
Stop Looking for a Cofounder - adrianmsmith
http://dontscale.com/stop-looking-for-a-cofounder/
======
rcarrigan87
Too many people who are new to entrepreneurship only see startups as their
entry point. Part of this is media coverage, everyone is talking about funding
mega rounds and the VC fueled entrepreneur world.

I think many entrepreneurs are less interested in building Billion dollar
companies and are more seeking freedom from suppressive corporate jobs.

But when the only narrative you see is mega startups it starts to seem like
that's the only worthwhile path to entrepreneurship. Small business sounds
like your Mom's flower shop - lame. So you have to find a co-founder and raise
VC and pick a huge market, and work on your pitch deck, etc. etc.

Reality is having a couple million a year business can really lead to a
fantastic lifestyle if done properly.

~~~
jchendy
Do you know of any resources to learn about tech lifestyle businesses?

~~~
MCRed
All of the "Startup" resources, like The Lean Startup, etc that aren't busy
glorifying VCs or the SV model, are useful for these businesses.

The only difference between a "lifestyle" business and the "Silicon Valley"
model is whether you are in control over your own destiny and focused on
building a business, or whether you're selling out to people who want to
increase your risk and their possible profits, with the expectation that
you'll get a nice bonus in your acquihire.

In a way, YC and VCs have ruined startups, by making people think this SV
model -- which is great for Facebook, google and yelp, but terrible for the
billion other startups is the One True Way.

~~~
rcarrigan87
There is truly a place for VCs and yes some businesses definitely need that
kind of funding. But right now it seems VC is so available things are getting
funded that will never be able to hit that 10x mark.

So businesses that could have been great bootstrap businesses will grow too
fast with too high a burn rate and flame out at a series A or B crunch.

Meanwhile, if the business could have taken it slower they could have built
something really valuable for themselves.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
> So businesses that could have been great bootstrap businesses will grow too
> fast with too high a burn rate and flame out at a series A or B crunch.

Smart, patient entrepreneurs can take advantage of this.

Let angel and VC-backed companies validate markets, and pursue the markets
they vacate after the broader crunch occurs.

~~~
Douceur
That's based on the assumption that the crunch _will_ happen though, and even
if those companies flop, I think it's quite important to analyse exactly where
they went wrong rather than put them down as just another startup that
couldn't scale properly. If you're a bootstrapping startup hoping to enter the
same market, this is crucial as you can at least try and avoid those mistakes
- who's to say that you won't crash and burn too?

(This is more like advice to myself actually as I'm currently in a dilemma
between that "wait" that you've just described and the intense worry of not
getting first-mover advantage through that waiting)

------
paulsutter
Even if you want to build a scalable/fundable startup, stop looking for a
cofounder. It's needy and the wrong motivation. Start working on the project
get help from the smartest people you know / can find. Get their help in any
capacity you can. You're more likely to find a cofounder indirectly through on
this path than in an overt "cofounder search". Plus you'll actually be making
progress.

~~~
hkmurakami
I was just about to write, "You don't _look_ for cofounders. Cofounders
_happen_ white you're already on the journey."

Well put.

------
danieltillett
I am going on a rant, but can we stop using the term lifestyle business for
non-VC startups? Almost anything would be better - I came up with the term
founder focused as an alternative [1], but almost anything would be better
than the term lifestyle. A serious business is a serious business no matter
the funding source.

1\. [http://www.tillett.info/2014/11/24/lets-kill-the-term-
lifest...](http://www.tillett.info/2014/11/24/lets-kill-the-term-lifestyle-
business-for-founder-focused-start-ups/)

~~~
w4
Not disagreeing with you in the slightest, but how about just calling them all
"businesses" and adding the qualifier "VC-funded" if they've taken funding? It
makes more sense to qualify based on VC funding, rather than lack there of,
since taking venture capital is the exception in business, not the norm.

Terminology aside, Silicon Valley's argument that _this_ is a what a real
business looks like, not _that_ , is ridiculous. They're all businesses. And
if you really want to play that game, it's often the VC-funded startups that
aren't "real" businesses (no profits, revenue, etc), not the derisively
labeled "lifestyle" businesses.

~~~
danieltillett
I agree that having to preface the term business is stupid, but since this is
the current terminology it is hard to get people to change back to just using
business. Even the term startup is redundant as a startup is just a new
business.

The problem is if you don’t preface then someone else will do it for you.
Letting the VC industry choose the preface is not ideal - I don’t run a
lifestyle business, I run a serious and highly profitable technology business
with the aim of maximising my returns as the founder. The fact that I don’t
have outside investors is irrelevant to what my business does or the value it
offers my customers.

~~~
w4
> _Letting the VC industry choose the preface is not ideal_

This actually touches on an important point. The whole reason that, "No no,
that's not a real business," gets bandied around is because it benefits VCs.
If founders think that they need to take VC money to assuage their
insecurities about being a "real" business, that doesn't help the founders. It
helps the VCs' deal flow.

~~~
danieltillett
The is exactly why I hate the term lifestyle business - it make it sound like
you are running a beach bar on some tropical island.

With technological change the need for VC money is much less than the past.
With a relatively small amount of money these days you can start and build a
very serious tech business (assuming you have the skill and drive) all on your
own. I am not running a lifestyle business - I am running a business 100%
focused on hitting my end value target and providing my customers with the
best product possible.

------
jcrubino
PG context of a startup is a company that has the potential to make it into a
leading stock market index. Anything else is considered a "life style"
business and not within YC or most other VC's scope of interest for funding.

~~~
MCRed
Uh, no. That's not what PG said, and if he ever used the term "lifestyle" he
didn't mean it that way.

Most companies YC funds do not have the potential to be on a stock market
index, because they are features as much as products at that stage and often
addressing smaller markets. They are still startups.

YC and VC are very particular avenues for startups, but they are not what
DEFINES a startup. YC and VC are the sillicon valley model and that is really
actually a small part of the total startup ecosystem, though it is the one
that makes the most noise.

~~~
T-A
From Note #1,
[http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html) :
"The biggest exits are the only ones that matter financially, and those are
guaranteed in the sense that if a company becomes big enough, a market for its
shares will inevitably arise. Since the remaining outcomes don't have a
significant effect on returns, it's cool with us if the founders want to sell
early for a small amount, or grow slowly and never sell (i.e. become a so-
called lifestyle business), or even shut the company down."

~~~
MCRed
"only ones that matter financially"

Who are you serving? Investors or yourself? The SV model is that this is all
that matters but a 50M business is still a damn good business and not a
"lifestyle" business.

Also, read the rest of the quite-- lifestyle business was only one of the
options.

It's quite possible to build a fast growing business that you never sell,
that's not a "lifestyle" business.

The either/or dichotomy is disproven by your quote.

------
brightball
He's not wrong, but a lot of what he says is very dependent on self-
discipline. Having a partner, in addition to all of the other perks, also
gives you a point of accountability the forces prioritization and a real plan.

It is entirely possible to start a business by yourself. People do it
successfully every single day but there are a whole lot of complicated factors
from financial, legal, technical and psychological at play just to get
started.

Having a support system around you can insulate you from a lot of the
complications that come from going it on your own, but that support system is
usually based on goodwill not vested interest.

Even people who "go it on their own" but happen to be married when they do so
very clearly have a partner in the business.

~~~
timr
The thing is, a co-founder won't save you if you don't have self-discipline.
It's probably one of the top sources of co-founder conflict, actually: one
founder slacks off or loses focus, and the other(s) get upset, and the whole
thing falls apart.

Self-discipline is a highly underrated quality. In my experience, most people
can't work productively for an extended period of time on an open-ended
project.

~~~
nulltype
I think it's super important, but maybe should be considered a skill rather
than a quality. It's definitely something that people don't get much practice
on in school or most jobs. If you get some practice, you can improve self-
discipline dramatically.

~~~
timr
Agreed (I had terrible self-discipline when I was younger, but I have a fair
amount now), but it's not a skill that can be dialed-up on demand. If you
don't have it going into a startup, it's a serious liability. Learning self-
discipline while also doing your first startup is probably impossibly hard.

Also, most people don't _believe_ that it can be cultivated, which sort of
begs the whole question: how do you cultivate self-discipline without the
self-discipline to try to attain it? It seems that most people gain it by
trying successively harder things over a long period of time.

------
crocal
Having just gone through bad experience with co founders, I should be on the
same page as John. But I am not. It is essential to have co founders even with
all this accelerating software available, just because of the fatigue. It's a
lot of work to achieve quality and willingness to pay in software, no matter
what. My mistake was to try to make it all by myself with only non-tech
partners. If I had had just one strong cofounder as involved as I were I think
things would have turned out very differently. Be humble!

------
jlarocco
I've always thought people desperately looking for cofounders on HN, or asking
how to find them, are kind of goofy and lame. Has there ever been an even
moderately successful company cofounded by strangers who met while slumming
the internet for cofounders?

It seems to me that PG almost certainly didn't mean people were better off
starting companies with random strangers than they would be starting off
alone.

Looking at the big successful companies that were started with multiple
founders, it was almost always a group of friends, or co-workers, or
acquaintances from school with similar interests, or something like that.
There's more to being "cofounders" than just meeting randomly and deciding to
start a company together.

~~~
bengali3
how did you and your cofounder meet?

~~~
jlarocco
If I were starting a company, I would do it by myself or possibly with some
friends. I'm _very_ weary of the VC based startup bubble and don't have much
interest in starting a company.

------
api
"If you’re unable to convince friends to start a business with you, PG says
it’s a vote of no confidence. But, what if you’re like me and you don’t have a
lot of entrepreneurial friends? Or, maybe you do, but they don’t want to work
on your ideas? It doesn’t really matter what your friends think of your ideas
or you in regards to starting a business–the votes that count come in the form
of paying customers. Since it’s cheap and easy to spot faults in unproven
business ideas, early votes of no confidence, even from well-meaning friends
and family are standard fare. Expect and take them with a grain of salt. Some
of the best companies today sounded pretty dumb on paper yesterday."

This is probably the clearest refutation of Graham's single founder section
I've seen.

I'd expound a bit on one of the later points:

If what you're doing is somewhat domain-specific, only the opinions of people
in your target area and market matter. You might know a lot of people, but if
they're not in your target area and market they might not get it. If you're
getting negative feedback from them, it might be irrelevant. The only negative
feedback you should listen to is from people who really get your target area.

~~~
pcmaffey
PG wrote that in 2006. Market forces and opportunities around startups have
changed astronomically in the past 9 years.

It was probably harder for 2 people to start a "growth" business in 2006 than
it is for 1 person today.

~~~
api
Yes, the OP makes that point as well and it's also very relevant. PG's point
on that issue is dated.

Today we have a "stack" that automates a lot of the grunt work: ZenPayroll,
Clerky, Stripe, etc. A single founder can just set up a business and run it
using these services to do a lot of stuff that was once manual.

I personally think the single-arity is near. (Title for a blog post I never
wrote.) The single-arity will be when we have the first one person "unicorn."
It won't stay one person forever, but pretty soon we will see an example of
one founder -- working as the only full time employee -- building something
with astronomical growth.

On one hand it's pretty cool, and on the other hand it speaks to the degree to
which we've created a winner take all economy with an insane hockey stick
compensation distribution.

~~~
nostrademons
We had that in 2003 with Marcus Frind & PlentyOfFish or Brad Fitzpatrick &
Livejournal - or, arguably, in 1995 with Craig Newmark & Craigslist or Pierre
Omidyar & E-bay. Multi-founder startups that took off like a rocketship before
they took investment include HotOrNot, Google, Facebook, and SnapChat.

It's been possible to do this since the web came out. The problem is that it
very much is a lottery, and the median startup usually goes through
significant tribulations before striking it big, struggles that make most
single founders quit.

------
eldude
Please don't stop looking for a cofounder. It's true that all it additionally
takes to be a solo-founder is self-discipline, but as a human being you are
psychologically and emotionally unequipped to deal with this. Let me
explain...

On History, there's a self-filmed TV show about 10 survivalist dropped off
separately on Vancouver Island competing for $0.5M to be the last standing.
The show is fantastic, not for the impressive survival skills, but for the
human psychology. The show is called "Alone," and I'm fairly certain they
(re)named the show after filming. What you witness over the course of just
weeks, is nearly every wilderness expert abruptly losing their will to go on
because there is nobody to share it with. They openly acknowledge that they
have what it takes to continue, and were originally okay with being away from
their family indefinitely, but they all just completely lose their desire and
interest in winning or continuing because they are so alone.

In short, isolation doesn't just make it more difficult for you to achieve
your goals, it rips the desire to achieve them from your psyche altogether!
This is empirically shown and self evident in numerous aspects of society:
solitary confinement being classified as torture, team dynamics, mentors, pair
bonding, tribalism, etc... It's also why YC (mostly) doesn't accept solo-
founders, as well as many other respected VCs.

[1]
[http://www.history.com/shows/alone/about](http://www.history.com/shows/alone/about)

~~~
SneakerXZ
This also heavily depends on your personality. My guess would be the
survivalist were extroverts and it was also the main reason why they went into
this show.

But most programmers are introverts and lone wolfs and they don't necessarily
need others to share their experience with.

~~~
dopeboy
I respectfully disagree. Being introverted != no need to share their
experiences. _Every_ human craves to share their experience with someone and
be validated (see social media). Some do it more than others and through other
means.

Also, at some point that lone wolf programmer is going to need to stop
building and start selling. Overcoming 100 compiler errors is much easier and
faster than getting 100 nos and 1 yes. Try going through a brutal sales cycle
like that and tell me whether that introvert would last without someone to
ride the roller coaster with.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Also, at some point that lone wolf programmer is going to need to stop
> building and start selling_

Selling doesn't require a co-founder, just sales people.

> _Try going through a brutal sales cycle like that and tell me whether that
> introvert would last without someone to ride the roller coaster with._

I did for 15 years (till a comfortable exit recently). I'm not sure you really
understand introverts. I was in hospital recently and left early because they
could only offer 2-bed rooms for additional treatment, which felt like torture
to me. No, no everyone is desperate to chat with others.

------
swalsh
If you're a programmer, and you're relatively young (like under 40) you
probably don't have a lot of experience. Sure you have a lot of experience
programming, and solving problems. But it's VERY unlikely that you know an
industry, and it's unsolved or badly solved problems. To get to know these
problems, I think you need some outsider experience.

For example, i'm in the healthcare industry. I can name a whole bunch of
problems here, but none of them are ripe for a new startup. That's because I
really only find out about a problem from my little part of the world. The few
times i've had glimpses beyond my world I certainly haven't had enough of a
glimpse to really try and tackle it.

So to me, that's important. Without a cofounder who really knows an industry,
you're going to work on 1st world problems that a normal person might run
into, that are solvable by a single person.

To be honest, of the problems left in that space they're not really
interesting businesses. Either they won't make too much money, or they solve a
boring non-problem.

As a technical person I want to find someone who has ran into good problems,
and will know if a solution will work or not.

~~~
MCRed
You're making a couple assumptions I disagree with. Even when I was under 40 I
knew of more problems that needed to be solved than I could possibly address.
Every job I've had has exposed me to industry problems that were big... and
you can found a company in an industry, be a single founder and then hire
people who have domain expertise. Domain expertise doesn't mean one has to be
a cofounder.

Also, consider does this domain expert have the background in startups that
would be useful? Or were they being an employee in that domain?

I can think of a half dozen purely technical problems that would improve a
billion people's lives-- and I'm talking purely software here.

------
crimsonalucard
At the same time I would say, don't dismiss the benefits of having a
cofounder. It's easier to explore new territory as a team then it is alone.
Just the psychological boost that comes with camaraderie is well worth it.

------
graeme
As others have noted, this is addressing a different type of business than PG
was talking about.

The author is talking about bootstrapped businesses. There are many niches
where a well run business can earn revenue of $100,000-$500,000 per year, and
be ably run by a single person. These niches do require upkeep, but they are
not so likely to be invaded by major competitors or large companies. The
returns are too small. However, the returns are excellent for a single
founder.

It is also true that it's easier to scale such a business than it used to be.
So there is probably more bootstrapping potential than before, especially as
more people move online and there are therefore more niches to fill.

But this approach also rules out many types of businesses, and with rare
exceptions it rules out larger revenue streams. These are among the trade
offs.

~~~
eloff
A bootstrapped business does not have to be exclusive with larger revenue
streams.

Guy Kawasaki says that he's seen many more businesses die because they tried
growing too fast (e.g. using VC money to scale the company) than because they
grew too slow.

Joel Spolsky is famously a critic of the SV VC-based model as well. He put his
money where his mouth is with Stack Exchange, which only recently raised VC
money. He says the obvious, that if take things as far as you can without VC
money, then you get better terms when/if you finally do take it.

There are a bunch of companies, especially those with strong network effects
like social companies, that face a very real risk of growing too slow. There
are others, especially hardware companies, where the startup costs are high.
So the bootstrapped model is definitely not for everyone!

I think it's best to stay small and agile until you've found a strong product-
market-fit that can the company can be scaled up into. You may or may not need
VC money during that stage. When your biggest problem is you lack the
resources to scale up as fast as your real product demand, then you should be
looking for VC money (or a alternative financing like a loan.) Before then it
may well do you more harm than good.

~~~
graeme
Oh, to be clear I meant a solo bootstrapped business. I think that's what the
original article was talking about.

Certainly a bootstrapped business with employees can grow quite large.

(You can go higher solo too of course, it's just not common)

~~~
eloff
PlentyOfFish was the biggest example I can think of, but companies like that
are very rare. It's also strange. If you have a successful company, why
wouldn't you try to grow it and hire employees? Maybe if you're more
interested in keeping things simple than in making more money.

~~~
graeme
>Maybe if you're more interested in keeping things simple than in making more
money.

Yup, that's exactly my own motivation. I've set mine up to run fairly
automatically. Obviously it needs oversight and growth. It just doesn't need
them right away.

So if I want to take a couple weeks off, I can. And I don't have to hold that
many details in my head/when working I can hold more longer run details in my
head.

I value that more than earning a very large amount of money.

This is a good article laying out hte mindset behind this. The four freedoms
are the main consideration:

[http://www.jackkinsella.ie/2014/04/24/on-passive-
income.html](http://www.jackkinsella.ie/2014/04/24/on-passive-income.html)

You can do quite a lot while keeping all four, but it has some obvious
tradeoffs at higher levels of business.

~~~
eloff
Sure, that's valid reasoning. If your goal is optimizing your personal
happiness, you don't need that much money. The extra stress will easily
compensate for the extra money and you'll be worse off.

But a word of warning, make sure it's not because you're afraid of taking
things to the next level. Adding employees (rising costs) and moving into more
of a managerial role is something many engineers are afraid of on some level.
Additionally, all humans are afriad of change to some degree. Make sure you
really understand what motivates you. </armchair psychologist>

~~~
graeme
Heh, not an engineer. And I do use contractors. For me it's really about those
four freedoms.

------
jondubois
I think if someone needs a cofounder to motivate them to keep going, then they
probably aren't that passionate about the idea. Founders should have realistic
expectations and give themselves a lot of time to find a market fit.

I think the less funding/marketing/hype your startup has, the longer it will
take to find market fit but once you do find it, it will be rock solid. If you
can find people to use your product in spite of it being completely unknown,
then that is the highest form of validation that a product can receive.

If, on the other hand, people only use your product because 'every one else is
using it' then that is a really weak form of validation.

------
aesthetics1
I believe John is writing for an audience that PG is not addressing. He is
taking his lifestyle business approach and saying that it should apply to
businesses that are seeking funding and trying to ultimately have an exit, or
become a shiny unicorn. This just isn't the right advice for YC style
companies.

~~~
dceddia
I think there's a lot of overlap in the two audiences though. Someone who
doesn't want a corporate job might say "I should start a startup." Maybe in
their head they're thinking a one-man shop, but then they google about
startups and read PG's essays about these larger efforts involving fundraising
and such, and get deterred from their original (quite do-able) plan.

This article is saying to those people: "Nevermind what you hear, go back to
thinking you can do it on your own, because you can. I'm here as proof."

You're right though, for the people who are squarely in the YC/fundraising
camp, this article is not speaking to them.

~~~
aesthetics1
Fair enough! I think there is a lot of information out there, and it can
certainly be overwhelming.

------
omouse
A cofounder just makes some things easier; you have someone that's available
24/7 to talk about ideas and implementation. When it's just you it feels a
little easier to give up unfortunately.

~~~
bengali3
agreed, someone to bounce ideas off of and someone who encourages you to
continue when you're down.

The closest things i've found for solo-support:

a) micropreneur academy ($50/mo-in 2009- but all solo software folks)

b) mastermind groups

Other Suggestions?

------
antaviana
I found the following book to be quite a good tool with practical advice for
the proposed approach:

[http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-
Launching-...](http://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching-
ebook/dp/B003YH9MMI)

~~~
csytan
I haven't read Rob Walling's book, but I found his video on "Finding your
flywheel" to be useful:

[https://vimeo.com/47465229](https://vimeo.com/47465229)

------
MCRed
I'm leaning this way now myself, after previously believing that co-founders
were essential and prior to that being dubious about their value.

Two things I've seen kill startups are bad cofounder relationships, and
Venture Capitalists. Almost 50-50, with VCs in the lead because they cause a
lot of the bad co-founder relationships.

The person you are likely to make your cofounder should probably be your first
employee. Make them significant, give them a VP title or whatever, get
feedback from them, pay them in equity. But don't let them be in a position
where leaving or failing to pull their weight would doom the company.

Finding a good cofounder is nearly impossible for many people for many
reasons. If you are a group of people who know each other already and want to
start a company-- great.

But cofounder dating is a bad, bad idea. Couples live together for years
before getting married, yet co founders want to "get married" within days or
months? Even if you choose well on a number of areas, you simply can't know
your cofounder well enough.

~~~
ams6110
_Couples live together for years before getting married_

There's a well-founded point of view that this is not a good thing for a
strong marriage.

~~~
shawn-furyan
I recall seeing some reporting on research about this. The problem that I had
with that study, is that it seemed to be working from the assumption that
decision of whether or not to cohabitate before marriage was akin to a coin
flip for the population. The study controlled for a couple factors like
education and claimed religious and political affiliation, but I contend that
these controls are insufficiently granular to capture potential fundamental
worldview differences[1]. Therefore, I contend that the conclusion that the
decision of whether or not to cohabitate is the primary causal factor (rather
than merely an indicator of an unidentified effect) is invalid because the two
groups are unlikely to be sufficiently similar for outcomes to be assumed to
be directly transferrable.

[1] For instance, there are portions of the republican party that would not
condone the decision of a couple to live together before marrying (e.g. many
of the religious conservatives), but others that would be expected to tend to
be indifferent (e.g. much of the business and libertarian contingent). The
same logic extends to claimed religious affiliation. For instance, I think
that the Catholic Church's official stance would be against cohabitation
before marriage, but among people who identify as Catholic, there are varying
degrees to which the certain official policies are considered practical and/or
legitimate. Keep in mind, lapsed Catholics/Jews/Muslims/Protestants/etc that
still identify culturally with a religious group are counted as among those
groups under the methodology. Overall, I would have felt more comfortable with
the legitimacy of the conclusion if instead of looking for rough indicators of
attitudes toward pre-marital cohabitation, they would have just chosen a few
cohorts, and directly asked what their attitudes toward pre-marital
cohabitation were, and then controlled for that factor.

------
tgeery
The whole time i could not stop thinking of this wozniak quote. Although... I
guess he eventually had a cofounder.

[http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/18/woz-on-creativity-
an...](http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/01/18/woz-on-creativity-and-
innovation/)

------
rebootthesystem
With the right project, skills, dedication, some funding and a little luck it
is quite possible for a single person to build a business that produces $100K
to $200K per month free cash. I understand that SV culture of building for
$100MM+ exits but that is utopia. All you have to do is run the stats against
total business startups (and failures) per year to confirm this claim.

As for single vs. multi-founder companies. I see SV from afar as an
environment where young VC's incubate all manner of ideas by young
inexperienced people. It's an educated shotgun approach. And it obviously
works or it would have died off a long time ago.

In that context I would say it is absolutely imperative to have more than one
person on a team. Why? Because business is hard and most 20-somethings today
have never done anything even remotely as hard in their lives. When business
slaps you around and tests your limits and you are an inexperienced young
person without a support system around you failure is almost guaranteed. Add
co-founders to spread the stress, discuss, find solutions and feel like a team
with a dose of guidance, money, advise and the benefits of the experience of
good VC's and you can make interesting things happen.

Again, in that context, yes, you need multiple founders.

With more experienced entrepreneurs who've been tested in business I don't
think the solo founder thing is a problem at all. We can manage the business
just fine and we can hire good people to do what's needed. The benefit of
experience is that problems are met with aplomb and a mental and business
toolbox that turns mountains into hills.

Money is a a thing separate from the single/multi founder issue. You can fail
miserably with lots of money and a large team and you can succeed with little
money and a guy coding at home (PlentyOfFish anyone?).

What money can and does do is light a rocket under a good thing at the right
point in time to make it go. Money is like the blood in the veins of a
business. Without enough of it you are not going to go run a marathon and win.

------
mindcrime
See also: Micro-ISV.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_ISV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_ISV)

[http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-
Walsh/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Micro-ISV-Vision-Reality-Bob-
Walsh/dp/1590596013)

[http://ericsink.com/bos/Micro_ISV.html](http://ericsink.com/bos/Micro_ISV.html)

Make sure to read this to get a different take though.

[http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-
movement-d...](http://www.singlefounder.com/the-day-the-microisv-movement-
died/)

------
j_lev
"Finding" a co-founder wasn't a choice for the uncountable husband-wife
partnerships over the ages. Sometimes for better or for worse you're stuck
with your spouse as your co-founder.

I remained in the corporate world for about five years after making the
decision mentally to quit until I had confidence that both the technology and
my own skill had reached a point where I could have a good shot at hustling a
living with my wife as "co-founder." The article somewhat vindicates my
decision.

------
seizethecheese
The post is saying that you don't need a cofounder for the subset of ventures
that a very technical person can tackle alone. The types of ventures that YC
funds are generally not plausible to tackle alone. There is no conflict
between PG's ideas and this essay so long as you accept that there are
ventures of differing scope, some need more than one founder and some don't,
and YC generally invests in the latter.

~~~
MCRed
No serious venture is plausible to tackle alone. But every venture that YC has
funded could be done with a single founder. There are other people in
companies and they're called employees. You can get to demo day with one
founder and employees.

How many YC companies have failed or split or reformed because the founders
visions didn't align?

------
latishsehgal
I have been trying to bootstrap a one man software shop for the last 2 years
and recently released v2 of the software. How I usually explain it to my
"work" friends is that the highs are higher and the lows are lower while
trying to do everything yourself. I would have jumped at the opportunity of
having a cofounder for that reason, but never found the right people
interested.

~~~
MCRed
You're making a good point- you never found the right person.

Alas, PG's essay has come to be takend as "you must have a cofounder or you
aren't serious" with little attention paid to finding the right person.

The right person is damn hard to find.

And when "not having a co founder means nobody believed in you" (the converse
of what he actually said) then any co founder becomes the right cofounder.

This is the problem with HN, and even YC to a lesser extent-it's become cargo
cultism based on PGs essays, propagated by people who have little to no
experience in Startups.

~~~
latishsehgal
I am guessing his intentions were "You must have a cofounder to have better
odds of surviving"?. I always use the marriage analogy for finding a
cofounder. I love being married and would recommend it to other folks if they
find the right person, but wouldn't recommend it just for the heck of it.

------
tblomseth
A recent tweet might indicate that PG is voicing a more nuanced opinion on the
"utility" of co-founders these days:

"In order of utility: Good cofounder, no cofounder, bad cofounder."

[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/615949374317723648](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/615949374317723648)

------
adidash
Met the founder of a startup accelerator in Singapore and shared my idea. His
first question - "will it be a billion dollar company?" I said no but has the
potential to scale to a few million dollars and his reply was - "then its not
a startup but just a lifestyle business."

------
free2rhyme214
Having cofounders or not is a matter of personal preference. Statistically
teams in 2 or 3 do better than teams of 1.

Look at the most successful tech IPO's and funding rounds. Sure there's Amazon
& Flexport etc. but those are exceptions.

~~~
general_failure
You are right if the measure of success is IPO or money. My understanding is
the OP has a much broader view.of success.

------
cha-cho
I feel that this line should be in bold: "It doesn’t really matter what your
friends think of your ideas or you in regards to starting a business–the votes
that count come in the form of paying customers."

------
jasonswett
When I discovered that there was a third path between job and startup, a whole
new world opened up for me. [http://www.jasonswett.net/the-whos-who-of-the-
micro-isv-worl...](http://www.jasonswett.net/the-whos-who-of-the-micro-isv-
world/)

------
makeitsuckless
> Today’s full-stack engineers have replaced yesterday’s sysadmins, DBAs, and
> webdevs altogether.

Seriously, when is this "full-stack" nonsense going to stop? With the
exception of a few geniuses, "full-stack" is just shorthand for "less than
mediocre at a lot of different things".

~~~
nilkn
I've seen people promote themselves as full-stack engineers who literally just
spent three months studying Ruby on Rails and some JavaScript and don't
actually know any true front-end development _or_ back-end development.

I've found that people who might actually qualify for the title (and they do
exist) generally don't use it to describe themselves.

~~~
ownagefool
It's all relative but I think a lot of us have the problem of puffing
ourselves up whilst knocking others down.

I'm multifaceted but folks just assume I'm hiding weakness.

Also, at least in London, full-stack pays a lot less than devops.

------
hughguiney
As someone who has been stressing over “needing a cofounder” lately, this is
an encouraging and timely post.

However, I dislike the phrasing here:

> a 100% owner requires half the earning power of 50/50 partners–that gives
> him a huge advantage.

…which assumes the founder is going to be a man.

~~~
dontscale
Thank you Hugh. I thought about pronoun choice when I wrote that. I was
deliberating between 'her' or 'him or her'. The problem I had with the former
is I always notice when male writers do it--I can tell it's deliberate. The
problem with the latter is it breaks rhythm a little, I think.

In my mind, the sexes are equal so him == her. It's something I feel strongly
about too especially having a daughter. But nonetheless I understand the
implications of what I wrote.

edit: Oh, and I upvoted you :-)

~~~
hughguiney
While I appreciate your viewpoint, it is not obvious to the reader. I think it
is more important to not alienate women any more than already happens in this
industry, than it is to form a sentence that has a certain rhythm. I would
also examine why male pronouns “sound right” while non-male ones “don’t”.

And I agree with @sidawson that gender-neutral pronouns maintain the same
rhythm besides.

Edit: And thank you for the upvote. I am glad that you are open to
constructive criticism even if the crabby status-quo-loving anonymous users
aren’t.

~~~
Douceur
Girls aren't that fragile either ;)

I probably feel this way because I'm so used with male pronouns to the point
that it's become gender-neutral - but this might just be me. Weirdly enough,
it annoys me to see female pronouns alongside male because it reminds me that
gender _does_ matter (Disclaimer: I am female).

I agree with you though, definitely more women is needed in this industry, but
I personally can't see how adjusting pronouns can help very much. Something
that's not being addressed properly is subtle sexism: prejudice at
subconscious level that we don't realise about but is painfully obvious to the
other person. I have worked with colleagues who I regretfully classify as
"boy's clubs", because they would automatically change their tone towards me
and sometimes even ignore completely. You might say that there could be a
thousand other reasons for this, like perhaps I'm not communicating very
clearly, but when you share the same interests, when your dismissed
suggestions gets "suggested" by themselves later on, and when all this becomes
a daily occurrence ... you can't help but think of the worst.

How this problem can be tackled, I'm not sure. We all have a certain level of
prejudice though, so maybe this is a "spiritual" thing rather than a cause for
activism.

------
unabst
Building shareware and selling it has nothing to do with building a business,
let alone co-founders. What the author here has done is comparable to a
composer selling music or an author selling a book. He built an ebay tool, and
ebay sells it for him. There are many indie game developers and app developers
that are successful the same way (microsoft and apple take on the sales and
marketing burden respectively). Finding a co-founder is inapplicable to his
situation.

The piece might as well be called "how to avoid building a business". If you
want to build a business, shareware can be a good start, but avoiding getting
help is no way to build something that eventually you want ticking without
you. Building a business does not equate to simply making money. Any capable
programmer can make money either through employment or on their own. This
should never be confused with building a business.

As for building a world class business, no matter how capable you are, if you
still believe you can do it alone, you still haven't grasped the magnitude of
what you're in for or the foundations you need to build. Businesses are made
of people. A business builder is a job creator. If you have a team working
like bees, you've built a business. If you have money growing on trees, it's
just income.

