video games. He knew he
was screwing me over, but he simply couldn't get out of his own personal funk.
(it was the days of Everquest and large group raids, it was really bad)

In retrospect, I really really wish I had been more patient and actually tried
to encourage him and get him back on track.

I learned a valuable lesson from this though, to not let my temporary grief
blind me to other people's distress.

------
mgamache
The title of the article should be: "2 founders are not always better than 1
_for Kickstarter_ "

Also, they didn't define success. I bet it was just getting the project
funded. The bar for VC success and Kickstarter are very different. Kickstarter
doesn't have growth and ROI requirements. This might be a proxy for a
lifestyle business, but _not_ VC funded companies.

~~~
judofyr
> Also, they didn't define success.

It's mentioned in the paper.
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3107898](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3107898)

> First, we examine continuation of business operations at the time of the
> survey (The options were: “Still in operation as an ongoing for-profit
> business,” “Still in operation as an ongoing not-forprofit, artistic, or
> other type of endeavor,” “Still in operation, but acquired by/merged with
> another organization,” “Not operating as a result of being acquired
> by/merged with another organization,” “Not operating, temporarily stopped
> operations,” “Not operating, permanently stopped operations,” and “Not
> operating for another reason.”)

> We also used reported non-crowdfunding revenue based on a 12-point
> categorical scale ranging from none to over $10 million, using this as a
> direct measure of company success.

> The first model is an unconditional model, and reveals that solo founders do
> no worse with respect to average income than teams of three or more.

------
GnarfGnarf
If you're lacking a skill, hire an employee, don't invite a second founder. He
who manages the accounting controls the company.

If you must have a co-founder, makes sure he works as long/hard as you do.

~~~
crispytx
This. I hate hearing all this co-founder stuff all the time. While I'm sure it
works for some people, I've found the whole co-founder thing to be a terrible
idea. The only positive benefit I've found is having someone to talk to about
what you're working on, but I haven't found co-founders to be helpful other
than that in the cheerleader department.

------
e40
What I wonder (and search for "hours" had 0 hits) is the number of hours solo
founders put in vs 2+ founders. I founded a company with 5 founds, 3 of which
were in daily operations. It was a lot of work and I can't imagine doing a lot
of that early work by myself (until there was enough revenue to support
hiring).

~~~
jordiee
As a solo founder of a SaaS launching next month, I tracked my time and am at
1350ish hour in the past 10 months. This is my first startup so I made some
mistakes along the way with future creep so deadlines got pushed. I worked
around 35 - 40 hours outside of my full-time job a week. Felt really burnt out
so skipped one month of work 3 months ago but finally trying to get into the
mindset of sales and marketing.

I do think though this is all entirely dependent on the scope of your project.

~~~
TremendousJudge
so you've been working 80 hours a week for almost a year now?

~~~
_hyn3
This is the norm in any high-growth startups, or at least it was for me. A few
people seem to fall into things that don't require working all the time, but
16 hour days and two day weekends seem completely normal to me now.

------
cyberferret
Having gone through the solo founder -> co-founder -> back to solo founder
route with my latest (bootstrapped) startup, I can honestly concur that:

* The most _contentful_ working time for me was when I had a co-founder. It was good to bounce ideas off someone, and having another person with equal share in the business increased accountability and my motivation to keep pushing.

* The most _effective_ working time for me was as a solo-founder. I felt that I wasn't compromising every decision I made to keep my co-founder happy, and that I could make decisions much more quickly and change direction whenever I wanted.

I think the main problem with the time with a co-founder was that we were too
similar. We worked great together and got on well, but there wasn't that spark
that pushed the business forward. Since being on my own again and pushing
against the limitation of my own personality and abilities, I have managed to
grow the business trifold since my co-founder left.

------
sunseb
I think VC prefer two founders because it's simply easier to have leverage on
them than on a single guy.

~~~
airocker
\--TRUTH--

------
isalmon
I'll share my story.

Solo technical founder. Hired my first sales employee long after I established
a product-market fit, got a few paying customers and $300K in annual revenue.
I gave him a co-founder title, but we were never equal. It was one of the best
decision that I have made. The company would not have been able to survive if
2 of us were equal - we would have gone out of business. Instead, 1 year after
I pushed him out we had a moderately successful exit (8 figure).

I think that having a solo founder is beneficial AS LONG AS that one person is
great. Otherwise you, as a VC, kind of bet that at least 1 of them will be
great and it will all work out.

------
baccheion
Based on success rates, 1 founder is best. Then 2. Then 3. Etc. One founder
that's in their late 30s (ie, 15-20 years experience and effectively retired
due to savings).

The trend of having 2+ founders is a compromise and a result of BS mumbled by
VCs.

------
graeme
Am a solo founder of a bootstrapped business. One advantage is that you only
need half the profit for the equivalent income to each founder. This gets even
more important in small niches.

A downside is during those times when you work less, little happens.

------
nishantvyas
"Solo founders are twice as likely to succeed in business as co-founders" by
research from Jason Greenberg, PhD ’09, and Ethan Mollick, PhD ’10 and MBA
’04.

:-)

hmmm... co-researchers to research on NO need of co-researchers/founders...

------
crispytx
The reason YC is always talking about finding co-founders is because Paul
Graham had co-founders. Had Paul Graham gone at things alone, YC would
probably be preaching the virtues of flying solo.

------
Eridrus
I wonder if this has more to do with what level of success is sufficient for
individuals vs teams. If you're doing this for money, teams need to be 2x+ as
profitable. This would track with the result that larger teams are more likely
to start have a non-profit.

In a world where you're swinging for the fences, this model would still argue
for teams.

------
BerislavLopac
A startup has three main functions:

    
    
        - define the product
        - build the product
        - sell the product
    

As long as you can successfully execute all those functions, it doesn't matter
how many people you have doing it, and it becomes the matter of resource
availability.

------
dgudkov
Besides rare exceptions (that do exist!), there is nothing a co-founder can
give that you can't hire.

~~~
lbriner
Apart from input and challenge that you have to listen to. That might sound
like a bad thing but there are plenty of successful founders who would have
gone off the rails early if they didn't have someone else asking, "do we
really need to do that"?

~~~
airocker
do we really need to build a company?

------
josephhurtado
The most important part of the article is that is shatters the myth of having
a co-founder to succeed. The stats don’t say that two founders are better than
one, it fact is the opposite, more than one is WORSE.

So what would be my take-away; if you are thinking of pursuing a business, and
have the energy, contacts and network to make it, go ahead. However if having
help from a valuable co-founder who you trust is possible, then compromise,
and get a helping hand. Otherwise is better to go it alone.

------
arjun_tina
Lol this is a hilarious way of defining success. This data proves that if you
want to have an "ongoing company" a few years after starting, you're better
off going solo. But how many people, when starting a company, dream of
reaching "ongoing" status? Why are they ignoring the data from the most
valuable, most impactful, and most innovative startups?

------
Lumenora
Check out my article on it, too [https://medium.com/@haftrm/successful-solo-
founders-5c7f60ef...](https://medium.com/@haftrm/successful-solo-
founders-5c7f60ef6a0e)

It is true in many ways, not just Kickstarter.

------
baxtr
Even though the method can be challenged, I think it is great that people are
trying to understand entrepreneurship based on data. Most founder and startup
advice is not based on any data. YC could have a great impact here I believe
with the vast amount of data they should have

------
josh_carterPDX
When you think about how 80% of startups fail because of founder issues, this
makes a lot of sense. However, to some of the other points made here,
investors like to see that you are able to convince at least one person to go
all in with you.

------
_hyn3
Ten cynical reasons why VC's like to see multiple founders:

10\. Sometimes (perhaps rarely) a better idea comes from a group.

9\. There really is a lot of work to go around.

8\. If one of the founders is willing to sell, take more investment or worse
terms, perhaps they can apply pressure to the ones who are reluctant.

7\. Most humans like to be around other humans, so cooperation is the norm
among people who self-group.

6\. Expertise can be complementary and allow a natural division of labor in
the early days.

5\. Hard feelings are more evenly distributed as the founders get pushed out
or diluted one-by-one; push out the weakest contributors and least resistant
first.

4\. More founders = reduced risk and decreased dependency on one possibly
loose cannon

3\. If the board stops getting along with one founder, perhaps another will be
a better fit. (see: Twitter)

2\. Multiple complementary founders are rarely of one mind, and therefore it's
easy to split control.

.. and the number one reason why VC's like multiple founders:

1\. Extra founders cost them _nothing_

------
app4soft
> Two creators are not always better than one

Agreed, but I want more than one _Elon Musk_

------
LukeWalsh
Is anyone aware of similar data on the YC company set?

~~~
jppope
YC pushes against solo founders. Dropbox was a notable one (even though Drew
Houston added a "co-founder" right about when they were accepted...)

~~~
petilon
Investors in general prefer multiple founders, and they want the founders to
have roughly equal equity too. In part this is because they want the ability
to push a founder out if he/she isn't working out.

~~~
superplussed
I also hear that it's protection against a founder quitting. Though this to me
seems dubious as I would guess that sole founders are much less likely to quit
prematurely (for obvious reasons) than a co-founder.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Really doubt that this is true.

~~~
cyberferret
Speaking from nearly 40 years experience over several businesses - this is
VERY true.

------
gwbas1c
Every best practice has an exception

------
tidwall
But are solos happier?

