
How Solo Founders Beat The Odds and Get Into Top Accelerators - gbelote
http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/03/12/how-solo-founders-beat-the-odds-and-get-into-top-accelerators/#!/lawdingo
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graycat
On the need for more than one founder, I definitely don't 'get it'.

For a minute, let's set aside information technology startups and look at
business startups: All across the US, border to border, from crossroads to the
largest cities, the US is just awash in sole proprietorships. They mow grass,
run 12 fast food restaurants, repair cars, run 10 gas stations with
convenience stores, run Italian red sauce restaurants, are dentists,
pediatricians, etc. One owner, zero to a few hundred employees. So, sole
founder, one owner works fine, millions of times across the US, in business.

Now, for an information technology startup, that's just an advantage, at least
through a business of similar size. If a guy running 10 pizza shops can be a
solo founder, then a guy running a Web site or writing an app can also.

Technical knowledge? It takes a lot of technical knowledge to repair,
correctly, efficiently any car that drives in to an auto repair shop or auto
body shop or be up to date on dentistry, pediatrics, etc. Information
technology is not nearly the only field that needs technical knowledge.

For an information technology startup, it stands to help if the founder, CEO
actually understands the work. The best way for him to do this is to do the
work. There actually doing the work may not take so much time and, instead,
getting the background, say, 4000 Web pages of documentation from Microsoft's
MSDN, can take more time. But if he is going to understand the work, then he
needs the background. So, given the background, go ahead and do the work.
Later, when there's plenty of revenue and more work to do, start hiring.

If the project grows well past a 'life style' business to a big thing, fine,
but still I see no great reason to have more than one founder.

I can guess why some venture investors want more than one founder.

~~~
pxlpshr
I assume this is the top voted comment on HN since it's first.

Sadly, there's not one qualifying statement in your comment which leads me to
believe you don't know what you're talking about. And that's fine, except you
pretend like you do by rationalizing with yourself while trying to convenience
others.

How about you first run a few businesses one your own. Then try one with a
cofounder. In 10 years, please email me your thoughts. If you want to shorten
that time, just go outside and talk to at least 10 founders who've done it.

~~~
xyzzyz
Your comment is pretty dismissive, without any actual content, apart from
"trust me, I'm older, I know better". Perhaps you could back it by some actual
arguments in favour of your stance, just like the person you were replying to
did?

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technotony
The comment at the end, about how co-founders can split a company if their
vision diverges, is very true. Many companies go through pivots, and without a
strong leader they struggle here. I'd rather be a single cofounder and work to
bring on a team (being generous with equity) than force myself to bring on the
wrong cofounder. Luckily I can code, as doing it without any technical chops
would be very hard. The toughest thing I find is switching from a 'maker'
mentality to 'manager' mentality as it's hard to get out of a coding mindset
when a meeting or call is needed. I find splitting days into maker days and
business days works well to balance this.

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petewarden
I went through Techstars in 2010 as their first solo founder, and I failed
pretty hard. The combination of talks, mentor sessions, wooing potential team
members, and pitch practice left me almost no time to code and plan the
product. For the final pitch, all I had was demo ware, and I felt an idiot
getting up on stage.

It was a worthwhile failure for me, I made some great friends and learned a
lot, but I'd counsel any lone founder to focus on growing some kind of support
team around them as the first priority. I would never contemplate an
accelerator as a solo founder, but I have nothing but admiration for those who
have managed it.

~~~
npt4279
That might be more of an issue with Techstars than being a solo founder (I've
been through Techstars as a solo founder. I'm also a YC alum).

Techstars has lots of talks, sessions, and pitch practice. YC has almost none
of that - one dinner a week, otherwise, a complete focus on product and
customers.

~~~
corry
Agreed. I started out solo in an incubator and had to be RUTHLESS with my
time. Basically didn't really make use of the mentors / sessions / etc - too
busy writing code / making sales calls. Didn't spend time networking with the
other startups - too busy trying to network in my industry. Didn't spend time
on pitch competitions etc - too busy trying to find real investors who knew me
and knew the space.

I've since added a co-founder, but we more or less still operate the same
(probably a bit to our detriment).

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RawData
It's nonsense to say that you must have co-founders...I've been building
companies for 17 years as a single founder. People do it all the time...

~~~
pekk
Perhaps a distinction is drawn between building companies, and getting funding
from certain types of VCs

~~~
arbuge
The former is the only thing that matters. Kudos to you if you can do it
without enriching VCs along the way.

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arbuge
The focus should really be on how solo founders beat the odds and start top
companies.

I think there's way too much emphasis in the press & in people's mindsets
these days on getting funding, getting into incubators, etc. Those things may
be sexy but they're not the point of the game - at best they're tools to help
you get there.

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ronyeh
And of course, Drew from Dropbox: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html>

But he notes that he had a team already working with him, even though
technically he was a "solo founder."

~~~
agwa
He almost immediately partnered up with Arash Ferdowsi as his co-founder.

~~~
ronyeh
Cool. I definitely agree that having a cofounder is the way to go, especially
since the best examples we have were rockstar duos: Apple, Google, Microsoft.

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tonyedgecombe
This "single founder isn't optimal" idea has been doing the rounds for a while
now. I wonder if there is some independent research that either backs it up or
refutes it.

~~~
dasil003
This is one area where I'd be skeptical of "data" because I think there are
too many variables to separate any signal out of the noise. First, there are
not all that many startups to begin with, and they all do different things.
Whether it's one founder or many seems way down on the list of factors
influencing the success. If you had thousands of startups entering a single
market within a short time span then maybe you could get something, but not in
the current world.

Furthermore, I think as a founder if you concern yourself much over this point
you are likely to fail. Building a startup is a game of applying extremely
limited resources, if you are focused on structural details like number of
founders then you are necessarily not focused on the unique metrics of success
for your business. Of course there are pros and cons to being solo or multiple
founders, but in the end a motivated individual should never let conventional
wisdom get in the way of pushing forward (especially from investors who are
grasping for any kind of signal to hang their hat on!). Conversely, if a
person with the right talents and skills comes along you should absolutely
allow them a co-founder seat even if you planned on going it alone as this
will magnify your sphere of opportunity in terms of execution potential.

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bruceb
While not as famous as Y Combinator, Xin Chen got in to the Bizdom (Cleveland)
accelerator with <http://www.queryly.com/> (powering site search with speed,
beauty & brains) as a solo founder.

For those who don't know Bizdom is part of the Rock Ventures family of
companies. The office: <http://bit.ly/WWfdhJ>

~~~
davidpayne11
[https://plus.google.com/photos/114453701162851629569/albums/...](https://plus.google.com/photos/114453701162851629569/albums/5853762246423701313/5853762260238180210)

The sofa in this photo looks more like a casting couch..just saying xD

~~~
bruceb
Funny. From that angle is you are right.

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jt2190
tl;dr

It's difficult, not impossible, to be accepted to a startup accelerator if
you're a solo founder.

wtads [What The Article Didn't Say]

    
    
      * Startups can't make it without an accelerator
      * Solo founders can't run successful startups

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arbuge
"* Startups can't make it without an accelerator * Solo founders can't run
successful startups"

Eh? Successful startups without accelerators and successful solo founders have
been around since the dawn of time...

~~~
e1ven
That's jt2190's point ;) He's reinforcing that the article did NOT say that.
The article talks about it being more difficult to get accepted into an
accelerator.

