
I will tell you why it's so freaking hard for single founders: It's so freaking lonely - volida

======
pg
I believe it. Oddly enough, it's lonely even when there are a couple of you.
This is one of the main reasons we do YC in batches. The startups all become
one another's friends, because they're all in the same situation.

I think it's well worth the inconvenience of moving in order to have a large
group of energetic and sympathetic peers. That's the deal with college, after
all.

~~~
dropbox
i've been in this situation before and in general, i agree. and there's a
similar kind of suckage being the only technical guy in a startup (i've run a
startup for a couple years with a non-technical guy -- smart, but not a
hacker.)

in my case, i'm working on a new idea alone at the moment while i find the
right cofounder. i've found that a good compromise that still allows you
forward progress is to hang out with people who are in the same boat, even if
you're not working on the same stuff. i worked over the summer with a couple
yc guys who were also starting their own thing and it was great to have other
people to bounce ideas off of and frankly to have other people who were stuck
inside on friday nights or up at 3am (welcome to the startup world, kids --
often not as glamorous as you'd hope :)) when everyone else is out drinking.
it didn't matter that we weren't working on the same stuff -- there was still
that esprit de corps and a shoulder to tap when you're working on something
cool.

i think it's just the being-in-a-room-by-yourself that sucks, especially if
you have roommates on a completely different schedule. and i think it's worth
waiting for the right cofounder, even if that means you have to hack the
prototype or even launch a beta by yourself -- more startups implode for
people reasons than anything else.

there's hope; a good friend of mine has been running his own show for a while
after his cofounder left and he's doing fine (but works in an office with
other entrepreneurial types), and founders at work has numerous examples of
people who had to hoof it on their own for a period of time and did ok (evan
williams, a bunch of others).

so if you're in this situation, just get some moral support and keep making
forward progress until you find the right cofounder. good luck!

-drew

~~~
jadams
Good advice! The biggest mistake I've made in past businesses is to try to do
it all alone. That's a recipe for having it fizzle out into an undead hobby
project.

------
brett
Definitely. I think there's more to it, but you've captured the fact the most
the major downsides are emotional/psychological. There's no one to temper
doubts. Worse, you're not letting anyone else down if you slack off; having
others depend on your efforts is a powerful motivator.

"so freaking lonely" does sum it up pretty well though.

------
goodgoblin
Long hours without alot of positive feedback from the business you are
building can be very lonely.

Its kind of like the first 6 months you are taking care of a baby, they really
don't do much but need to be attended to constantly, and usually you can take
solace in the sheer love of what you are making, but sometimes at 4 am when
the little thing is crying and all you want to do is get some sleep and then
you have to get up and go into work the next day anyway, having someone to
share the experience with is great.

I like the idea of meetups, but I'm in the Hartford area, not sure there are a
ton of startups around. What would be kind of cool though would be some kind
of "Who's working on their startup now" list, maybe even here on YC's site,
where people could sign-in when you start working and we could have some kind
of quiet community, even if its just the ethereal prescence of our names.

------
PindaxDotCom
When I get lonely, all I need to think about is some of the more annoying
folks I've had to work with over the years. God bless em. A few minutes
remembering their antics, and I appreciate my solitude anew.

~~~
horar
I tend to think of the people who were made uncomfortable by my antics
instead, but I feel a similar sense of relief to be free of them. I've often
found comfort in the H.G.Wells short story "The Country of the Blind".

------
lak
I'm running an open-source software startup (apparently one of the three
entrepreneurs who read this site and don't care about web apps), and I get
plenty of interaction from my community. My problem is that no one else knows
the code base or the problem space nearly as well as I do, which means the
majority of my technical decisions are made with essentially no feedback.

I don't have problems with loneliness, and never really did even before I had
an active community; I just have problems making competent decisions,
especially since I'm a sysadmin turned developer, so I'm a bit out of water
doing a software startup.

All you web guys need to quit yer complaining; at least you've got thousands
of other entrepreneurs who are in the same boat. There is almost no one else
in the sysadmin space, and pretty much everyone's eyes just glaze over when I
mention that I'm working on infrastructure, not AJAXy web 2.0 bling.

------
zkinion
Most founders with families in the startup stage of business don't see them
that much anyways. Plus you have to network alot so you're always seeing
people.

However, there would be a lacking of intimate contact. You can bond with other
founders but that only goes so far. Society as a whole is becoming
increasingly isolated. Many people have hundreds of friends on their
"friendspace/mybook", but deep down have no one to really confide in.

------
staunch
"Shared Struggle" is one of the most compelling reasons for doing startups. A
small ragtag band of hackers battling the odds.

When you're trying to do it alone there's the feeling that even if you did
make it no one would know how hard it was.

Besides, who's going to write the tell-all memoir about the "real" you?

------
volida
zaidf, amichail

the thing is that most of the time you don't care. But there are times that
suddenly you become aware of it, and if its one of the times that it annoys
you then it strikes you, and thats when you need maybe somebody to either
support you (the case of someone who is active part in the early process of
starting up) or fulfil it before it becomes a need. And as always you must get
over it

~~~
zaidf
Trust me I've gone through it. I've posted before my success ratio in partner
versus no partner ventures. In my case I couldn't get over it and after few
too many projects going no where, I decided to take the partner route.

I doubt I'll be starting anything in future without a partner or two.

------
floozyspeak
i totally agree with this, here in the midwest i can barely find a handful of
folks that even know what i'm talking about when it comes to 2.0 type ideas...

it is heavy, and you feel lonely, and yet you also feel like you got nothing
to lose other than a house, a life, family and everything else... which is why
we all need to be more wealthy, and more sane via yoga and good workouts...

------
volida
i could talk you about it days, blog about it until my keyboard dies, but the
main point pretty much covers it all and its on the header

~~~
amichail
So find ways to make it less lonely.

I think that getting back frequent feedback can help in that regard, although
it might also increase the chances that someone will copy your service.

~~~
staunch
Competition could help -- "someone to race against" as Reid Hoffman discussed
in an interview.

------
bootload
good sociologist type q's raised here.

could this 'loneliness' be an indicator of 'personality' as well as being a
single founder? For instance are you (anyone) _energised_ in the presence of
crowds? (for me, no). Variations in founder personality types come into play
here.

could also be an indicator of how many 'related/non-related' social groups you
inhabit. Do you meet others in other social contexts? I mix in 3-4 non startup
groups, thats more than enough.

There are definite advantages of working in groups of like minded. The sharing
of knowledge, contacts, protection ~ I'm primarily thinking of how other ape-
like creatures work/live, passing on knowledge & skills. Doesn't the web allow
this kind of behaviour virtually?

~~~
goodgoblin
There are many communication cues the web doesn't distribute. I can't see if
you are frowning or smiling as you read this, I can't hear if your voice is
desperate or confident. I would bet that much of that information contributes
to ape-like creatures sense of well being and progress.

------
zaidf
Are you in college?

If you aren't enroll part-time. Join every biz/ad/entrepreneur club. Finding a
great partner is hard - but far from impossible. Step 1 is to start meeting
SOMEWHAT partner-ish people and college is a good start from my experience.

------
joshwa
has anyone found any of the various web2.0/entrepreneur meetups to be useful
for this?

I'll be at the next web2.0 meetup in NYC -- <http://newtech.meetup.com/21/>

~~~
danw
I've found events such as opencoffee and barcamps to be encouraging. Only
trouble is the barcamps only happen every few weeks

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juwo
you struck a chord here, buddy! you are absolutely right. That's why I like
news.YC so much - clean wholesome fun. A watering hole for entrepreneur
animals. If you are looking for a cofounder, email me.

~~~
bootload
'... clean wholesome fun. A watering hole for entrepreneur animals ...'

love that quote. Someones whacked up a 'search for co-founder site' ... can't
remember where.

~~~
juwo
thank you!

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goodgoblin
Here's Sting's take on the issue: <http://youtube.com/watch?v=cffpdZIFjxc>

------
pixcavator
"Lonely"?! That's the biggest problem? What about the hundreds of other posts?
Come on...

------
myoung8
if anyone on here is looking for a b-side partner, let me know.

~~~
myoung8
myoung8 at stanford dot edu

