
You Don't Need A Co-Founder - adii
http://publicbeta.co/you-dont-need-a-cofounder/
======
ccozan
So, the takeaway from the article is: don't co-found with someone technical,
hire/outsource them. Well, I could say: good luck! You either get some half-
assed solution or something ( if you oursource ) you don't even asked for,
because they didn't understand your business requirements ( because of the
language, distance, culture, etc).

Don't fall for this. Really, get yourself a technical co-founder. Amaze him.
You can call him in the middle of the night, telling your new idea. Next day,
he will already had done dissecting it and have a technical spec ready. Or any
other crazy stuff that you want and he will say simply "No". You have no idea
how useful is a "No" in a start-up. And so on, and so on...you get the
picture.

PS. I am using a neutral "he" here.

~~~
adii
I've done both and I can definitely attest that outsourcing the technical bits
of your new startup is beyond tricky. It is however not impossible. The point
here is that taking a technical co-founder onboard isn't your only option;
it's totally possible for you to get to V1 (by outsourcing technical tasks),
generate initial revenue and hiring a developer (with some equity) instead (as
an example).

~~~
ccozan
Of course. There is also the third solution. With the vast amount of internet
resources (think stackoverflow, etc) it possible for a founder to get to a
alpha version 100% on his own. It is cheaper and sometimes more effective,
because of missing managing overhead and lack of communication errors.

But in the end, yes, you have to deal with the dillema: hire or take someone
on board, share the responsability and the earnings.

------
snoonan
As a solo technical founder _, I more or less agree with these points. I can
color them a little bit from my own experience.

1\. Add in maturity. Building a product and selling it is hard. You can be
harder, though. this may get easier as you get older? While it's nice to have
someone to support you, it is not necessary. You can be a lone wolf and
absolutely kill it. It's a mindset.

2 & 3 together. External validation can/should come from outside the day-to-
day. 1 person's head is an echo chamber. 2 or 3 people can turn into an even
more convincing one. A small council of real customers and a regular small
round-table meeting with other entrepreneurs takes care of it.

4\. I believe in acquiring the skills yourself. Business and tech problems
collapse into a single idea when you have all of the skills yourself
(sometimes even just at an "intern" level). For capacity, this is a problem.
You usually need more horsepower for bigger problems. I'd adapt this point to
focus more on local outsourcing. You should be still be the architect and
foreman though. So you should know how to code and mock things up perfectly.

If the tech people don't get it, it is always your fault. You have not
explained it correctly or you have the wrong people. The first is more likely
if you don't know how to build a web app at all or can't mock it up to the
actual UI element detail. Of course, sometimes it is the latter. Just not
usually. :)

_founder = solo business owner in a smaller niche area. Points also apply to a
much larger business I'm starting now.

------
logicallee
This writer misses one of the most important issue, which would be under his
heading "Validation". Validation isn't (just) internal! It's not that _you_
(necessarily) need convincing your 'idea' is any good.

Validation is external. The fact that two people are _both_ working on
something makes 'something' 1000x more real than if some guy is working on it.

There's always going to be information asymmetry between internal and
external: the fact is, if there are two people on the inside, that is one of
the strongest signals (to people on the outside, who have limited exposure to
the low-level progress) that there is something there.

If it's just some guy saying, "Hey I've been building x for the past y" that
is a very weak signal.

I might even go as far as saying, "The only time you can afford not to have a
cofounder is when you can make it all the way to completed product +
substantial revenue without having to convince anyone of anything about the
future of your business."

Anyone includes but is not limited to: employees, partners, your parents, your
spouse, and, of course - Investors!

If you never need to convince anyone of the future of your project, until it's
incorporated, profitable, making payroll - then you might do it alone. But for
99% of us, this does not apply, and a cofounder is one of the best signals
around for sharing internal state of validation.

~~~
adii
I don't agree. Whether you're a solo founder or have 10 co-founders, you won't
succeed if you're building something that no one wants. You can get customer
validation regardless of whether you have co-founders or not.

------
Major_Grooves
A very familiar scenario for me. As a solo non-technical founder I've so far
build my startup using funding via Seedrs (crowd equity funding in the UK) and
contractors in the UK and Russia. I got some decent VC interest, but they all
say they will only invest if I have a technical co-founder. Hence, I go off
spending 50% of my time looking for a co-founder. It's like deciding that
within 2 months you need to find your life-partner and get married - similar
level of commitment and just as difficult to find - but probably more
expensive if you break up!

So I now have someone who I think is good lined up, I just need to persuade
him to finally decide to join me now. But then I think - is it right to get a
co-founder and give away loads of equity, just to satisfy some VCs? He seems
like a really good guy, and I think I would like to work with him, but do I
_really_ need a co-founder or is it just for the VCs? The development has
worked very well with my contractor so far, managed by myself. Why not just
raise some more non-VC money (via Seedrs again) and continue this way?

Dilemma.

~~~
illumen
Why not go with the contractor? You already have a decent working
relationship.

~~~
Major_Grooves
You mean get him as a co-founder or continue with him as a contractor? He's
based in Russia which makes him becoming a co-founder a bit more tricky.

------
1angryhacker
Please stop posting sales pitches on HN that masquerade for the first 75% as a
blog post giving unbiased advice before coming up with the line "and that's
where my company comes in".

The article is clearly biased based on the product and this should be called
out immediately.

~~~
adambenayoun
Please stop creating throwaway account for the sole purpose of outing someone.
If you want people to take you seriously - put your karma where your mouth is.

p.s: I don't mean to shoot down your claim by the way

------
ericevans
The YC people deal with enough startups to see probabilities. They have data,
and they say the odds improve dramatically with cofounders.

This article (mostly) doesn't dispute that, and explores ways to perhaps
compensate for the lack of a cofounder and redress those odds a bit. That
seems useful as a source of ideas, as long as we keep it in the right
category.

It is in a different category from the YC statement, which was based on
numbers. YC didn't draw conclusions about cause/effect, they just correlated.
That's pretty solid ground. This article puts up several specific possible
causes of the cofounder advantage and then possible solutions, which might
work, if the cause/effect inference is right. Two layers of inference, based
on anecdotal evidence.

The article made me think about the issue in a different way. I thought it was
valuable in that way. I'd be really interested to know if people with data
have correlated solo startup success with any other factors. Does anyone know
of any such attempt?

------
samsonasu
I've been objectively successful as a single founder over the past few years,
so its definitely possible. I've hired, fired, pivoted, and made more money
than I made mistakes but I always felt the lack of a cofounder has been
holding me back.

There is only so much emotional weight I can offload onto my amazing wife, and
although some of the people I've worked with (contractors, clients) have made
amazing contributions - technical, business, ideas, and emotional - at the end
of the day I can't shake the fact that I'm alone. I bear all the responsibly
for my mistakes and all the rewards of my successes, and even though I've been
lucky to have more of the latter the emotional toll of the rollercoaster has
been tremendous. When your wife or parent tells you you're doing great or that
everything will be OK it helps, but the impact is diminished because of course
they are going to support you.

My most successful (although not my most profitable) projects have been
collaborations with other talented people both technical and nontechnical, and
while the author is certainly correct that a cofounder isn't necessary, I
would think long and hard doing anything alone.

~~~
jfoster
Do you talk to other founders much? I am a solo founder, but in a co-working
space. I can bounce ideas off of or ask for help from many of the other
founders there. That makes it feel like it's no big deal that I'm a solo
founder.

~~~
samsonasu
I love Coworking and even I help run a space here in Madison. I should've
mentioned that as one of the major things that keeps me sane.

------
jwheeler79
"But do you really need a co-founder? Even if you’re not technical and you
think you need a technical co-founder?"

I relish the day when non-technical co-founders and single founders fall by
the wayside and technogeek types learn how to sell themselves. It's largely an
introvert/extrovert personality thing, where technologists are convinced they
should keep to interacting with computers and not other people -- but it's
just not true. There's no reason why they shouldn't do both aspects of work as
the technology-side of the business is the one that generates the value and it
doesn't make good business sense to share profits with someone who only sells
the value you create when you can just do that part yourself.

------
jwillgoesfast
I have a ton of respect for Adii, but from my experience it is SIGNIFICANTLY
harder to do something great without a cofounder.

Sure, if your a cereal entrepreneur like Adii or captain crunch, it's doable,
but for most of us who are still trying for our first big breakthrough, we
need all the help we can get.

Almost any startup/product needs two things. A good quality product and users.
When speed is important it's extremely difficult for one person to do these
very different tasks exceptionally well. As a CTO (who isn't overly technical,
just enough to build prototypes, PM, and lead the team) I feel completely
overwhelmed just thinking about having to do all that our CEO does on the
business and growth side.

------
agibsonccc
The typical case is to not do this. If you're capable of doing the development
work for what you want to build on your own, it's exhilarating though. As long
as you have external validation (paying customers, ensure you talk to people
smarter than you on a regular basis,...) it's nice being able to make your own
decisions without worrying about friction.It's a double edged sword with the
amount of work you need to do, but if you enjoy what you do, for many who
would be crazy enough to do this in the first place, it's mostly a non issue.

------
bachback
Solo founders are rare for a reason. If you just hire people to do a job, why
would the most talented people work for you? Doesn't make much sense in most
cases if the founder has not already a lot of capital. I would say increasing
the odds of success is much more valuable than getting a higher payout in the
success case (expected value = chance * payout).

On the other hand, it is hard to find the people who have very similar goals.

~~~
adii
Talented people are also attracted to working on something they're passionate
about and having the freedom to execute on that passion. :)

And not all businesses needs to be set up purely as a vehicle to an exit. Many
businesses can instead operate as "lifestyle businesses" and earn great
revenues / profits for years to come.

------
joeblau
This is a pretty good article, I share a lot of the same sentients, but I'm on
the other side of the fence. I"m on the technical side, although I've started
making friends who are business minded in the area which has helped out a lot.
I think that the right co-founder makes your team progress at more than 2x
your normal speed.

------
IsaacL
My opinion is that it really depends on the individual, especially their
motivation and focus. Some people are cut out to be solo founders, most
aren't. When I tried working on projects alone, I tended to get distracted
easily. Partnering with a finisher has helped me get things done.

------
rvivek
Why wife/gf/bf isn't equivalent to an actual full-time co-founder
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9R2...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9R2xgM-
pu18#t=668) (max levchin)

------
dvt
I think that this article is "meh," so let's look at it step-by-step:

1\. Emotional Support

Author gets emotional support from wife and admits that you _will_ need
someone to help you through the shit-storm that is founding a start-up. But
most young entrepreneurs don't have spouses. Seems like a co-founder fits the
bill here.

2\. External Validation

A couple of points: you _should_ listen to your customers, but your customers
are a very bad barometer for gauging big company decisions -- sometimes you
need to make changes that they won't like. Changes that are good for the
company (or changes that help you pivot) but piss off significant portions of
your customer base; the customer is _not_ always right. So if customers are a
bad source of validation, what about other entrepreneurs? Let's face it: they
are busy with their own projects to give you any meaningful feedback. The
author's last point is to "write that down" \-- seriously? Just get a co-
founder.

3\. Ideas / Brainstorming

Brainstorming is not merely spit-balling. Author says that "you want to
prevent brainstorming ideas and possible solutions that are inherently not
viable or even true" \-- but who else knows your company as well as a co-
founder? I.e. who else could gauge whether or not solutions are viable (or
true)?

Let's ignore the shameless plug here (and the fact that using a website for
brainstorming seems _prima facie_ silly); I just want to point out that
brainstorming outside of your company is worthless. You, quite obviously, need
to brainstorm with someone _in_ your company. Might as well make it a co-
founder.

4\. Skills / Capacity

It seems pretty obvious that you want to do something in the tech arena, you
need to be pretty tech-savvy. If you're not tech-savvy, you need to associate
yourself with someone that is. There's a good reason investors don't invest in
business people. I remember listening to a talk by some of the people at Mint.
One of their anecdotes went something like so: "When you go and pitch to a VC,
every programmer is +$50mil in valuation, and every suit & tie "business guy"
is -$100mil in valuation."

Apart from the intuitive attractiveness of this train of thought, there also
has not (ever) been a successful "business guy" with no tech expertise and no
technical co-founder doing much of anything in the start-up world.

Finally, let me just say that the people at YC know what they are doing. They
rarely accept single-founder start-ups for a very good (and obvious) reason.
The lack of technical expertise is also a big red flag. After all, if I've
never seen the inside of an engine why would a bank fund an auto-shop I want
to build.

