

Find a cofounder or continue as a single founder...decisions decisions.  - omnisci

It seems that  YC and Techstars put a lot of emphasis on avoiding single founders.
Ideally, this makes sense considering starting a business is a metric ton of work and many times, it’s too much for an individual. 
However, it seems that the biggest problem that YC  deals with is cofounder conflicts,. Many times these conflicts  fatal to a business and ultimately cost YC money.
So where is the benefit?<p>I’m asking this as I’m curious about finding a cofounder. Briefly, I’m a very motivated and particular single founder (well, soon to be) that is starting a tech business in the near future. While I know I need help to bring my idea to fruition, I am more interested in hiring the right people than finding a cofounder to help with the business. In my limited experience, it seems that finding a cofounder is almost like dating. There is no “formula” that can predict a good cofounder, and even if you think you have someone great, they bang your best friend and take ½ your stuff.<p>So, I’d like to have a discussion about which is better for a single founder. Do you go on the dating websites (http://www.cofounderslab.com) and find your perfect cofounder or stand your ground as a single founder and hire good people.<p>What does HN think?
======
EMRo
I'm facing the same dilemma. I'm technical enough to get the product to MVP
(though I suspect it will all need to be reworked to take it to scale), have
enough marketing sense to get it distributed and have enough BD hustle to have
found beta partners (we're an Enterprise B2B company) to test it with.

The one thing that irks me is being alone in the trenches. This $hit is tough
and its like whack a mole. You nail one thing and another thing pops up.
Wouldn't it be great to have four hands instead of just two?

I often think of it in terms of resources. Right now, the resources are my
time, the money investors have put in and advisors' time to a lesser extent.
To hit the milestones on the way to success you have to carefully allocate
those resources. The kicker is the time portion. It is very easy as a lone
founder to get deep into a rabbit hole (product feature, marketing approach or
customer acquisition channel even) without having anyone to check you. Other
eyes on projects help you to better allocate your resources in addition to
giving you double the time-based resources to allocate. Advisors are cool but
they aren't in the jungle with you and they won't wake up in the middle of the
night to scribble ideas and email you about something that could be a game
changer for your startup.

That said, with co-founders come issues of motivation, passion for the
project, etc. Partnering with a great co-founder is like a marriage but it is
not easy to find the right fit.

To sum it up, I have no clue. I'm weeble wobbling between the two myself.

------
UnFundedHype
Finding a co-founder is tough. Someone summed it up for me by saying most
nerds didn't play sports, so they have no clue how to gel, play their position
and just get things done.

Most co-founders don't have or don't believe in the project enough to vest in
with money and others just want to captain their own ship.

To solve the money problem I put up an auction on Dreamybids.com, the auction
winner will get 5% for the $25 they used to join the auction. Still it seems
self motivation is a quality only founders have.

------
synapticism
Finding the right co-founder can be hard depending on who you are and who you
know. If you can't manage to find someone, hiring the right person (or people)
might do, and you can always shift an ideal candidate into the co-founder
position after working together for a while. It all depends on what resources
you have available and how much you can do yourself.

Although my experience is limited I am in precisely the same situation these
days. I have spent about six months looking for the right technical co-
founder. I can't hire at standard developer wages and would prefer some help
with the heavy lifting (my skill set is more design and business-oriented).
Searching for the ideal candidate has been a time-consuming process involving
countless emails, numerous in-person meetings/interviews, filling out
profiles, applying for founder matchmaker services, etc. It has been a time
sink much like fundraising... only I haven't found a co-founder.

Instead, I'll be bootstrapping as a single founder for as long as I need to
(or can). I figure that since I have the capacity to start building the
product envision I may as well get moving. I can always take on a co-founder
later, after I have more to show.

------
cyrusradfar
I've been a solo co-founder for nearly 2 years and will tell you it's
definitely not for the meek.

There's definitely a very prevalent stigma against solo founders for good
reason. Most people can't get a company off the ground alone. They lack the
psychological, techical and marketing skills.

The average person looks at what you're trying to do and often will say "you
can't do that" but what they mean is "I couldn't do it."

My take is to understand whether you _need_ a co-founder? Can you do business
development and product development. Do you have a rich network? How high-
touch is your sales/customer development process.

Whatever you decide, don't give up and good luck!

------
omnisci
Thanks for the comments. My concerns about a cofounder seem to be consistent
with the comments.

I guess I really won't know until I move forward. Right now I have enough
basic knowledge (technical, business, and marketing) that I could produce a
beta version.

My goals are the following: 1\. Make a beta for my users (already have them
waiting) 2\. ??? 3\. Profit. By profit, I mean grab the attention of investors
and fill in the blanks (mostly technical) by hiring. From there, if someone
works with me long enough, I’d considering bringing them on as a cofounder.

~~~
soneill
This is basically the path I've followed (I guess I'm at your stage 2?), and I
can't recommend it enough. I've worked with 3 developers now, and talked to
God knows how many more, and while I think my current developer may end up
being a fit as a true partner/co-founder, I'm really thankful I didn't jump
into bed with either of the original two I was working with for various
reasons (limited technical skills, lack of dedication, etc).

It's very easy to say "get a cofounder". Finding a worthwhile partner is much
harder.

------
steve120818
A startup is tooo much work for a single founder. A team of 2 is ok (at
least). You can hire someone on the technical side, But at least you need a
dedicated co-founder on the business development side( yes BD is API centric
now, not people centric, but there should be an Owner for this). This is
required to scale up your business. The actual growth of the companty has to
be on the side of Gaining more business from customers, Not on the technical
side, That you can give to someone else who work for you. But in the beggining
you need to know how to do it.

------
freework
I saw a TED talk a few days ago (sorry I can't find it now) that said that
there has never been a person in the history of mankind who could build a
product, manage the company and manage the money. Most people can do one thing
very good, some people can do all three things poorly, but no one can do all
three well. You need to find a co-founder if you want to seriously attempt a
startup. This is all coming from a solo-founder.

~~~
omnisci
A single person can't do all 3 of those things, that makes perfect sense. A
single person could, however, hire people to take care of some of those
issues. Is that correct or just my being naive?

~~~
freework
Yes, but you need money to hire those people. Where will you get the money?
You won't get any investor money until you get a team, you won't get a team
until you get money. Those other people are going to have to be co-founders.

------
taligent
Don't. You are much better off hiring people than having a cofounder. Because
it's great when things are going well. But when they aren't you aren't going
to be motivated AT ALL to work on YOUR idea.

Cofounders work better when you both come up with the idea at the same time.

