Ask HN: Working on a startup as the sole developer

[robryan]

I have been working on a startup for some time, with a business cofounder meaning apart from a small amount of work from outside (had my brother do little bits and pieces) I have written all the code. I am starting to think that maybe it would be better to have a third cofounder if I could find the right person to also develop. I have seen other small startups in action where both founders are developing and the dynamic seems to be a lot better, the back and forward turns up a lot more bugs, generates ideas and generally stamps out bad coding practises.

I see myself as a decent developer but at the same time the code is entirely mine without any kind of oversight to guide what can be a bit of a complex architecture, feeling that it could be possible that I go off in the wrong direction on some things but have no oversight. It also causes lazy techniques like not fully worrying about version control and adhoc changing things given that I know that in general the files aren't being edited by others. I also feel a little alone on real technical issues where my cofounder can't really offer any input, sure I could discuss it with others but obviously they don't have the background on the codebase to frame the conversation.

Really just interested in hearing about how others have dealt with being either the sole developer at a startup or a single founder and how it's panned out in the long run, I wouldn't be too concerned about the equity loss as x% of $0 is still $0 unless your startup really gets off the ground, so I'm more concerned with giving it the best chance to get off the ground.

[maxbrown]

Whatever you do don't take on another business cofounder. I have two of them right now (I'm not even a full-on developer, really just a web designer and front-end developer) and they can't ever seem to accomplish anything while I spend hours on design and dev.

I think another technical co-founder could be really good. If you start being validated, you're going to end up bringing on more devs anyways, right? Might as well start now and give yourself a better chance of getting things moving.

[mindcrime]

I'm in pretty much the same boat, FWIW. My goal is to add a co-founder (or two, maybe even three) eventually, but haven't found people who were A. interested and B. the right fit, so far.

All I can suggest you do is some of the same stuff I do: use the Internet to get that "extra voice" you need... ask questions here, on Quora, on StackOverflow, programming.reddit.com, programmers.stackexchange.com, etc. Use mailing lists for the various libraries, frameworks and/or tools you might happen to use.

One thing that applies in my case, though, that might not in yours is that my code is open-source. So if somebody really wants to dig in and talk about things on a low level, they can clone my repo and get right into the guts of things. Also, the fact that I'm trying to run the open-source project in a respectable manner also adds pressure to keep everything pushed up to the github repo, use reasonable commit messages, etc., etc.

Something else you might want to look into is the HN Office Hours site. Find a fellow HN'er or two that has "office hours" and call / skype / IM them and chat about things. Heck, even just join #startups or ##solofounders on Freenode and that'll give you some people to talk to.

[bpeters]

When I found myself a third co-founder it extremely helped out our startup. Not only do you have a third head to help out, but you have another person to balance out the other two founders. I find working with just one other person can lead to divisions. If you have a third you can have another opinion on matters.

Unless you feel three is a crowd, I would say go for it! Find a person who can not only be a great asset to the team, but helps balance the emotion and energy in the team dynamic.

[petercooper]

I was in a similar situation, though I wasn't really worried about the architecture as such. In terms of where I messed up being a coder "in charge" of business, though, I did a write up at http://peterc.org/blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-st...

The ultimate result is that I learnt tons from the experience and I'm still doing my projects solo but with a giant pile of lessons learned and a good feel on what I should or shouldn't get involved with.