
Kat Manalac’s Whale AMA [video] - craigcannon
https://blog.ycombinator.com/kat-manalacs-whale-ama/
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ploggingdev
> Is a bad cofounder relationship worse than being a solo founder?

Why do people constantly demonize single founders? (Just to be clear, I'm
pointing my finger at the person asking the question, not Kat or YC).

Sure, startups are hard and it's always better to have 2-3 people in the
founding team, but there are valid reasons people choose to go solo. Seriously
though, YC should write a post to discuss the single founder situation and
what they have observed over the years and share any relevant numbers to go
along with the post.

~~~
wj
I agree that there seems to be a stigma in the startup echo chamber around
single founders and as one I find it frustrating. The reason am I a single
founder is that while I have always been a computer nerd my friends and
colleagues were not so the number of programmers in my immediate network is
effectively zero. Secondly, the people that I would have chosen to start a
company with in my industry are former colleagues and were not in a position
to leave their jobs for something new with zero pay. (We would not have been
allowed to build this company in our freetime as there would have been too
much overlap with the employer.)

I imagine my situation is pretty common and the way out of it is to bootstrap
to enough profitability to be able to provide salary to co-founders or to hire
help. But at that point I wouldn't need investors. :)

My good days are ones where I end the day with more todos that I started with
because that means I made progress and now have new challenges ahead. So I
continue to appreciate what having a cofounder (or even an employee) could
mean for me.

Because of that new appreciation if I was investing my own money I would also
be taking a long and hard look at companies with a single founder and would
likely pass on many of them for that reason. Creating a successful company is
incredibly hard and I believe having a second person increases the chances for
success.

I love the quote that is along the lines of "All it takes is one sufficiently
motivated individual to change the world." I hope that is true for us
solofounders.

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strgrd
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