Ask HN: Go it alone or try and find a partner?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3676137

by kaolinite • 14 years ago

9 14 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I currently work as a programmer but wish to leave and set up a company. I have an idea and I'm confident that I have a reasonable chance at making it work, however I'd be doing it alone.

Apart from work and some people online many miles away, I know 0 other programmers. I can't go into business with anyone from work due to my contract and, even if I could (perhaps they couldn't enforce that?), I don't think I'd want to. I don't know anyone here well enough.

To make matters worse, I a small city with very few technology companies and a lack of programmers. It may be quite hard to find someone locally who would be interested.

I believe it is harder to get VC when going it alone - is this true and does anyone have any experience with this?

Has anyone else been in a similar position?

paulhauggis• 14 years ago

As an entrepreneur, you have a high chance of failure with our without a partner. Go it alone until you absolutely need a partner.

kaolinite2• 14 years ago

Of course. I believe that starting with someone else however definitely increases your chances of being successful. Going alone also seems to make it harder to get funding from VC.

thejteam2• 14 years ago

I'm about to do the same thing. I live in a semi-rural area. It has a pretty large tech presense due to a fairly large R&D naval base, but everybody around here is only interested in government contracting, which I am looking to get out of.

So long as you have all of the skills necessary to make the business work then it shouldn't be a problem. You have the added benefit in that you don't have to split the profits with other founders or investors. You don't have to swing for the fences and can be happy with a single or a double so long as you like the business. And you can always change what you work on without interferring with somebody else's plans.

kaolinite2• 14 years ago

Are you planning to get funding? I'm concerned that going alone will go against me.

thejteam2• 14 years ago

Not immediately. I have a year and a half to two years living expenses saved up. I hope to start generating at least some revenue in month 4-5. I won't need funding until I want to "take it to the next level" at which point I'll be an established business and could probably even get a bank loan.

The other part of being in an area that's not really in the "startup" world is that rules of thumb like needing a cofounder do not really apply. You do need to be able to find the "local money" though, the successful local businesses whose owners are looking for investments beyond the usual index funds.

trevelyan• 14 years ago

As a single founder you can write off funding until you're actually making money, at which point you'll start getting unsolicited offers you'll reject because you no longer need the money. The downside is poverty while you're bootstrapping and emotional issues like depression and isolation.

Regardless, if you think you can get revenue without funding I'd say go it alone because you don't NEED anyone else and you can always bring people on board (even as employees) later. A business that can get a few thousand a month within a year should be able to scale up into hundreds of thousands in annual revenue through word-of-mouth alone. At that point you can live without answering to anyone else. The other route of taking investment and cofounders means you get locked down and need a much larger exit to have the same level of freedom.

If you can afford to spend $5 to $10k over the next six to ten months, you might want to look at something like Start-Up Chile. They don't take equity so don't have the anti-single-founder bias that seems prevalent elsewhere, but the social nature of the program makes the startup experience less alienating because it makes you part of a cohort, and the funding can be useful for experimenting with different approaches to distribution and marketing you wouldn't be able to afford as a bootstrapper otherwise.

jturly4• 14 years ago

I would definitely recommend Startup Chile. There is a 'sole founders' group within Startup Chile that meets weekly. I got into Startup Chile as a solo founder. Since then I have brought on two partners. I am having a great experience in the program.

pwhelan2• 14 years ago

Could you please elaborate on your experience with them as a solo founder?

Also, how would the US market being the almost sole target impact things?

bap• 14 years ago

I'm going to talk about geography because other people are giving good advice in other regards:

Can you move to a startup friendlier environment? Even by taking another job and working nights/weekends/lunch hours on your startup?

Tony Hsieh is doing awesome things in Vegas and it's not nearly as expensive to live there as Silicon Valley, San Francisco, LA, NYC, etc.

Create a really good plan, come up with a simple proof of concept and reach out to the incubators? Hell, Reach out to Tony to see if it's worth the move.

You'll want to have something concrete to reach out with before you do so. Execution is everything, ideas are just vaporware. Once you've shown commitment by building/executing, your inquiries will get a lot more respect and attention.

Being in a place where people value and are enthusiastic about startups will make a huge difference to you.

If you can't move DO NOT GIVE UP. I totally understand having a family or a mortgage or a spouse who isn't into moving, etc.

Building your product is more instructive and can be more entertaining than watching TV or going to a movie or whatever else you do to pass free time. You're making yourself better at what you do by expanding your horizons in this way.

I have been very successful working with distributed teams. Take a look at Automattic (wordpress.com) a company that has zero requirement on where you are geographically, provided you can do your job well.

Start building, launch a minimum viable product. If you feel the need for more help use what you've built to inspire collaborators. Don't be afraid to bootstrap if that is your only recourse:

http://37signals.com/bootstrapped

Email me (check my profile) if there's anything I can do to help. ;)

ig1• 14 years ago

Move.

Even if it wasn't for the sole founder issue, it's much harder to get VC funding when you're in the middle of nowhere. Not just because of connections, but also how are you planning to grow and hire more staff if you're in a technology wasteland ?

Ask HN: Go it alone or try and find a partner?

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