How many solo founders were accepted in summer 2011? Has the % accepted increased with the larger class size?
(The reason it's 64 and not 63 is that two of the startups in this batch merged part way through.)
I spent a few years trying to go that route. It's death. Death. If you can't sell someone else on joining up, how on earth are you going to sell someone in giving you money?
Right, but you're not advocating the "stop the world" and do nothing until they do find a co-founder, are you? I guess that's my point: a solo-founder isn't necessarily somebody who intends to stay a solo-founder, but are likely someone who just hasn't found their co-founder(s) yet. And I, for one, would not advocate stopping everything until you find that person (or persons).
That's dramatically over-simplifying things. It's not just about selling "somebody" on the idea, it's about finding the right "somebody" AND then selling them on the idea, AND them being in a position where they're able to jump on it.
If you're willing to just take anybody on as a co-founder, you can easily have 5, 10, 15, 20, 372, or 14000 co-founders. But if you're discriminating and looking for the right match of interests, skills, experience, enthusiasm, personality, etc., it can take a long time to find somebody who's right.
Regarding, 1, not everyone in a social circle can A) add unique value, B) be in a position to take on the risks, or C) desire entrepreneurship, perhaps being a better first employee
As far as networking approach, having a good partnership surely would increase % of success. But a partnership made in haste with someone you might hardly know will surely increase the chance of failure even more so.
solo is hard, not just on yourself, but also in terms of statistics. it can be done, but it's probably easier to find at least another person to tilt the odds slightly in your favor.
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