

One Person Profitable (In defense of single founders) - babyshake
http://www.jamtoday.org/post/399466007/one-person-profitable
I'm compiling a list of founders who have achieved OPP. There are the obvious ones like Markus Frind and Gabe Rivera, but I'm sure there are many HN readers who have also successfully bootstrapped as single founders.<p>Anyone know of a verified one person profitable startup? Have any YC founders accomplished it?
======
mixmax
The thing that's rarely answered sufficiently is the question of how to find a
good co-founder. The answer is often _"Find someone you worked with or went to
school with that wants to start a company with you"_

The thing is that there are a limited number of people to pick from based on
these criteria. Out of these you have to find someone that's smart, gets
things done and has the stamina to do a startup. For most people this amounts
to a grand total of zero people.

I've done startups where I slacked on the co-founder criteria, thinking _"Oh
he's not the smartest guy I know, but he's a hard worker"_ or _"he knows
everything there is to know about this domain, but he's not 100% motivated"_
and I've been disappointed every time.

If you don't have a perfect match I'd recommend going it alone.

~~~
freshfunk
+1. I'm doing a startup with a friend (I'm engineering, he's business). And I
know a bunch of smart, capable people through my 10 years of doing startups in
Silicon Valley.

I think finding smart, capable people is the easiest thing to do. Harder than
that is finding people who want to do a startup (as many of my peers, now with
10 years experience, get comfortable paychecks). Harder than THAT is finding
people who want to try to do a startup that's not funded. Harder than THAT, is
finding all of the aforementioned stuff and someone who's has the burning
desire to work in the space/industry that you think could use a new solution.

The thing I've realized is that when it's your idea, you see the potential of
what could be. When you approach others, they only see what can go wrong with
your idea. And, admittedly, you're trying to get them to buy into a vision
that you've thought about endlessly while they've only had the pitch you gave
them over lunch.

It's tough. Paul Graham's article about entrepreneurs as animals is right on.

<http://paulgraham.com/boss.html>

~~~
ismarc
I think you're missing the personality differences. Several of the ventures
I've been a part of I joined simply because it looked like such a challenge. I
enjoy pushing the limits of my mind, of what I know and of what I can do. This
isn't a "do it the hard way because it's more fun", it's finding that simple,
elegant solution to the impossible problem, or like a touch of red pepper in
spaghetti sauce to give it that tiny kick it needs to be perfect. If you're
trying to sell people on your idea to be co-founders, they aren't the right
person. If you tell them and they start talking in plans and ideas and acting
like it's their idea, too, you have a good co-founder.

------
mhartl
Apart from the usual Gates/Allen, Jobs/Woz, Larry/Sergey anecdotes, there's
little evidence that two is a natural lower bound on the number of founders.
It's sometimes claimed that a startup is "too much work" for one person, but
the productivity of individual programmers is not fixed; with today's tools,
solo founders can be as productive as a dozen developers from fifteen years
ago. Another common argument is that you need a cofounder as a sounding board
and as a source of moral support. These roles are vital, but they don't
necessarily have to be filled by a cofounder. Einstein needed the help of his
friend Michele Besso to develop special relativity, but Besso wasn't a
coauthor on _Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper_.

Unfortunately, the need for cofounders is a deeply entrenched belief among
investors, so much so that it risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

~~~
lsc
It seems your problem is its own solution; I would argue that many of the
productivity enhancements you cite as allowing one founder to go it alone also
enable founders to go without investors.

~~~
mhartl
This is definitely true to a certain degree, which was one of the points of
the linked article. But it's still lamentable that some solo-founder startups
that could benefit from funding will fail to raise money because of irrational
investor bias.

~~~
lsc
well yes. I mean, my company would probably also benefit from investment; it
is a rather capital intensive industry, after all. In my case, though, I think
there is at least as much irrational bias on my end as on the investor end.

------
patio11
I think we might be coming at it from the wrong angle. Fundamentally, why does
the Internet enable businesses which scale (out of proportion to headcount,
out of proportion to budget, out of proportion to time, etc) in ways which are
difficult to imagine for businesses historically?

I think you could identify a couple of things here: Google (and the App Store
and Twitter and Facebook and all the things you cool people use) is a huge
force multiplier for distribution. OSS is a force multiplier for software
development. Modern web frameworks are a force multiplier for software
development. The whole lean startup ball-o-wax is a force multiplier for
customer development. Cheap outsourcers are a force multiplier for any sort of
easily described, easily checkable, repetitive work. The astounding variety --
an ecosystem of ecosystems -- of companies/APIs which you can just throw
trivial time/money at and hook an enterprise-scale solution into your business
is a force multiplier for, well, pretty much anything you can think of. ("Oh
effity I have no accounts receivable department full of people whose only job
it is to chase down folks who owe me money, get their money, and then make
sure it gets to my accounts. Wait, you mean Paypal makes that irrelevant? For
like a buck a transaction? And it can be integrated into a website in like an
hour? Whoa!")

Heck, some of these are less multipliers and more exponentiators.

The question is -- which if any of the above are not available for you if you
have one person but might be available if you have two? And the answer, I
think, is none of them.

The barriers are getting further lowered all the time, too, and the things
force multipliers are getting better. A great example of this -- and I swear,
it _will_ create several multi-million dollar businesses this year -- is
Twilio. You can now run a telephony company from your freaking kitchen. Holy
"#$&"#$"#$"# we are living in the future.

It's a great time to be single. (Not that it's a bad time to have co-founders
-- I wish y'all the best, too. Make awesome stuff and have lots of success
doing it.)

~~~
davidw
I don't think technology has anything to do with it though: the reasons PG and
others give for having more than one person are almost all 'human' issues,
which probably don't change much whether you're starting a taco stand or
trying to create 'the next Microsoft/Google/Facebook/whatever'.

It seems sort of pointless to spend too much time worrying about it though; if
you don't have anyone to work with, you have to either choose to go it alone
or to not make an attempt. Why dither about something you can't change?

------
babyshake
I'm compiling a list of founders who have achieved OPP. There are the obvious
ones like Markus Frind and Gabe Rivera, but I'm sure there are many HN readers
who have also successfully bootstrapped as single founders.

Anyone know of a verified one person profitable startup? Have any YC founders
accomplished it?

~~~
_delirium
To my knowledge, prgmr.com (VPS provider) was and is a one-person company
that's profitable, though it has a few employees now. I don't know if he's an
HN reader, though he hangs out in some of these kinds of circles. I believe it
had a long (~2-3 year) bootstrapping process where he basically supported it
out of income from his day job, which he described as "working for venture
capital".

~~~
lsc
well, we're not ridiculously profitable, and I didn't do it by myself, but,
uh, I do have all the equity.

I believe that if I didn't have all the equity, it would have died from one of
my many early mistakes. There is no way I'd have expected anyone else to pour
money into a hole for three years.

Also, even though I kept the equity, I had a lot of help. There is no way I'd
have been able to do this by myself.

Of course, I'm the first to say that sometimes you should give up, but I'm
pretty happy with how prgmr.com turned out. It probably hasn't yet paid out
what I put in, but it's getting there, (and according to offers, it's worth
about what I've put in now)

------
protomyth
For the sake of your loved ones / significant other, make sure you do your
documentation, proper code control, and procedures so that they can sell the
company if something bad should happen. It's good discipline and will allow
someone else to take over (or be prep for when you hire staff so you can go on
vacation).

~~~
dangrossman
I've never brought it up with family, but I have a "should I die" list of
instructions for quickly winding down my business while minimizing effects on
customers in a safe in my bedroom. The key to the safe is on my key chain so
it'd get opened sooner or later.

------
freshfunk
Single person profitability sounds great. But I guess it really depends on why
you started a company in the first place.

Did you start a company primarily because you didn't want to work for anyone
else and really didn't care to work with anyone else?

Or did you start a company because you wanted to work on an idea that would
change the landscape of the industry you're entering? Did you do it because
you wanted to build something 10s of thousands (if not 100s or millions) of
people would use? Did you do it to grow a real company that would have real
impact and be worth a decent amount of money?

I think that if you want to do the latter, 9 times out of 10, you need to have
more than 1 person. I'd rather be Mark Zuckerberg pre-profitability than
random person doing random thing but profitable. That's just me.

If you want to be single-person profitable, you can always just do your own
consultancy.

~~~
lsc
The big problem with consulting is that it takes so much /time/ and when you
stop working, the money stops coming in. There is a lot to be said for owning
a product business as your primary means of support.

Product companies often allow you to invest capital at a much higher rate of
return. (I get several hundred percent return on my hardware purchases)

Product companies also allow you to avoid more of the work you don't like, and
to work more on your own schedule. (Personally, I think it's quite a chore to
wake up at the same time every day; as a product company, nobody cares.)

------
janm
Co-founders can create a feedback loop between themselves that a single
founder cannot.

Comparing my "single founder" and "one of two" experiences, when there is
another party the ability to talk and get feedback makes a huge difference.
When you are on your own it is much easier to go down the wrong path because
questions didn't get asked earlier on. It is much easier to become
demoralised. It is much easier to waste time.

Having someone else around doesn't work as well as having a co-founder. While
you can get some feedback, the nature of the conversations changes (at least
for me), and there are some things you don't really talk about to others.

~~~
rimantas

      Co-founders can create a feedback loop between themselves
      that a single founder cannot.
    

Single founder can get feedback from other sources too: customers, friends,
etc. On the plus side that feedback can be less biased.

    
    
      When you are on your own it is much easier to go down the
      wrong path because questions didn't get asked earlier on.
    

It has little to do with a number of founders. Two or more can be asking
questions, but those can be wrong questions.

    
    
      It is much easier to become demoralised. It is much easier 
      to waste time.
    

Why? I'd argue that more than single founder have even greater opportunity to
waste time arguing if there is some disagreement; waste time trying things
thad you don't think will work but your cofounder convinced you to try, etc.

~~~
janm
> Single founder can get feedback from other sources too: customers, friends,
> etc. > On the plus side that feedback can be less biased.

But the cycle time is so slow. Feedback with a co-founder happens very
quickly, and both parties are deeply involved and working on the venture. This
gives a level of detail and understanding that you can't really get from
customers and friends. That is not to say that customers and friends should
not provide feedback; they should. However, it is different.

This was the point of my last sentence: "While you can get some feedback, the
nature of the conversations changes (at least for me), and there are some
things you don't really talk about to others." This refers to the kind of
feedback you are talking about, and while it has value, it is not the same
thing.

>> When you are on your own it is much easier to go down the >> wrong path
because questions didn't get asked earlier on. > It has little to do with a
number of founders. Two or more can be asking questions, but those can be
wrong questions.

You still have two people asking questions. And with a fast feedback loop you
can get interesting questions quickly that actually make a difference.

I am not arguing that it is impossible for a single founder company to work, I
am arguing that having two skilled and "compatible" founders gives a advantage
over one.

>> It is much easier to become demoralised. It is much easier >> to waste
time. > Why? I'd argue that more than single founder have even greater
opportunity to > waste time arguing if there is some disagreement; waste time
trying things thad > you don't think will work but your cofounder convinced
you to try, etc.

Not my experience, yours might be different.

When I've had disagreements, the outcome has usually been that everyone has a
clearer view and goes in the same direction (or call the whole thing off).
Those disagreements are opportunities to get a better outcome for everyone.

There are multiple variables. If your co-founder spends all his time
convincing you to do stupid things and you agree with him, then you have other
issues.

------
jmtame
just curious, is there a compiled list of compelling single founder startups
which are profitable or made an exit recently? the only thing that comes to
mind right now is aaron patzer (mint.com)

~~~
idlewords
I don't know if a list exists. Pinboard is profitable and I'm the only
'founder'. I believe Tarsnap (cperciva) is a one-man show. And the bingo card
guy who posts here a lot runs things alone.

~~~
GFischer
Some of those "single" founders have other support, like family and spouses -
a local guy that's profitable leans heavily on his wife, who left her job for
the company, so she should be counted as a "cofounder" :)

~~~
angelbob
Sure. And multifounder companies have non-founder support like spouses and
friends as well. Doesn't mean they're not real founders, right?

------
dkuchar
why does everyone on hacker news think they need to defend solo founders?

if you can do it alone, do it. I haven't done that in either of the two
companies I've started, but I like the camaraderie. Not everyone needs a
partner.

~~~
mbrubeck
It probably has something to do with pg frequently reminding us that "single
founder" is a top reason that startups fail[1], and saying his top advice for
single founders is "find a co-founder."

[1]: <http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

~~~
akkartik
And perhaps trying to convince him to take single founders seriously, or at
least to engage with and respond to these counter-arguments so we can
understand his position better.

------
nandemo
What's the rationale for the "no debt" condition?

Basically, if a company's revenues are greater than its spending, it is
profitable. It doesn't matter if the company hasn't eliminated debt or hasn't
recouped the initial investment yet: being profitable means that it's being
successful at getting at either of those goals.

~~~
babyshake
"No debt" really means not enough debt so that you don't own a super-majority
of equity.

Giving away a few percentage points for enough cash to keep the lights on is
fine. But I've seen arrangements where founders didn't end up owning their
companies, even after an ostensible "seed stage" round.

~~~
nandemo
I cannot make sense of your comment. How does having debt decreases your share
of equity?

------
sreitshamer
Being a single founder is great for building amazingly great products. The
same person is leading the product vision and also obsessing over every
detail.

If there's more than one founder, somebody has to be in charge.

Would a painter ever co-paint an oil painting with another painter?

------
sum1changdmypwd
If the investors would appreciate the fact that they are the second person,
then no one would have anything different to say about single founders,
because any extra load would effectively be taken up by the resources that the
investors give the true founder (adding someone to the team when there is too
much load doesn't make them a founder just because it's early on, they can
help in just the same way as if they were a normal employee).

~~~
sum1changdmypwd
Also the investor should (and is in a better position to) act in the same
manner than a second founder does by encouraging and prompting the founder to
deliver - it makes a huge difference when someone respectable with power is
just saying "so have you got it done yet?". I think a second "founder" plays a
large role in this respect, through just small actions.

------
jacoblyles
In case anybody missed it, the bolded words in middle of his sentences are
sometimes, but not always, links. A questionable style choice.

~~~
mhartl
They are different colors: the links are #000141, the bold words are #242424.

~~~
jacoblyles
I think it's been changed. There also were no underlines beneath the links
before.

------
Roridge
There seems to be so many different opionions on this. I think that a single
founder is good for some people and not for others.

Some people need some kind of support, or some people can't do programming and
sales.

But most of all, not all start-ups are the same... saying "two founders is
better than one" is totally subjective to the start-up, surely?

