What are the downsides of being a single founder (ie. not having a co-founder)?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31523

by fireandfury • 19 years ago

12 34 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

fireandfury5• 19 years ago

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• 19 years ago

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.

iamyoohoo• 19 years ago

couldn't have said it better than this ...

davidw2• 19 years ago

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.

dawie• 19 years ago

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)

fireandfury5• 19 years ago

Yeah I agree. Working on something with someone who is excited about the project is a pretty great thing. Combining strengths is definitely a huge advantage too.

ralph• 19 years ago

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.

fireandfury5• 19 years ago

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.

jmtame• 19 years ago

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.

Readmore• 19 years ago

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.

jamongkad2• 19 years ago

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.

fireandfury5• 19 years ago

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.

cwilbur• 19 years ago

One of the things you must realize to make sense of a lot of PG's advice is that the default business model for YC companies is to build a promising product so that venture capitalists will give you money or that a Yahoo/Google/Microsoft will buy your company.

For those two goals, which are based as much on impressing investors as on anything else, your chances are much better if you're not a single founder. Investors are much happier investing in a team than they are investing in a single person. To that end, PG's advice against single founders is spot on.

gyro_robo• 19 years ago

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.

jamongkad2• 19 years ago

"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

jsmcgd• 19 years ago

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

imp• 19 years ago

What's my stake?

davidw2• 19 years ago

your_karma / total_karma

PG still comes out ahead...

edw5193• 19 years ago

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• 19 years ago

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.

edw5193• 19 years ago

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.

webwright2• 19 years ago

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

This is my favorite. All of your equity! You, as a REALLY smart entrepreneur, have a minuscule chance of success. 99% of the time, all of your equity is going to add up to nothing. If you could increase your paltry 1% chance by bringing on a co-founder (which virtually every experienced person says that you should), why the hell wouldn't you?

Jealously guarding your equity when it's worth nothing seems silly to me.

edw5193• 19 years ago

"99% of the time, all of your equity is going to add up to nothing"

I think that's true no matter how many co-founders you have.

"Jealously guarding your equity when it's worth nothing seems silly to me."

Sorry you see it that way. I'd gladly accelerate my business with the right partners. In the meantime, I'll just keep on coding and selling until I find the right co-founder(s). Nothing jealous about it.

fireandfury5• 19 years ago

Nice. I like your list. I forgot about reasons 9 and 10. I've known some pretty opinionated people who I would imagine would be very hard to do collaborative work with.

catfish• 19 years ago

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.

webwright2• 19 years ago

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).

udfalkso• 19 years ago

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

darose• 19 years ago

Ask Joshua Schachter. :-)

falsestprophet• 19 years ago

It is easier to work naked.

SwellJoe• 19 years ago

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.

gleb• 19 years ago

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.

henryw• 19 years ago

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.

mynameishere• 19 years ago

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

juwo• 19 years ago

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.

What are the downsides of being a single founder (ie. not having a co-founder)?

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