What are the downsides of being a single founder (ie. not having a co-founder)? - fireandfury
======
jamongkad
Ohh the dreaded "single founder thread" Let the good times roll on this one.

Ok I'm a single founder, when I read PG's essays about singles, I experienced
a wave of insecurity on my part which lasted approximately 3-4 months.
Whatever experiences I had back then could more likely reflect the experiences
felt by other single founders here.

Most YCer's know the game and how it's played. We all know to a certain degree
that the odds are stacked against you when you're a single founder. I won't
wax rhetoric with you cuz I'm sure you'll find a ton of posts about that.

My point is this when I couldn't find a suitable co-founder I said screw it,
I'm building my product by myself with no venture backing whatsoever. If it
fails, it fails. If it succeeds then great. You won't know whats out there for
you until you go out and let your balls hang out so to speak. Go out there and
build it no matter the odds, no matter what other people think, if you did
your homework and think there's market for it. Go do it! there is no better
time to test out that idea of yours than now. Open source and low low hardware
costs present us a low barrier of entry in order for us to carry this out.

There are alot of naysayers that will tell you this and that. But the way I
see it only time and customers/users will tell you if your product is a
success or not. And that my friend matters more than anything. Single founder
or not.

~~~
fireandfury
Lol about the "dreaded single founder thread". I don't keep up with YC News
everyday, so after I posted I figured that this topic has definitely come up
before. Oh well. Maybe people have changed their views since the last time it
was posted and have interesting things to share.

Yeah, it seems like a good idea to just start building alone if there is no
one else to do it with. People can be added later.

------
gyro_robo
If you actually manage to do the work, the only downside is some investors
have a _story_ about how single founders can't hack it.

It's a prejudice. They've decided things already, _a priori_ , without knowing
your particular details.

Whether or not a lot of other people can or cannot accomplish something
doesn't affect whether or not your or I can or cannot accomplish something.

Additionally, the notion that "not being able to talk your friends into
starting the company with you" is a "vote of no confidence" is mistaken, for
numerous reasons. For example, these days it's hard to find people to work
with you at YOUR start-up because so many people are doing start-ups of their
own! Furthermore, entrepreneurial spirit is a personality trait, and people
have widely differing personalities. Look at all the awesome Linux hackers
that write code 100 times more complex than anything most start-ups have to
worry about, and yet who work at Red Hat or similar, instead of starting their
own company with their fearsome hacking skills. And not all of us have friends
that are into this stuff in the first place.

It just happened that PG's buddies were into hacking Lisp. Other people's
social circles may revolve more around music, or gaming, or any number of
other interests a person may have besides programming or start-ups. I know a
lot of people in bands; if I didn't program, I'd probably be in one too.

Very few people will accept having no life as the price of _attempting_ a
start-up. The prospect of staring at a screen all day every day, living with
hackers, and eating ramen for months is just not something that has wide
appeal. That's not a vote of NO confidence; that's just called being
reasonable and wanting a life.

I think most people couldn't go through with it even if success were
_guaranteed_. They'd bail partway through. I think that's normal. To actually
do it you have to be somewhat insane.

~~~
jamongkad
"Additionally, the notion that "not being able to talk your friends into
starting the company with you" is a "vote of no confidence" is mistaken, for
numerous reasons. For example, these days it's hard to find people to work
with you at YOUR start-up because so many people are doing start-ups of their
own! "

Agreed

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edw519
Top 10 Reasons for Being a Single Founder

10\. You spend 0 time debating technical issues that have already been
decided.

9\. You spend 0 time refereeing personal differences among the other co-
founders.

8\. You spend 0 time wondering why they can't keep up with you, or why they're
doing something other than what you have already agreed upon.

7\. You learn every part of your business. You never worry what's happening
outside of "your turf".

6\. You can always find a sympathetic ear to discuss a technical, marketing,
or business issue. For free.

5\. You can always find someone else to socialize with, with no impact on your
business. For free.

4\. You are not going to get hit by a bus.

3\. If your significant other wants more of your time, give them a picture of
the new house, car, jewelry, or NBA franchise they will own if they exercise
some patience. They're the only other one that really matters.

2\. You get real good setting up your schedule to work best for you, with
"head down" time, and other time.

And the best reason for being a single founder...

1\. You keep all of your equity. All of it.

~~~
willarson
10\. Debating isn't time wasted unless the participants are closed minded.
When working with others I respect, I have always found that both sides are
willing to defect to the other side, they just want to make sure their side is
considered first.

9\. This is equally avoidable by finding mature people to work with.

8\. I often fall into the trap of thinking others are not keeping up with me,
but it usually is just me being arrogant. If you can't take advantage of
someone, its usually a management issue. Some people are not worth managing
though (too little benefit for time invested), again emphasizing the
importance of choosing a good co-founder... obviously not always easy to do.

7\. The "go at it alone" approach doesn't scale. We can look at examples like
the founder of PlentyOfFish who appears to have done it alone, but what he did
was to essentially ignore certain areas he didn't feel like dealing with, and
things worked out well, but they could have very easily gone the other
direction.

6\. You can indeed take advantage of other people and use them without any
payment, but you are still taking advantage of them (you're getting something,
they are not). Because they won't be fully invested in your company, your
practices, or your product (and they won't be, because they are just being
used), the quality of their advice will suffer because they will be talking
about generic situations instead of your specific one.

5\. So can founders with partners. For free.

4\. But woah, watch out for those taxis.

3\. Look honey, I know I have been busy recently, and I'm still too busy to
spend time with you, but you're going to be have a lot of money soon. No, no,
no, I don't think you're a prostitute. Wait, no, wait, no, NOT THE CAT...

2\. This is really important, and one of the reasons people like working for
startups in general, but not really single founder specific.

1\. And it may eventually be worth something :)

0\. Good list, you put up some interesting things to think about.

~~~
edw519
Thanks for the feedback. This list was made partially in jest, but 100% from
experience.

In my first startup with 3 co-founders, I wasted (yes, wasted!) 50% of my time
on numbers 9 and 10. It got so bad, I was afraid of what our customers would
witness. And these were seasoned business people in their 20's, 30's and 40's.

8\. Good point.

7\. I disagree. I am still stunned at what I can accomplish with today's tools
vs. 10 years ago. With time and money. And the more I code, the better I get.
Every new project I write takes half the code of the previous one.

6\. Really disagree. My experience is that the provider of the advice THANKS
ME for the opportunity to advise. There are people out there dying for the
opportunity to mentor for free; they just don't find many chances. Their
payback is watching you succeed with their advice. They can't buy that.

4\. I hate this one. I really do. People come to me looking to invest and then
tell me my biggest problem is that I may get hit by a bus. Funny thing, I have
never had a customer bring this one up. The next time I hear the bus remark,
I'll just jump out a 6 story window. That'll show them.

3\. Leave my cat out of it.

1\. First start-up alone. We'll see. We'll see.

------
catfish
I am a single founder. Here at Y Startup I have found that the predominant
opinion is that anyone over 30 is, or should be DEAD. In the real world I find
that if your not under 30 (me 48), doing a startup with a co-founder is not
likely. Young people are intimidated by your age (discrimination?), and most
older people have responsibilities beyond themselves which prohibit taking
serious risk.

If your like me and have made your bones, and bucks, the risk is non existant.
Necessity being the mother of invention, I forge ahead alone, though I often
wish I had a partner. I have heard the comments by VC that a single founder
model usually fails. I think that is valid. In my circle, I don't know any
other single founders, so subjectively speaking it seems that the VC guys are
right.

I believe it takes a psychologically unique individual to go it alone. We are
as a species evolved to work best in a tribe. Those who stand apart from the
tribe and are successful are few and far between.

My list of downsides are:

You make every decision alone.

By definition there is no synergy in a singularity.

VC perception is against you. If your not self funded, your going to have a
hard slog finding funds from this group. Keep in mind that poltically
speaking, manipulating founders is part and parcel of the VC game. A game made
more difficult in a single founder model.

During the early stage, pre employee, you have to be a bright and lucky person
to make every right decision on your own. You will make more mistakes.

You better be disciplined. If not your going to fail alone.

The upside you ask?

Only one that I can think of and that is that at the end of the day, since the
system is so stacked against you, if you make it, you own it. And that has
tremendous rewards. For me it meant very very early exit from traditional work
patterns. CHOICE, CHOICE, and more CHOICE about every aspect of what I do. No
one interferes in any way when you pay your own way. But, the old saying that
its lonely at the top, is no lie. If you can handle that, the rewards are
worth it.

~~~
webwright
Are you really good at everything you need to create a startup? If it's a web
startup, I'd say the FIRST team you need is a designer and a few programmers.
Nothing else.

So, as a single founder, are you doing everything? Or are you using the
"bones" you've made to hire employees? If you have employees, then you really
aren't benefiting that much from being a "single" -- you have a team, they are
just compensated and motivated in a different way.

In my experience, a person who feels like a co-founder is a billion percent
more motivated than an employee or consultant. Given this (and given that you
need more than one skillset to build a good startup) why wouldn't you trade
some equity to increase the motivation of your team? Surely this would raise
your chances for success (which, as we all know, are generally pretty low!).

Unless you are one of those mythical people who are good at everything, you
are handicapping yourself. And it's a pretty well-researched fact that two
smart people are more effective problem solvers together than one genius.

But, at 48, that may be be necessary... As you say, who wants to partner with
an old guy? _grin_

For the record, I am a 35 year old guy who has also made his bones selling two
startups (just about to launch #3). Every time (including this one) I have
have made damn sure that I had co-founders that had EQUAL partnership (when I
could have gotten away with giving them minority partnership each time).

------
dawie
I find working with people helps to motivate me (not that I am not motivated),
but it helps with setting goals and verbalizing them to someone else.

Having someone to talk to about technical issues specific to the problem you
are solving also helps.

Investors won't often invest in one founder. They like it when there is two
people (what if you get hit by a bus)

If you have a good co-founder you can get more work done, or they can deal
with business related issues like marketing and legal stuff or do design (I am
really bad at making my applications look good)

~~~
ralph
_I find working with people helps to motivate me (not that I am not
motivated), but it helps with setting goals and verbalizing them to someone
else.

Having someone to talk to about technical issues specific to the problem you
are solving also helps._

Yes, it's helpful. I have programmer friends who are happy to go over stuff
like this. They don't need to be co-founders to be helpful friends.

------
Readmore
I think co-founders can both help and hurt you depending on how focused they
are. If you are very focused on your startup and working the long hours to
make it happen it can be rough when you can't fully depend on your co-founders
to get as much done as you expect. It's great to have someone else who
believes in your project, especially if they can do things you aren't good at.
However, it can create an extra tension when you have to be dependant on
someone else getting their work done before you can move on to your next
milestone. Just my 2 cents.

------
SwellJoe
I've done both.

I started Swell Technology in 1999, ran it for seven years as the only stock
holder. I made a pretty good living, worked on interesting problems, drove a
350Z, and had an office overlooking the corner of 6th and Congress in downtown
Austin.

Now I'm a 47.5% stock holder in Virtualmin, Inc. (YC has 5%, and my co-founder
has the other 47.5%). I work out of the second bedroom in a rental house a
couple blocks away from downtown Mountain View, CA, make barely enough money
to cover the rent, and don't own a car. But, having a co-founder is a still
lot better. I fully expect that in a year, the success I had with my previous
company will be dwarfed by what we can achieve with the new one, and a huge
percentage of that is being able to share the load.

I worked all the time with my old company. For seven years running I never
took a real vacation. The sound of a ringing phone makes my stomach hurt due
to the constant support calls with my old business (so now, I don't have a
phone...we have a bug tracker and public forums to help customers).

It's entirely possible to start a company solo. But there are some things
you'll want to avoid. If you see yourself in any of the following situations,
it is time to change your business:

1\. More business than you can handle solo, but not enough revenue to hire
help. You're in a bad business or not charging enough. Change something.

2\. The mundane (taxes, paperwork, legal compliance, sales or support calls)
is taking more than 25% of your time, in order to make ends meet. Pretty much
the same reasons as in 1.

3\. You realize that the "right price" on your products is such that you'll
never be big enough to hire employees, even if 50% of the available market
buys what you're selling. If you can't expand the available market, then
you're in a bad market.

With a co-founder a lot of these things are more immediately obvious...it's
easy to keep plugging along when only one paycheck has to be cut each month,
and you can tighten your belt one more notch. With two or more, the math adds
up, and one of you realizes "Hey, we're never going to build a business at
this rate. We need to change things."

So, sure, there is a possibility that you'll be Markus Frind or Joshua
Schacter. If the idea is really good, and you execute well, you can make great
things solo. But the odds are against it.

------
fireandfury
The way I see it now, it's a harder to stay focused and committed to one
vision if you are by yourself. Having a co-founder forces you to choose one
thing, define it so that both of you understand it, and then show up every-day
to implement it. By yourself, you can always just stop working on an idea and
move to something else. You don't have anyone to make commitments to.

I used to get annoyed about working with other people because I would lose
some control and would be "bound" to one idea. Now I see that as a potential
good thing, assuming the initial plans are solid and the team is solid.

~~~
cperciva
Do you need someone breathing down your neck all the time? If you do, maybe
you shouldn't be doing a startup.

Graduate students write theses single-handedly all the time; nobody tells a
PhD student that they need to find a co-author to help them write their
thesis. Yes, graduate students have supervisors, but the amount of supervision
varies wildly; in my (admittedly extreme) case, I only talked to my supervisor
twice between "here's some research I've done, do you think it's enough for a
thesis" and "here's my final draft, please look it over before I submit it
next week".

If you need a co-founder to do something which you can't do (business, coding
in an area you're not familiar with, etc.) or don't have time to do, you
should absolutely go out and get one. But I don't think "I'm too lazy to get
anything done unless I have a co-founder" to be a very good reason, and I
certainly don't think "'cause pg says so" is a good reason.

~~~
davidw
I used to race bicycles, and that involved a lot of training. Of course, you
have to go out on your own a lot, but it was always easier with friends: when
you agree to meet to go for a ride, it makes it easier for everyone to go,
even if the weather sucks. Furthermore, having more people always made it a
little bit more competitive. Sure, you could do repetitions up a hill or
something on your own, but having your friend just a wheel length ahead of
you, and trying to pass him makes you take out that much more energy (which is
actually why racing was the best training).

Point being, that, as a guy working on my own, I recognize that there are
advantages to having someone else around. It's got to be the right person,
though, otherwise it's just a cargo-cult-cofounder put in place because
someone said "you should have more than one person".

Since at the moment I do not have a person in place, I decided to forge ahead
in any case, but I'm conscious of the downsides to that, so I keep my eyes
open for potential candidates.

It's not just PG who says so. A lot of people say so, including Paul Hawken in
the 80ies, in this book, which is quite a good read:

<http://tinyurl.com/2dxnoc>

But, like most of these other silly threads, I think the process should be
like this:

Think about the fact/opinion. Think about how it applies to your situation (in
this case, "can I get someone else?"). Deal with it and then _move on_. It's
useless dwelling on it.

------
udfalkso
Sometimes I can go 2 straight days without talking to anyone. It's a bit
weird.

I think having some company and having someone to act as a sanity checker is
valuable.

Finding a co-founder for the sake of having a co-founder can be a bad thing.
The person you bring in should be firmly on the same page as you are or it's
going to be more of a negative thing.

Udi

------
fireandfury
An alternate for the question would be: What advantages are there for having a
co-founder?

Mostly I'd like to read people's opinions and not particularly argue for one
side. In my opinion, the right answer depends completely on what type of
person you are. Although historically, it seems multiple co-founders are much
more prevalent.

------
jsmcgd
I like to think of you guys as my co-founders. Hope you don't mind.

~~~
imp
What's my stake?

~~~
davidw
your_karma / total_karma

PG still comes out ahead...

------
jmtame
I think it depends on your personality.

I really have a difficult time settling on equity, because I have absolutely
no faith in "business" co-founders. I really see no purpose until a product is
well-developed. You could probably call this a Mark-Zuckerberg'ism ;)

So I have to negotiate the equity with a technical co-founder, but when times
come where they don't want to keep up with you, then what? So it all depends
on if you can find a strong co-founder or not. If you can, I'd say go for it.

Otherwise, I don't think it's that bad to develop something solo until you can
attract some attention. I plan on doing that when I get back to school.

------
henryw
One technical founder will not be able to do as much work as a 2 technical
founders. So the downside is less man hours to get your product coded and
polished. This is assuming everyone is equally talented. I think it's very
inspiring to see two motivated and talented people together set on one goal
with nothing else in mind. Also, with 2 people, it's less likely to get
depressed because you are always trying to appear motivated for the other
person. You just don't want someone unmotivated or without a high value add.
He or she should add as much value as you.

------
gleb
Had an interesting conversation with an angel today (the kind of angel that
does not imply insanity of this writer based on this sentence). We happened to
talk about this exact issue, and he mentioned a relevant book -- David G.
Thomson's Blueprint to a Billion. The book says that one of the common
charecteristics of these successful companies is having 2 founders -- one
dealing with internals of the company, one presenting a public face and
dealing with externals. I am planning to check out the book.

------
falsestprophet
It is easier to work naked.

------
juwo
my thoughts (I am still trying to succeed):

I am wondering whether news.YC is the worst place to look for a cofounder -
everyone is into their own startup!

The problem with going solo is - if and when you achieve traction (users are
the only thing that counts), then you will find people willing to join. But
then, they will want amounts of equity that will appear unreasonable to you -
because you invested so much sweat, toil, tears and brains - when no one
believed in it.

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mynameishere
I know a guy who would make a good partner. Good programmer, with domain
knowledge. But Wife+family+a love of FPSs == nevermind.

------
darose
Ask Joshua Schachter. :-)

