
Breaking a myth: Data shows you don’t actually need a co-founder - greenspot
https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional
======
throwaway7312
I've cofounded 4 different startups. All were good ideas that bled cash or
time and flopped, largely due to infighting or founder differences. One
cofounder of one of the companies got really nasty about trying to leave with
the rights to the company and we other two cofounders just let him have it. He
sold the rights and it's now a successful venture-backed startup with soaring
profits (two cofounders). Good for that team.

Since then, I've managed my own single-founder startup. We're profitable,
growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over
the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once
our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range.

I have a lot of other companies I want to start after. I will bring on
talented people in executive roles who can complement me and make up for my
own weaknesses, but I won't cofound again. I'd rather keep the smart,
business-oriented people I know in masterminds where we can compare ideas and
bounce thoughts off each other, than wade into business situations where our
differences turn us into enemies and destroy the company.

The general wisdom on picking cofounders is pick a behind-the-scenes guy if
you're a visionary, or make sure you're comfortable as the behind-the-scenes
guy if you're partnering with a visionary. The problem I find (and one I've
seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to
start startups are visionaries.

~~~
throwaway1182
Interesting data point. However, we're happily chugging along with 6 co-
founders, bootstrapped to currently 30 mln us$ valuation and we've only just
begun.

Then again, your point about "visionaries" (with which you probably mean high-
ego people needing a lot of approval) rings true to me. We're all pretty low-
key hard-working people with a lot of self-reflection and humility - also it
helps it's not the usual failing friends, family or uni buddies combo but
we're really more of a casting band with a team mixed and matched from
industry professionals by our main founder.

In this very setup, it's actually very enjoyable with a lot of pros: Scaling
is much faster and easier with invested veterans at the helm, all important
departments are headed by founders, also having same-level people in the same
company helps enormously with the more difficult decisions and just
professional exchange, growing as leaders and 1-1 mentoring. If - and only if
- the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication,
this is an amazing way to work and learn.

10/10 would do it again.

~~~
k__
Almost all people overestimate their knowledge of human nature.

I only know a few people who are truly able to judge people right. Most people
with good relations are simply lucky.

~~~
axlprose
As someone who actively works researching personality psychology, I can fully
attest to this.

There actually seems to be somewhat of a Dunning-Kruger like effect when it
comes to people evaluation skills. Generally, those who appear the most
confident about their people judgements, also seem to be those who are wildly
speculative and inaccurate about what other people are thinking.

~~~
jomamaxx
'Not knowing what someone else is thinking' \- is completely different from
'knowing human nature'.

For example, people tend to be a little lazy, or tend towards 'doing less'. If
one could get 100K for sitting on one's butt - most people would take the
offer. Some people would rather work, or do something more creative.

This is different from being able to 'read' people.

~~~
axlprose
Yes, but unfortunately people tend to make a lot of critical decisions based
around what they interpret other people's _motives_ to be; leaving out that
bit of human behavior from the equation can be a big deal.

One ceo may may look at a worker exhibiting stereotypical output of a "lazy"
person and decide this person must not care about their work and thus should
be fired. Meanwhile another may see this as a symptom of burnout from caring
about their work too much and decide the worker should get some time off to
relax. Regardless of who's interpretation is correct, it is a decision than
can have a big impact on a person.

The behavioural economics approach is definitely worth keeping in mind
regardless of people-reading ability, but we should be weary of interpreting
such things as being too 'directly applicable' in anything other than very
generalized circumstances. Unfortunately, I've seen my fair share of cases
like the example I stated above, so it is worth remembering that there is no
such thing as "the average person". Not to say there aren't definite patterns
of behavior of course, but that's a whole other conversation.

~~~
jomamaxx
Yeah, I am weary of the slobby fat guy with bad manners being perceived as
'lazy' \- those guys can be just as much the opposite of that as any other.

I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that there isn't such a
thing as the 'average person', or rather, we are animals, somewhat
predictable, not that unique.

~~~
axlprose
> _we are animals, somewhat predictable, not that unique._

Oh I agree completely, didn't mean to give the impression I advocate the
"special snowflake" view of the world either. My apologies! My entire field of
research is practically based around our predictability ;)

What I meant to say rather, was that while there are definite behavioural
patterns, they tend to cluster into discrete groupings, rather than being
broad and generally applicable traits that can be used on everyone across the
board in aggregate (i.e. a _singular_ "average person"). There are certainly
many 'trivial' human traits we all share in common of course, but I've found
those to be less helpful in personal decision making situations than more
specific correlated traits. But then again, I might be a bit bias given that's
my area of expertise :)

------
afoihfoina
The question that most people are interested in is

    
    
      P(Success | Number of Founders)
    

but what the article has answered is

    
    
      P(Number of Founders | Success)
    

for a couple of different metrics of "success".

They are not the same question! In particular, the average number of founders
for a successful startup might be low, but the chances could still be better
with more founders.

~~~
brador
Isn't the second one just a subset of the first (post-event and excluding the
failures)?

~~~
parenthephobia
All startups are successful if you ignore the ones which fail. True, but not
very interesting.

 _Not_ excluding the failures is the point of the exercise. One cannot choose
to succeed, one can only choose the number of founders. The question is how
many founders leads to the greatest probability of success.

Although approximately 50% of successes have one founder, it does not follow
that approximately 50% of startups with one founder succeed. If 70% of
startups have one founder, then those startups are under-represented amongst
the winners. OTOH, if 20% of startups have two founders then, with 30% of
winners having two founders, they are over-represented.

If the numbers I just made up were accurate, then it would be better to have
two founders than one, even though most successful startups have one.

------
_lex
This is pretty bad article because it focuses on # of funded startups, not #
of attempted startups. What if 99.999% of startups attempted were attempted by
solo founders? It would make you expect that the # of funded startups should
also tilt towards solo founders - if all other odds were even, you'd expect
99.999% of funded startups to be solo founders, and it would not mean much.

~~~
brianwawok
Is the goal to get funded is the goal to succeed?

Success is the metric you want to measure, which is usually exit if not
profitability.

~~~
jeremyjh
It doesn't matter which success metric is used, the point still stands. If you
only measure the ratio of solo-founder companies that are successful, you
haven't measured anything at all about how likely a solo-founder company is to
succeed. We need to know how many of each type failed as well.

~~~
brianwawok
Yes and no.

This is not scientifically sound without the full data, you are right. But I
don't think that is the point. If you had all the data and parsed it.. and it
told you that as a solo founder you had a 21% chance to exit, and as a group
founder you had a 23% chance to exit.. so should you do a group founding as
your next project despite not knowing anyone to found with?

I don't think it works like that. Some people naturally do better solo. Some
people already have a group on a hot idea. I think you should go with what is
working. What the point of this story is, in my mind, is to say "look - a lot
of articles say solo founders are bad. Here is some data that it isn't that
bad, and perhaps solo founding is a valid way to run a business"

------
dan_m2k
After failure of my startup's first iteration, investigation and data made it
clear my cofounder was at fault:

\- deals that made a loss \- poor relationship management \- investing way too
much in blaming the team around her

This ended up with a company seriously in the red, heading to liquidation and
a completely fucked reputation.

Iteration two: flying solo, small team and 18 months in, we are in profit and
I've fixed most of the relationships that needed some help.

I have a department head who I can trust and points out my blindspots but
never wanted to be a founder, which is fine.

Be very careful your cofounder isn't just saying the right things in the hope
of a payday.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
Even if your cofounder has absolutely the best intentions, not everyone is cut
out for it. It's very easy to be "Saying the right things" and not even aware
they they aren't being honest.

In fact, I'd argue that %50 of the "co-founders" of YC startups are not
actually ready to be founders, and I suspect that the number who are still
with the startup 3 years after are very small. (and that a large number of the
YC companies that don't exist after 3 years don't exist because of a bad
choice in co-founder.)

------
urlwolf
If anything, this analysis under-represents the success of solo founders.
Because VCs don't like solo founders, it's less likely they go for a VC path.
There must be plenty of successes that are bootstrapped. And these solo
founders may not even bother adding their company to Crunchbase.

I'm one of those.

~~~
duiker101
What if, because they are not liked the choosing criteria are stricter and
therefore it's more likely that the successful ones will be picked?

------
huhtenberg
> Sooooo… You can start a company alone. Should you?

Only if you are young and without dependents _or_ if you can afford to write
the effort off.

Success is one metric, but another metric is the stress levels. Having been
through both single- and multi-founder startups I can certainly confirm that
former is incomparably more stressful than the latter. Assuming of course you
are trying to build a functional company and not just play with it.

~~~
eb0la
Totally agree.

I remember a beautiful family vacation that went wrong because as a solo
founder everything that happened got routed to me.

If you decide to go solo, you will start hiring very soon just to make stuff
happening before you run out of bandwidth.

And you'll need _really high quality_ hires... wich need a lot of bandwidth to
acquire so plan accordingly (if you can ;-).

~~~
BerislavLopac
Shouldn't they be considered founders too?

~~~
aries1980
I am the first “technical” hire of a startup. I think my contribution to both
business capabilities and building the product is significant, maybe as much
as a co-founder, but I would never call myself a founder. I founded an other
company in the past that I kept running for 9 years, and I can tell the
emotional and caring is very different regardless your impact and effort, even
if it is 24/7\. It is feel like being a stepfather. Maybe the best one,
behaving and treated like a real one, but still…

------
danielvf
Success _rate_ is what matters when you are weighing co-founding or investing,
not just the number of successful companies.

It's as if the article discovered that fifty percent of those in American
prisons are black, and came to the conclusion that there's no difference in
crime and poverty beacause that's roughly half. That's meaningless. Base
populations matter.

What percentage of new startups are single founder?

~~~
ivanca
... But then you would have to count the bias against single founders and all
the investments they didn't get thanks to that bias. And also count all the
accelerators than discarded them for this issue.

Plus, there is also the "fake co-founder" tactic some people use in order to
avoid this bias from others; so you would have to count those as well, but
that data is not public. So yeah, I think you are trying to count the
uncountable.

------
ngrilly
The article would be a lot more interesting if the number of successful
startups could be compared to the number of unsuccessful ones, depending on
the number of founders.

------
morgante
This is likely putting too much faith in the Crunchbase data.

In my experience, Crunchbase very frequently leaves out some founders. Often,
only the most prominent founder will be reported, thus underreporting the
instances of having 2+ founders.

~~~
sportanova
But then again how many of these companies with cofounders, really only had
cofounders-in-name-only? Where one person really drove everything but at some
point thought - oh shit, if I'm going to be successful, I need a cofounder!

Given the dogmatic advice "YOU NEED A COFOUNDER", I'm sure a lot of it's title
inflation - what would normally be first employees are elevated to founder
status to look good for the pitch deck or just to follow the advice. That
said, they're still going to be quality people - less met at a find-a-
technical-cofounder event, more Biz Stone style "can my title be cofounder
lol?"

~~~
morgante
That doesn't really disprove the point though.

Probably the vast majority of startups have a dominant cofounder. You might
call them cofounders-in-name-only, but that still validates the notion that
you're better off finding a cofounder (even if they're not as central).

~~~
sportanova
Yeah it's just another perspective

I don't think it validates it - if their not as central why not make them an
employee with less equity / control

------
waterhouse
Reflexive question from reading the title: Suppose lots of people have been
told that you shouldn't start a startup by yourself, and people are inclined
to heed that. Some people will disobey this advice. These will
disproportionately be people who have strong reasons to believe they'll
succeed. If their judgment is at all accurate, then we might well get the
result that single-founder startups are generally _more_ successful, even if
the single-founder status is always and everywhere mildly detrimental to the
business. The question is, did someone mention this possibility?

And it turns out the article doesn't even mention the relative success ratios
(i.e. percentage of startups that succeeded out of startups that were started,
broken down by founder count), AFAICT. D'oh. I guess it's valuable information
that there are a _lot_ of successful single-founder companies. But "data
shows" sounds like a lot more than what is shown.

------
andriesm
How many founders did the average startup have that failed? (survivorship
bias!!)

------
vonnik
I don't think the article proves the point it claims to make (you don't need a
founder), or disproves the message from YC: having a co-founder increases the
likelihood that your startup will survive.

First of all, most startups fail when they are least funded, before they ever
get past friends and family money. When you have close to zero money,
mountains of work, and no traction or social proof, there's only one way to
convince someone to do the important stuff that you can't do yourself, and
that's by giving them a lot of equity. Founders: People satisfied with paper
and an idea. (If you're already wealthy, sure, you can hire all the help you
need. But that's not most people or most startups.)

The advice YC gives to co-found a startup with someone you can depend on
addresses several early-stage startup problems: 1) Most people have severe
limits to what they can do. Those limits come in terms of time and talent.
Maybe they can code but they can't handle logistics or paperwork. Maybe they
can sell an idea to investors and customers, but they can't build software.
Startups require much more than one person can give. 2) Early-stage startups
should be in a very active conversation with the world about what to build.
The startup needs to be taking in a lot of information, reflecting on it
deeply, and acting on it intelligently. With the right co-founder, you gather
more information, think about it in ways you wouldn't have alone, and execute
better and faster with the extra mind and hands.

To wrap this up, a brief list:

* Jobs and Wozniak

* Allen and Gates

* Page and Brin

* Hewlett and Packard

* Noyce and Moore

* Chesky, Gebbia and Blecharczyk

* Camp and Kalanick

------
danieltillett
The whole reason starting a startup is so stressful, and why you need co-
founders, is because of the need for rocket growth to satisfy investors. Take
out investors and you take out the need for ridiculous growth and the stress
and the need for co-founders.

~~~
jakobegger
True, but that's not really building a "startup" anymore. That's just starting
a business.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
No it's still a startup. It can be a very high growth startup, shooting to a
$100M valuation.

It's just not the wannabe unicorn that VCs want.

There's a HUGE gap between what VC wants and a "lifestyle business" (I hate
that term, thanks for not using it.)

Redefining startup to be this very, very narrow set of "businesses that will
be over $1B in valuation within 5 years" is wrong, it's silly, and it's
getting worse.

9 years ago on Hacker News the difference between "lifestyle" and "startup"
was "businesses that will reach over $100M valuation in 10 years."

=======

Reply to @danieltillett because HN won't let me submit 4 posts in an hour!

Put another way, I would take a %10 chance of having a $100M business over a
%0.1 chance of having a $1B business. (assume in both cases you end owning %5
of the stock at exit, though realistically without VC money you'd likely own
more equity percentage at $100M than at $1B)

VCs generally want you to take the second bet, even though the statistical
value is 1/10th as much for you!

Worse, you can only found one business at a time, while the VCs can invest in
dozens at the same time. So your risk is much higher (not even mentioning that
they are investing OPM)

VCs interests are not aligned with founders.

~~~
rlucas
Your numbers are tautological. Everyone including your straw man vc would take
10% of 100 instead of 0.1% of 1000. 10 > 1, qed, but you don't get any points
for that observation.

(yes, there are situations where taking investor capital leads to divergent
interests between investors and managing founders. But not gross arithmetic
differences.)

Obviously if the expected value of the smaller sized business is greater, you
choose that one. The only time these questions (whether to take capital/shoot
the moon) is when the expected value of the larger business is greater. So to
refactor your example, what about 10% chance at 100, or a 1% chance at 2000?
Now you have more of a real question on your hands.

Much more interesting when contemplating whether to go big or stay small is
the notion that there are invariant personal "fixed costs" regardless of the
size of the opportunity you're pursuing. Meaning, you can overwork yourself
and burn out on a $100k/year business as surely as a 100 M/ year business. So
if you are going to give something your all, just make sure the expected
payoff is worth it.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
That's my point. You should invest your _life_ in something where the value is
higher. VCs would rather take a much lower chance at a higher payoff because
they spread their risk around more, you cannot do so.

My numbers are hypothetical, but they are not tautological. That's my point-
the VCs will take the lower expected payout, whether this is because they are
bad at estimating risk or not I cannot say. I can say this is how they
operate, because I've seen it, in every single startup that took VC
investment.

------
freddealmeida
I resigned from the company I started with two other co-founders. Building a
new firm now as a single founder. I expect many things will be harder though
few will be insurmountable if at any at all.

Building my first company, to the second largest deep learning firm in Tokyo
was exciting. But if I had to break down my time so much was wasted driving
consensus where none was really required.

I know most investors hate a single founder. Traction though solves all
problems.

~~~
chrisabrams
Traction does solve all the problems. This is known.

------
bobsil1
A cofounder is very helpful in pointing out your blind spots. Also the journey
is just way more fun with a partner you like and respect.

~~~
superplussed
Here's the key. I'm sole-founding my current startup, and I know I am having
less fun than if I had a cofounder.

~~~
sportanova
Now you're having less fun, but I feel like we have this idyllic fantasy of
cofounder - not unlike a romantic partner. It sounds exciting and
exhilarating, but what are the odds that it ends in divorce (liquidation)?

------
pbreit
When I see research like this my immediate reaction is "name the single
founder companies". The data is apparently public, why not share it?

------
greenspot
Starting companies is much easier with a cofounder. There's more momentum and
pace with somebody together. Especially with first time founders, a team _is_
the driving force when starting a venture.

But unfortunetaly every relationship changes or ends at some point--always.
Then, it's about a quick and smooth separation without briging the company in
danger. But this rarely happens, the separation is usually a tedious process
over many months till the company breaks.

So yes, solo founding is better in the long run but in most cases there will
be no founding at all because of momentum lacking.

------
Keyframe
Finding a compatible and complementary business partner is as hard as starting
your business, if not harder.

------
smb06
The data could be biased by early exits (Series A) of several SaaS or mobile
app startups. Those tend to have less need for a co-founder.

Try building a scalable, enterprise IT business on your own...

~~~
T2_t2
That's a good point. Startups are not about exits, but big exits.

I wonder if the $$ stack up, and where the sweet spot is, given 2 founders
need twice the money from an exit.

~~~
smb06
Usually a tech and a non-tech co-founder partnership works really well because
you cannot scale up if the person building the technology/product is also
building the marketing and sales machinery.

Single co-founders only work in domains where either of those two -
technology/product and sales/marketing - are much less resource consuming than
the other so that one person is able to focus on both. That model breaks at
scale.

------
jrs235
In Fire Someone Today: And Other Surprising Tactics for Making Your Business a
Success [1] by Bob Pritchett, cofounder of Logos Research Systems, Inc.,
chapter 4: There Can Be Only One—Plan for Your Partner’s Departure covers the
issue of cofounders. I highly enjoyed and recommend this book.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning the chapter:

When I was a teenager, I toured a factory and met its owner. Dreaming of
having my own business, I asked him for the best advice he could give me. His
response was two words: “No partners.” When I started the business I run
today, I did not take his advice—I started it with one partner and soon added
another. Starting a business is hard work, and having a partner made it a fun
adventure rather than a lonely quest. We did everything together, from the
paperwork to set up the business to sales calls to taking all of our meals
together so we could work on the business every waking hour. We became best
friends and worked well together for years. When the day came that my original
partner decided to leave the business, though, we realized that our lack of
planning had endangered the multiyear investment we had all made and had
changed the nature of our personal relationships. There is no way I could have
started the business or seen it grow the way it did without my partners. As
much as I now believe that “no partners” was great advice, I know that a
partnership is sometimes the only way you can launch and build a business. But
if that is the case, you need to make planning the end of your partnership
part of planning the start of it.

[1] [http://amzn.to/2blPmmT](http://amzn.to/2blPmmT) (affiliate link)

~~~
seibelj
Are affiliate links allowed on HN? I thought they were banned

~~~
whamlastxmas
They should be if not. It's dumb and probably against Amazon ToS.

~~~
jrs235
They are not and it is not against Amazon ToS.

------
endswapper
Forget co-founders or not. The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs
the greater the likelihood for success. This depends entirely on the founder's
or cofounder's ability to manage those inputs.

This is why there is a preference for founding teams over solo founders, but
it's also why a singular vision and solo founder's ability to distill and
manage those inputs may perform better than a team.

~~~
sportanova
> The greater the number of valuable, diverse inputs the greater the
> likelihood for success

But is that really true? Seems like more of an unsubstantiated platitude. "The
more colors you use in a painting, the more beautiful it is!" Until you get a
brown mess

~~~
endswapper
Yes, it is. I think the sentence that follows the one you quoted provides the
required context. It's up to the founder or cofounder to determine and
prioritize the value of inputs. This is why such an emphasis is put on the
people (often over the idea itself) in startups.

To be clear, I didn't say the greater the number of inputs, i.e. use all of
the colors until they are a brown mess.

------
telecuda
You don't need a co-founder, but you shouldn't do it alone.

Every founder will have days where an investor or employee is driving you
nuts, or worse - you're struggling to keep the business afloat. At these
junctures, an outside coach (not linked to your funding so you're truly open
and honest) can be a lifesaver, helping you work through the complex journey
of growing a business.

-Single founder, 6 years 20+ employees

------
donlzx
Co-founders or not, the underlining reasons are alike for people (entities)
with different personalities (characteristics) working together.

Only one person in charge will always do, if he or she has a very strong
personality and also has appropriate supporting subordinates.

Two person founding team will be great if their personalities are
complementary, thus one plus one is bigger than two. There are many very
successful enterprises in this group, such as Apple, HP, etc.

In initial phases of founding companies, projects, etc., always avoid groups
of three strong personalities at all costs. Trinity is a very special case
that will ensure endless internal fighting/competition, low efficiency and
sustained tensions. However, trinity is good for long lasting (market)
competition and ensuring all parties will not be easily wiped out. Example
cases: a) US-Russia-China relations; b) President-Congress-Senate structure.
c) Firefox-Chrome-Edge browsers;

For groups bigger than three, if the number of prominent members with strong
personalities is less than four, see previous cases. Otherwise, avoid at all
costs.

------
dojomouse
Can't tell if you excluded startups where the founder had a previous
successful startup (solo or otherwise) but it doesn't look like it?

I think this would massively distort your results. Founders with a history of
success are vastly more likely to succeed in a new venture for numerous
reasons, but most people who are interested in these stats (both founders and
investors) are interested in the pre-big-win founder case.

Also, I suspect far more 'startups' have a single founder, purely because it's
so incredibly easy to 'start' something alone. Having a cofounder implies a
certain level of organization and commitment - it doesn't really work with
that pet project you dabble with occasionally. If solo dabblers far outnumber
'team' dabblers then you'd expect them to be over represented in successes
even if their success rate was much lower.

------
baccheion
The data isn't well-presented (52.3% of exits would be a negative if 68% of
the companies considered had only 1 founder, as that would mean less received
an exit than would be expected), but if you normalize the percentage of exits
with the percentage funded, you roughly see that the author's original claim
is likely true.

1: 52.3 / 45.9 = 1.1394

2: 30.1 / 31.9 = -1.0598

3: 12.5 / 15.0 = -1.2000

4: 3.7 / 5.3 = -1.4324

5: 1.4 / 1.9 = -1.3571

Maybe the idea is that a single founder situation is preferred, but as
creating a startup can be stressful, trying, and involved, maybe doing so with
a single partner (that complements your skillset) is a compromise?

I had never considered creating a business with a partner/co-founder. There
would just be too many issues. People have a difficult time understanding what
I'm trying to do even when I explain it in plain English, so I shudder to
think what it would be like if I were doing something completely
new/groundbreaking/different.

I can't deal with someone nagging, draining, or getting in the way as I try to
do what I'm doing. It's always been fairly clear to me that the route I should
take is to found a company solo, then bootstrap it to profitability, while
keeping the employee count low (43-73, or 259-585). Then not go public. That
is, I should avoid dealing with a co-founder, investors, or the
overhead/inefficiency/bureaucracy/politics that comes with having more than a
certain number of employees.

Also, it became clear (especially in the world today with so many service-
oriented companies to contract out to) that it's entirely possible to do
almost anything with 42+me employees (which is the "ideal" number of employees
(1 CEO/founder + 6 leads/executives/managers + 6 individual contributors per
lead/manager/executive), as there's only one layer of "management").

~~~
marcosdumay
It's evidence investors discriminate against single founders... What isn't
really news, is it?

------
rl3
> _We are often told that starting a startup on your own is madness._

That statement remains true. It's a trade-off.

As a solo founder, maintaining both motivation and momentum becomes far more
difficult. The upshot is you at least have a singular, unified vision and
(hopefully) less drama.

Of course, you're also stuck with all of the work.

------
jheriko
what bugs me about the startup community is how things like raising 10M in
funding or exiting by IPO are considered success.

neither of those things have anything to do with building or running a
successful business. they are not even desirable imo.

~~~
parenthephobia
A lot of people aren't interested in running a successful business except as a
means to their actual goal: being independently wealthy.

------
ThinkerR
Makes me think of the survivor bias episode of Veritaseum
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w)
or the french caster ScienceEtonnante on the Simpson Paradox
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs_Zzf_vL2I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs_Zzf_vL2I)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox)

------
kowdermeister
I couldn't really proceed without a business co-founder. I enjoy building
stuff from the idea to a shipped product, but at that point and before it I
would totally need support from a co-founder who is good at business,
marketing and other magic stuff I find boring and tedious.

You can't just build an universal rule like the title suggests, data is
meaningless in individual cases. "Data shows people can live underwater" ;)

------
marknadal
I am a solo founder as well, and can attest to this fact. I raised from
billionaires Tim Draper and Marc Benioff of Salesforce for an Open Source
database [http://gun.js.org/](http://gun.js.org/) (like Firebase).

Been trying to write up a blog post on my experience over the last 2 years,
and will hopefully post it. Hit me up if anybody has any questions though.

------
jcbeard
In summary, number of co-founders doesn't necessarily matter. What does is (in
no real order): the ability to raise cash, the ability to produce something
that has value, and the ability of however many co-founders you have to get
along.

Could have been a much shorter article since the data are so full of
confounding factors as to be meaningless. It does make for a nice headline
though.

------
RawData
I've been saying this for years...even wrote a book on the subject (The Smart
Startup: [https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Startup-Without-Falling-
Venture...](https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Startup-Without-Falling-
Venture/dp/069246512X/))

------
BerislavLopac
But what is a co-founder exactly? I can't imagine a startup being started,
built and brought to an exit by a single person -- every employee contributes
to some extent, and in my view an early employee who contributed a great deal
should in all fairness be considered a (minority) founder.

~~~
Etheryte
Being an early employee doesn't make you a founder, no matter your effort.

~~~
BerislavLopac
That is exactly my question -- what differentiates the two?

------
asd999101
I think investor preference for multiple founders is almost entirely because
it makes it easier to make voting control of the company not be in the hands
of a single founder they might disagree with. Two founders provides twice the
opportunity to take control.

------
ddebernardy
> To ensure that I had the most useful and well-reported data, I limited my
> research to “successful” startups.

So, in other words, the author didn't consider the failed % of startups based
on founder? As in, at all, if the article is anything to go by?

------
no1youknowz
For getting investment via VC or angel investor. Does having a co-founder
increase the chances of investment vs being a solo-preneur.

Interested to hear in solo-preneurs getting investment and what their timeline
and experience was.

------
benzesandbetter
Sure, as long as you're skilled in both the technical side and the business
side, and have enough free time to do both.

Seems to me that very few people can check all three of those boxes.

------
hughperkins
i guess the data presented might not say not having a cofounder is better; but
they perhaps at least show that its not obligatory.

i reckon not having a co founder might be quite lonely though.

------
mandeepj
I think it all comes down to how you gel well\manage with your co-founder and
also team.

Nothing like a company how have one co-founder as a tech genius and other as
sales\marketing expert

------
benologist
It only gets easier to build, launch and sell stuff.

------
Etheryte
The data shows that solo founders have no problem securing investment, yet the
author concludes exactly the opposite.

~~~
chenster
However, based on my experience, VCs do prefer startup with at least two co-
founders in case one is, unlikely but possible, deceased.

~~~
api
I've heard of startups, even those with more than one founder, taking out key
person insurance for the company to mitigate this.

It's basically a life and disability insurance policy on the founder(s).

------
Hellgy
Well, I would say that the metrics that Techrunch uses to measure success are
not quite correct. Raising money is not a proof of success, neither is
exiting.

I would say, more like creating a sustainable long lasting company with good
culture, cutting edge technologies, and people that love coming to work at the
morning.

------
jsemrau
The why _requires_ YC a co-founder to be eligible? Honest question !

------
nxzero
It's always been pretty obvious to me that the desire to have multiple
cofounders in a venture backed startup is to derisk investment, divide &
conquer, etc.

Simply put, most investors prefer that there are cofounders for the reasons
stated above.

------
allendoerfer
I started several projects, most of them I would not even call startups. Most
of them unfinished, some failed, some successful.

I have tried several times to start something with a buddy from university,
with him it's always the same: We talk about it, like the idea, I start to
build it, he does not really join in and I lose motivation myself.

The one product which is the most profitable (or profitable at all if you
factor in your own hours) is a rather lame one: A sitebuilder for small
businesses. I buildt it while still in uni, lived off of it and literally put
customers in one by one. Very stressful.

Another one I started after that with a an economics student, who had the
initial idea. It was a dating app for students, when Tinder was on the rise in
the US and had not gotten to Europe yet. I could not care less about that
space, but I knew it was coming and I just wanted to start _a real thing with
a cofounder_ , which was totally different, so we did it. Collected a few
hundred users from the local universities, ultimately failed, but I learned a
few valuable lessons. It was nice having the cofounder around, but he could
not really help at that point. He helped a bit with some guerilla marketing
and started to work on our investment. I did the main work. That feeling of
unfairness - even though you know that it is not on purpose, was really bad.

After that several other people approached me and I said no several times. I
really wanted to build something in a team and have it play out. The feeling
to fail alone is not good, but cofounders come with a different set of bad
feelings. The failed attempts are costly, because you can only endure so much,
before you need a success.

So I decided to approach my consulting as a startup and see the company with
it's processes involved as the product. Have several employees and work with
freelancers. I meet really interesting founders, I can learn from. I get
approached to cofound all the time. I did not think that this would be enough,
but really I already have the social interactions I was looking for in a
cofounder. I just prefer to always have money exchanged for services. You can
still be a good partners and maybe join in later, but I am a huge fan to
simplify the relationship with payments. I even did some projects with the uni
buddy, which work out great all the time.

The sitebuilder is still profitably tucking along. I know see it less as a
lame project, which needs so much work, but as an asset and investment
potential. Over the years it has brought in several nice opportunities.

To conclude: My solution sounds one-dimensional, but it really is "have a bit
of money and success first". The more you have of it, the more interesting the
conversations get. It is a nice filter, because people who have it are more
likely to be successful again, plus they have the option to just pay you to
build their ideas. You become able to do that yourself with yours. The
relationships with your partners are just so much easier, you don't depend on
the one perfect match, but different people can fulfil different roles,
without the risk associated with a cofounder. Even your own projects appear in
a better light and look nicer, when your time becomes more valuable.

~~~
dalfonso
_> It was nice having the cofounder around, but he could not really help at
that point. He helped a bit with some guerilla marketing and started to work
on our investment. I did the main work. That feeling of unfairness - even
though you know that it is not on purpose, was really bad._

Could not agree more. I hate this feeling and realize that IN THE FUTURE the
nontechnical/sales/marketing cofounder could absolutely have a longer lasting
effect on the success of the business. However, those first months where
you're building the product and he/she isn't really doing much or isn't
proactive in finding ways to contribute are very tough.

In the future, I'm thinking I'll start out solo building the MVP and trying to
get traction, then when there's enough, find a nontechnical cofounder whose
equity is based around hitting users/sales/funding milestones.

------
20yrs_no_equity
After decades as an employee and cofounder, and seeing many startups fail
first hand (so smaller data set, but much richer information) I agree that the
stigma against single founders is in error.

The number one and two causes of startup failure in my experience are fights
between the founders and VCs forcing the startup to do the wrong thing (which
often causes fights between the founders with one saying "we know the market
better than those guys" and the other saying "but think of the signal if we
don't pivot into widgets for baby monkeys and they decline to pro-rata our B
round???!")

But the bottom line is, if you don't know someone you can cofound with, you
shouldn't jeopardize the future of the company by just picking one. I don't
think you can pick a good co-founder with less than a year of experience with
them. Founding a company strains previously good relationships by greatly
raising the stakes for every decision and disagreement, compared to your
previous relationship with each other. PG forcing Dropbox's founder to get a
cofounder seems shockingly dangerous (unless that cofounder was really always
going to be number 2 in authority).

If you know someone you've worked with for 4-6 years and they work their butts
off, then that's a great potential co-founder. I had one of those, but we got
divorced. :-) Still on good terms, but I am not going to start a company with
him.

But if you don't have anyone like that- you're ADDING relationship risk to
your Startup Risk. And you're unlikely to be reducing your startup risk by the
same amount. That co-founder could be hired with a significant opportunity to
earn equity, at about the same time, and be just as successful at reducing
startup risk without adding the relationship risk by being an "employee". The
difference is in control.

So, my plan is to be the Founder, and then get a set of co-founders who get
founder stock[1] but don't have the authority to overrule me, even if they all
gang up (eg not an equal equity split). Hopefully this will be acceptable to
TechStars. This will show others are willing to work on my idea at least-
which is the claimed reason for a cofounder cause it's early social proof
(also a really silly signal).

[1] I don't believe in multiple classes of stock. A dollar put in by an
employee from under market salary is just as valuable as a dollar put in by a
VC firm, and the employee is taking more risk- they can only "invest" in one
job at a time.

~~~
sportanova
The "just a warm body, any warm body!" mentality is what's so detrimental
about the co-founder craze. Both financially (~50% of equity!) and in terms of
more risk. It's a bad idea unless they're at least as talented and motivated
as you (preferably in an area that complements you), and even then it's
dangerous because you give up a lot of control.

If it's your idea and your vision, why not build the prototype, get some
traction, then bring on a talented employee for 5% equity? Much better than
50% with someone you met at a "find a tech-cofounder" event

~~~
api
Are there perhaps political reasons for it? Do investors prefer having two or
more founders they can divide if necessary? Does it increase "bus factor" or
otherwise derisk the venture?

My opinion: two or more founders who are really invested and work well
together > single founder > forced cofounder relationship. I say this as a
single founder.

The hardest thing about being a single founder is cognitive load. I don't
necessarily mean time. There are usually enough hours, but switching between
at least five hats really strains the brain. It can also be hard to maintain
energy. I find groups with other founders and working in a good startup
oriented coworking space very helpful.

~~~
20yrs_no_equity
There are absolutely political reasons for it. Both the dividing founders
reason you mentioned, plus the fact that single founders are more likely to be
technical while when two people found one of them is likely to be a business
founder. VCs feel they can control the business founder (or replace him if
needed) much easier than the engineer, because VCs are not engineers. (and
they are not entrepreneurs in my experience either, though they seem to think
they are and are happy to trot out the "exits" they were vaguely involved in,
usually via friends and family equity.)

I agree with your priority- a pair of fully dedicated good founders is ideal.

