Co-Founding Considered Harmful | Hacker News Reader

Co-Founding Considered Harmful

florentcrivello.com

249 pointssylvainkalache118 comments

I've been a solo developer for many years now. It's definitely a skill that takes time to develop. Almost as much as trying to work with others. The main difference is that other people are much more of an unknown variable.

That first additional worker is a major first hurdle. Putting it off until later can make it even more daunting. Solo-dev means that certain verticals become very easy, e.g. the technicals. But a successful business has 2-3 really important parts that are more "horizontal" like good communication or business skills. Having multiple people really increases the easy of filling in that gap.

In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. From what I've seen, they basically don't and get by because the competition is sparse or they get lucky and they get help from not another founder, but someone that is heavily invested and acts as a strong advisor.

There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. Which is pretty high risk in that it's very sink or swim since those additional skills are unlikely to ever be useful outside of the startup the founder is working on. It's what I opted for, and we'll so how that works out.

>There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer.

It will likely take a lot longer than you expect, sucking your whole life into it. Set a hard stop for yourself ahead of time, so that you know when to quit and try something else in life.

What I did is the latter, learning everything. It's really not as hard as it sounds, due to the Pareto principle. I taught myself most of what I needed regarding sales, marketing, and design, enough to sell my products.

Not sure why you say the skills aren't useful outside of the startup, sales for example is extremely good at teaching interpersonal communication.

The main problem with doing it all yourself is the time sink/cost eventually becomes an issue, especially since in my experience communications/marketing/sales and programming/technical work tend to involve exactly opposite working styles and requirements: Programming and other technical work really benefits from long periods of uninterrupted work, whereas sales/customer service/marketing is very 'you work when the work needs done'.

(I'm a programmer who worked in communications a bit.)

Learning all aspects of running a business is definitely plausible, but actually doing all the work becomes a logistical nightmare of opportunity costs very quickly.

Business and engineering styles can both work together. What I do is alternate one week of engineering (coding, writing docs, etc) with one week of business (marketing, sales calls, writing blog posts, etc.).

This was recommended to me by Jon Yongfook who got to 10k MRR this way last year and is now at 50k MRR, all by following this pattern [0]. He's also an engineer by trade but found that this alternating business and engineering week approach is extremely effective for solo founders, especially solo engineers who'd usually let their marketing fall by the wayside as they focus on coding then wonder how their startup failed after they got no customers.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25929259

That is definitely a good way to do it if you're going to go solo, but once you grow enough/depending on the product and market and who your competitors are, you absolutely CANNOT wait a week to respond to people/make sales pitches. If nothing else, a competitor providing the same service with an always on sales department and the ability to respond to important clients in hours rather than days will smoke you.

So if you know you want take this approach, make sure to do your market research beforehand and see that it's an economically viable approach. It works great for something like Bannerbear where the clients can just find another way to make images for a week or so. If it's something crucial to client deployment of their own products or if you're B2C, less so.

Agreed. I think his company style works very well because it's an API product that's not very tied to sales. You can also hire a customer support person if you're successful enough which is what he did, his first hire I believe as well.

> In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems.

I realized that what I wanted to do is write software — the software that I wanted to write. I don’t want to build a business or an organization or make money.

So that’s what I do. Material luxuries and hedonic treadmills are a trap.

I get your point and also think that optimizing for money may be problematic at the moment. Ideally you should get rewarded(with money)if what you create is of great value to society. But this system seems to be broken otherwise we wouldn't have so many problems. Nevertheless I still think that society will reward you if you make a big contribution.

I always like to poke fun at the “How to deal with being the smartest person in the room/industry/world”-style blog posts that make for common front-page schlock here, but this is a fascinating and relatively rare sub-species of “You ARE the smartest person in the room/industry/world. Anyone that suggests otherwise is ‘considered harmful’”

I love that the extension of this is “making friends considered harmful”, “trusting others considered harmful”, “forming professional relationships considered harmful (unless they’re subservient to your supreme vision, intellect and command)”

This reads like a very angry breakup letter.

False dichotomy. Going out on your own doesn't mean you think you are the smartest person in the room. It's often about freedom. If I decide I want to go biking alone, doesn't mean I think I am the best biker.

I decided to keep going the solo-founder route precisely so that my social circle could be enlarged and enriched. Now I don't have to spend most of my time around tech bros and cofounders whose main interest in business. Instead, I cultivate my social relationships in completely unrelated domains: the arts, community outreach, my physical neighbourhood, religion/philosophy and other hobbies. That gives me both the motivation and the space to think and keep going at the business, because my work fuels something other than itself.

I’m glad that worked out for you professionally and socially, but what exactly are you saying here?

If you had a co-founder you wouldn’t have time for friends that are into art, philosophy, religion, neighborhoods, hobbies?

edit: To clarify, if I had a business partner that cost me that much, I would definitely sever from that relationship. I would consider that a failure of a single relationship rather than waxing poetic about how everybody would cost that much. To do so would be for me to put myself above theoretical individuals because of a single event.

That probably wouldn’t be the sort of error that I would see as reasonable when thinking about anybody I’d maybe do business with…

Interesting, what kind of business are you running that is successful enough to go solo?

I've been thinking about the same thing, but most solo founders or "digital nomads" i've met are actually working in marketing, affiliate or social media, not really coding, or SAAS.

I wonder if it's feasible.

I think the idea is that you are the only person (not paid by you) that thinks they’re the smartest person in the room.

While I agree with the sentiment, it does need to be said that trying to find a cofounder can be incredibly difficult, and doing it solo should definitely be a consideration.

There is a great blog post by Mark Suster on that topic. He basically argues that you should hire your co-founder.

https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-co-founder-mythology-791...

And here’s YC arguing the opposite: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5x-how-to-split-equity-a...

Disclaimer: I am an initial founder with a minority shareholding, and it truely sucks (even though the business is a centipede (very very approximately 1/100 of a unicorn).

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. What would you do the next time differently?

> What would you do the next time differently?

I am a geek engineer type. If I were coaching a younger me, I would mostly be encouraging learning soft people skills (negotiation, influence, reading others, etcetera). I still tend to get sidetracked on yak shaving (the quest for perfection in a very narrow area, rather than good enough then focus on the next most important thing). I made okay decisions given who I was, so I am not unhappy with myself. I have been improving myself, but not fast enough!

The article unfortunately contradicts itself. If a startup takes 10 years to build, why vest 25% of the shares after just one year? Then, it’s a very cost-effective strategy to leave after a year and let others work for you for the remaining 9 years.

Article also presents a very outdated view: more equity means more motivation. According to two-factor theory [0], equity is not a motivation factor.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory

> why vest 25% of the shares after just one year?

I don’t have any experience with the topic of vesting, but I will have a go at explaining how I see it.

Investment risk reduces as the years go on. If you are ever investing your time, make sure you get an appropriate return for your risk. Ownership hardly matters if the company fails. Very complicated for poor company. However for a successful company, you as a founder presumably helped make it successful, so you deserve some ownership share (ownership matters the most when a business is very successful). You rightly point out that ownership amounts are contentious and they virtually always are because everything is a compromise with huge unknowns.

I presume 4 years is just a rule of thumb for VC funded businesses - fast growth is expected and VC investments will dilute ownership and control. For a slower growth self-funded (bootstrapped) business, maybe more years is appropriate, but you definitely don’t want a zero-risk 10th year ownership percentage to be as valuable as the immense-risk first year.

I personally would be more worried about “reverse dilution” provisions. Quote from a comment on the AVC blog: “Based on typical founder vesting provisions, if a founder leaves, [their] unvested shares are forfeited thereby effectively providing reverse dilution to the rest of the shareholders – including the investors who will now own x% + y%.” (not sure if this is true, the use of the word “forfeited” is poor because AFAIK shares are actually compulsorily bought back by the company).

Example.

Let’s say you have technical founder Zak (current job pays $200k), non-technical founder Bob (current job pays $200k), and angel investor Sue with $200k to invest. Business is to prove market in a year with a MVP, and then get VC funding to grow the business. They agree on a valuation of $1 million for their company, sign standard agreements that Zak and Bob vest over 4 years with a 1 year cliff.

Cap table at founding is 40% Zak (common shares), 40% Bob (common shares) and 20% Sue (preferential shares). They use free cookie cutter legal founding documents from a website. Zak and Bob get paid $100k each for the first year by the business.

At the end of year one, they get a VC round, $1 million for 25%.

Cap table is now 25% VC (preferential), 15% Angel Sue (preferential), 30% Zak (common) and 30% Bob (common).

Zak and Bob increase their salary to $200k.

After another year Zak, Sue and the VC decide to kick Bob out (replacing with VC suggested CEO etcetera). The company buys back Bob’s unvested shares (15% of cap table) for 0.00001 cents per share (par value - total cost less than $1), and the company cancels the shares (not putting into treasury - not owning itself recursively!). There is no acceleration for Bob because it is not a sale or IPO.

Cap table is now: 29.4% VC (preferential), 17.6% Angel Sue (preferential), 35.4% Zak (common), 17.6% Bob (common).

Note that Bob’s ownership weirdly went up from 15% to 17.6% - maybe not obvious. Also note that before the one year cliff everyone had a huge financial incentive to sack Bob before Bob’s shares vested.

Also note that Zak and Bob have invested $100k each (opportunity cost from having $100k less pretax salary in the first year), yet they only got common shares and not preferential shares. Their actual investment is around $70k each at post tax marginal rate, so they avoid some tax (depending on capital gains taxes etcetera). And investing “marginal dollars” because the first dollar one earns pays expenses, and the last dollar one earns is disposable income (assuming one can vary one’s income).

The above is a very simple case. I would be interested to see proper write-up of actual situations and how circumstances played out in reality.

Personally I think you want to spend as little time worrying about all the things that could go wrong, or how you could be shafted. You can’t protect yourself against the unlimited ways shit can fuck up. Choose founders and investors that have integrity. Choose founders and investors that have incentives to display integrity to others. Go with default agreements regardless of the obvious massive flaws and imbalances.

Spend your time focusing on building a successful business. Excessive profit can prevent or resolve most problems.

This comment is needlessly harsh on the article. I read this much more as why not consider the opposite view. One of my frustrations with the advice YC and others seem to give is that it is all hearsay and I don’t believe it needs to be that way. Especially for an organisation that prides itself on being scientifically lead there must be a way to show data around most of their claims. The whole point of the scientific method is trying to prevent people from guessing from their perceived experiences because we so easily fool ourselves into believing without the statistical proof to back it up.

This article is also not purely true, I’m certain there are cofounders that work perfectly together and people who are better at selecting them for themselves. I think the stuff about handling high stress situations is very useful and testing that somehow seems like a good idea. I’m not sure how many difficult situations I’ve had with my best friend to be honest, let alone a stranger.

I find it really surprising that a solo cofounder is more likely to succeed. Can anyone refute or confirm this?

I'm seeing what you are doing here, people who criticize are often subconsciously perceived as more intelligent and powerful. But apart from your small power move, let me ask you, since there are some stats in the article, what exactly is wrong about the statement ?

If you have a specific destination in mind it is certainly better to remain the captain. Naivity in dealing with other people has killed many great ideas and therefore some warnings are appropriate.

I’m not sure how my clearly-stated poking fun is a “small power move” but are you aware of the irony in your post?

The topic of my post was a benign “I think this article is kind of silly” point. The topic of your response is that criticism is a “power move”? And your impulse is to yourself criticize?

It's got nothing to do with being smartest person in the room.

When your wellbeing gets put into other people's hands it's super stressful, and if they fuck up, or you fuck up, or even if you just argue with them, then it's way, way more stressful than if you're just doing things on your own. The stress leads to a relationship death spiral, and then you end up losing everything. Not having cofounders won't stop you from making mistakes, but it will prevent the relationship/business death spiral.

I've always said that I prefer to make my own mistakes, instead of implementing other people's. I wish I'd listened to my own advice before I brought in co-founders for my previous business; my next caper is going to be 100% solo.

With 2 co-founders, you have to agree on everything. That's hard. 3 co-founders let's you do a majority thing on decisions, but that IMO can easily turn into politics: you do this for me, I'll do that for you, we are better friends so you need to vote with me on this, etc.

Having previously started and exiting a 2-founder 50/50 business, I wouldn't do it again. I might give equity, but even that can be very tricky. See for example the case of Craigslist having a minority shareholder who sold his shares to eBay. The original minority shareholder may not have caused the other shareholders any problems, but having a large competing corporation as a minority shareholder is a whole 'nother thing.

Oof. I can’t imagine a 50/50 relationship. My marriage isn’t even 50/50, unless we are getting a divorce. In my marriage we each have “domains” that we are gods of. When it comes to money, she has domain over day-to-day expenses and I have control over making sure bills are paid and taxes are accounted for and we reconcile this fairly regularly.

My point is, there has to be some kind of “tie-breaker” that isn’t biased/random. Whether that is a “fact” that something falls into someone’s “domain” or whether it’s a person. 50/50 just doesn’t seem realistic or a recipe for stress.

It’s interesting how intense and emotional the criticism of this kind of reasoning tends to be, and your comment is a prime example. It makes me think there is self-interest or some strong ideological basis at its root.

I realize it’s fairly pointless to ask, but why does this feel so threatening to you? Is it “smart person doesn’t need me – can make shitload of money without conforming to my social norms / letting me freeload”? ;)

A lot of talk here about the flaws in the study. I gotta say, founding a startup is not a numbers game, if you see it that way you've already lost. It's about the founder(s): their vision, their judgement, their force-of-will, and most of all, what they do every day. The pros and cons of solo vs group founding are well analyzed, but for your startup, the one trying to build something from nothing, the data tells you nothing, it's just the noise of averages which is utterly irrelevant to your specific situation as a founder. The only thing that matter is what you are doing each day in your vertical. Are you making progress? Do you have traction? Is it working?

I'm not saying solo vs group isn't significant. It is. But you have to make a call and run with it. Reading more articles about it won't help. Everyone's situation is different. Successful entrepreneurs are above all resourceful. Don't get caught playing house.

I would say if you know that you can sell and code then go solo otherwise find partner.

Be honest with yourself about your weaknesses, and try to hire people who can fill in for them. But don't ever give them control over your vision.

this sounds like it doesn't come from a place of enlightenment.

It sounds like it stems from insecurity.

People on shrooms have visions too. Putin doesn't let anyone control his vision. Both would be better off listening

We’re talking about starting a business here. If you don’t have a vision for it, why the hell would you go to the trouble? I’m writing from experience.

> for your startup, the one trying to build something from nothing, the data tells you nothing

Forensic evidence tells nothing to the average joe, but get the right man for the job and they will tell you who is the killer.

The great libraries of the world tells nothing to the illiterate.

Interrogating data is a special skill, requires understanding of both the industru/domain and statistics in general. It actually is rare to have both.

Agree with you 100%. But note that my comment was not about industry or domain data, it was specifically about the data this article used to suggest solo founding is better than cofounding.

The study this relies on has big limitations that should be noted.

- It is based on Kickstarter data only, which tend to be specific business models.

- The metric of success is a self-reported "still alive" status, not valuation or other size criteria. Results can be equally explained as "solo founders are less likely to officially close failed businesses than teams".

Seems like a business is likely to fall apart if just one of the founders leaves. One founder gives you a success probability of P. Two is P*P. P*P is less than P unless success was 100%.

At the time that one founder leaves... The company with a solo founder fails 100% of the time, whereas the company with 2+ founders frequently survives to keep trying.

This is a not often talked about topic that I'd like more data on, or simply more case studies. IIRC, Y Combinator takes the stance that they'd highly prefer two founders over a solo founder.

Maybe this is exclusively a networking or proximity problem but considering the tech circles I run in internationally, there just isn't an abundant amount of people I want to do business with as partners. And frankly, yes, it is because most people are woefully underqualified.

There are undoubtedly people on HN that you and I run into on a regular reading basis who have more knowledge in a random technical space than most people on the planet. There just aren't a ton of us the further you go in.

Let's not get carried away here, one person working in ANY space in the world for a short amount of time making the right decisions can very quickly become a top 1% knowledge carrier in a field with low intellectual barriers to entry. When you hear people you think are bragging about being a top person in their field, the reality is more like there are only 10,000 participants in 7 billion people on the planet, and 20% of those 10,000 are actively working on their problem.

I've considered cofounders twice, maybe three times, in my life. As far as my experience takes me, they're not frequent occurrences. You will have an expiration on how many life experiences will allow you the affordances to meet these types of people organically.

Otherwise, you need to find a cofounder through a Y Combinator-like space. And frankly, I don't see the value in that other than the immediate logarithmic fall-off of early labor split between two members with skin in the game.

So the probability space is already working against you. I'm certain there is an obvious flaw with my thinking like, having to cofounders with specialties across two spaces is undervalued, but even then you just are not going to run into enough people in your life who you're going to say, yes I want to do business with this person for 10-20+ years. Warren Buffetts and Charlie Mungers or otherwise good friends, true partners in business, are not popping up left and right. You can't pick one up at your corner store Circle K.

Edit: There are other cofounders besides technical ones, but the same truths hold across disciplines as well.

Maybe this is exclusively a networking or proximity problem but considering the tech circles I run in internationally, there just isn't an abundant amount of people I want to do business with as partners. And frankly, yes, it is because most people are woefully underqualified.

I think this is the attitude tech accelerators are actively trying to avoid when they look for startups with more than one founder. The most important thing by far in a startup is the ability of the founders to work with other people - to be successful in an accelwrator you'll need to work with the accelerator team, other founders, investors, people you hire, and your customers. Having a co-founder or two is a strong signal that you can do that. You will have no control whatsoever over who most of those people are, or how "qualified" they might be. You have to have the ability to get on well with them and work with them no matter what.

That doesn't mean you can't be a solo founder and succeed. People do that. It just means you're much less likely to succeed in an accelerator if you can't demonstrate the ability to work well with others.

That does not seem to be why Y Combinator prefers cofounders.

Y then?

Two people to do the work. A founding team that can build and sell the product alone is the ideal team. All those skills in one person are hard enough to find. But the time required to sell and market is a full time job one cofounder often dedicates themselves to

At the end of the day, I don't think there's a right choice here. Either way we choose to go, with or without a cofounder, starting a startup is just damn hard, and either path has a ton of potential pitfalls, so the best we can do is just pick the path that better suits our life situation/preferences.

FWIW, the actual recommendations in the article are a lot more nuanced than the rather inflammatory title. I for one appreciated it, if nothing more than as something to counter the prevailing propaganda in the valley around how having a cofounder always increases your chances to succeed, even though cofounder conflict consistently ranks as one of the top startup killers. I especially concur with the conjecture that "cofounder dating" (and services that facilitate and encourage it) likely leads overwhelmingly to bad outcomes for the vast majority of cases, and people might have better chances to succeed as a solo founder than to resort to founding with someone they've been on just a handful of "dates" with.

I wonder if it should be "advice" considered harmful in general. There is SOOOOOO much business advice, and taking it all seriously can paint you in to a corner of paralysis.

The problem is that the economy is not a very valid environment in which get useful & timely feedback. It's therefore almost impossible to become an expert. Moreover I think a large part of sucess is people skills.

But there are certainly some key aspects which do help a lot:

- Start with why(Simon Sinek)

- Move (preferably were there is higher return - similar to hill climbing algorithms)

- Discipline, Focus & Persistence

- Improve your social intelligence

- Learn about power dynamics (Power from Jeffrey Pfeffer)

Based on my prior experiences, I am thoroughly convinced of wanting to be a solo founder going forward. I know the statistics of VCs and whatnot are conducive to co-founder startups but I just don't care. It's liberating to work by oneself.

It’s liberating but also tiring. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to lean on. To commiserate with. To share success with. And no one is perfect. It’s nice to have someone fill in your weaknesses. I solo founded once. I won’t do it again. It’s too lonely. And I’m not even a social person.

Your argument is covered in the article just FYI in case you haven't read it yet.

The argument isn’t a that convincing. Basically, instead of having a good co-founder you could have a bad one. I don’t know enough about the data used to comment on that aspect. Perhaps, statistically, it really is better to found solo. I’m just sharing my personal experience. Having founded solo once, I won’t do it again.

I think the counter argument in the article that was more relevant was the grass is always greener on the other side part. It's hard to form an informed opinion until we've been on both sides.

Though I think it's totally valid to want to try the cofounder approach if you've tried the solo approach and just totally hated it and never want to do it again. I think there are probably also plenty of founders out there who have had a bad cofounder experience and would only consider solo-founding for their next venture.

I guess I should have clarified that I've done both. For me, personally, having co-founders was more fun and more successful. YMMV of course :)

Totally, if you've tried both and vastly preferred one, it's a no brainer. :)

I’m not convinced that taking VC money is even a winner if you’re actually trying to build a business because everything becomes so much about either short term or growth at all costs.

Taking VC money is just tool. It good tool for some cases and bad for others.

Being able to convince a VC to invest millions into your business is a win. Maybe not the biggest win like IPO, but a win regardless.

People act like raising money is easy. It's not.

It's not about hard or easy axis, it's investors' mood / dream / "vision" .. influenced by hype (which media they consume, which developers they listen to). It's as hard as someone want to put money on some horse and want some return, and that money is operated on assumption of willing to loss (amount) .. i.e. risk management. People only view it on one end like the other end is some sort of holy justice.

> It's as hard as someone want to put money on some horse

If you put millions in one horse, and there are thousands or millions of horses to choose from, I suppose you can say it is the same.

Making money consistently from horse betting is also really really hard. If not, many people would have been millionaires from horse betting already.

> many people would have been millionaires from horse betting already

It's called capitalism! Use your capital wisely, once you are up, it's hard to fall. Look at this recession(?) millionaires doing just fine. I won't argue on weather it's betting or investing. It seems hard now because investors put put seat belt on.

> People act like raising money is easy. It's not.

I see the startup being viewed as an active while in the market money try hard to park itself somewhere. It's always money that being actively finding a place to go. It's in investors' hands so it's in investors' mood / vision / dream / hype / media they consume / trend blah blah. Your startups being good is less than half of story.

It depends what you are trying to do and what business you are trying to build. It isn’t a win if you simply don’t want to play that game.

The first and most difficult person to convince that your crazy idea/company is going to be worth a billion is your first cofounder.

"The research is based on a survey of creators for thousands of Kickstarter projects between 2009 and May 2015." Article is using kickstarter data, which was questionable in the beginning but now as kickstarter has greyed out would be even more questionable. What about using actual VC-backed company data? If you look there, solo founders are not only the (extremely large) exception, but they also have lower valuations and success rates.

Founding a company is extremely difficult and there is a huge amount of stuff to take care of. If you cannot find someone(s) you can delegate a portion of that work to, you will suffer. It's a signal for investors because it's a huge buy-in to become a co-founder, and solo founders burn out all the time.

Using kickstarter to share advice on VC isn't just misleading, it's downright harmful.

I think there is a lot of research to qualify your opinion. A VC backed startup is a very different beast than a bootstrapped startup with a wildly different goal and trajectory. VC-backed startups must focus on market growth in order to make that next round of funding. Bootstrapped startups must focus on product and building strong personal relationships.

Every indication suggests you need a cofounder to achieve success in a VC startup where momentum matters most. In the bootstrapped startup it appears an individual founder is fine so long as the business is built on a valid premise: product excellence and some customer or business partner willing to endure your early failures.

100% agree. Looking at a bootstrapped business, or a kickstarter project, and extrapolating to the wider world of founding a company (in particular, VC-backed companies) is a recipe for unneccesary pain.

> solo founders are not only the (extremely large) exception, but they also have lower valuations and success rates

Isn't this exactly what the author is talking about.

That the VC industry biases against solo founders and so they end up with less term sheets during a round and thus lower valuation and lower success rate.

The VC industry biases on historical outcomes, and their own lived experiences--like any process that involves humans. The author also mentions starting a technical company without any technical expertise, and a few other questionable things which aren't just questionable because of prevailing common knowledge but questionable because it's unsupported also by the research they are citing.

The take away, even assuming that "on paper" solo founding is better, if you want to start a VC-backed company (or a company which will eventually raise VC money) this really isn't the topic to get quixotic about and you should get at least one co-founder so you can improve your chances.

A VC-backed company, as opposed to a kickstarter project, is a company which starts from zero and then is worth a billion dollars in five years. That involves exponential growth and stress which, unless you've attempted it, you can't even imagine.

Potential solo founders: knock yourselves out, but when you've gotten your 100th "no" and your cash reserves are running on fumes, this author and their flawed research paper they are citing out of context will be of little comfort.

I think what GP is implying is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy: VCs are biased against solo founders because historically and culturally they've been overlooked/undersupported by VCs.

Indeed, and I am highlighting that the actionable take-away for someone considering founding a vc-backed startup solo is: don't. You're fighting uphill enough, no need to make it tougher.

Except that there is no objective evidence that being a solo founder is harder.

But again. The VC industry is biased on historical outcomes which itself is biased on historical outcomes. So what the VC industry does or has done is not a relevant source of objective data.

I do agree that solo founders should probably find a co-founder in order to raise but that has nothing to do with potential success and everything to do with optimising for what VCs expect.

This post does not expose the fact that all of the companies analyzed in this study were crowdfunded.

It seems like they didn't look at the current most successful companies founding history.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3107898

> This is unilaterally severable by either of us for no compensation, after which we’d both be free to go our own way and do whatever we want, related or not to this idea.

Would that make it too easy to force out a co-founder, with nothing? Just make it so unpleasant, in a game of chicken, that they leave?

Or to abandon a co-founder at the initial company, while taking know-how, customer/partner relationships, etc., and starting a new company doing the same thing that the initial company would do, but with a clean slate on sharing equity (co-founders and past investors)?

I'd guess an evil investor might like this agreement, so long as they'll be benefiting from the evil (e.g., cutting out a co-founder's share of equity). But what about investors who don't want the risk of losing to evil (e.g., know-how and relationships built with their money, leaving to found competitor in which they have no equity)?

"X considered harmful" considered very overused.

Or put another way, "Considered harmful" is considered harmful: https://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html

A very well written article. The title is a bit clickbaity especially since the article doesn't drive hard towards that conclusion, but all the better for the article. As a serial entrepreneur I can say his tactical advice is rooted in experience.

Doesn’t YC recommend a non-solo team. Solo founder startups are most likely to get rejected?

I think the difference is VC-backed startups need to achieve a larger scale, for which more than one person is needed.

But that team could be non founders..early engineers, hired guns, mercenaries,…

You don't want mercenaries running your company.

I was making a point around building a team…

I don’t think you are “most likely to get rejected”

IIRC, they have a preference for founders > 1 but it is not a strict rule. From an investment perspective this makes sense for a number of reasons.

Diversification at the top decision maker level may be seen as beneficial.

Bus factor is greater than or equal to 1. (vs exactly 1 for a solid founder) if a solo founder decides to pack it in or is the victim of a bus accident, the probability the startup will survive, in the early stages and maybe much longer, is approximately zero.

Separation of concerns may be possible. Sales/marketing/anything non-technical + technical is a powerful combination if both are scrappy. Getting a solo founder that’s good at both is exceedingly rare.

I am certain the list goes on and I may not have even touched on the most important points that YC values.

My own experience, however, is that if you are not selecting cofounders from a pool that meets or exceeds your own level of ambition/dedication and skill, you are almost certainly going to fail.

I would argue, if you don’t have access to the right people in your network when you form your initial business, the odds are much better if you wait and take on a cofounder at a later time, even if it feels like they weren’t there for the beginning. If your startup is remotely successful the future will be much longer than the short history of your company and the benefits of having a good cofounder will outweigh whatever equity you give up.

Right, YC does not like solo founders. Not only that, but they also require you to split equally with your co-founders [1].

From an investor's pov that makes sense. Their investment is safer if they can force out a co-founder if he/she is not working out.

[1] https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5x-how-to-split-equity-a...

Having co-founded an extremely tiny company that went nowhere, but during the operation of which I got to taste what it means to be in a very stressful environment with another person, I think if I were to start another venture, I'd also go solo and lean on a business coach, therapist or some sort of circle of likeminded people.

On the face of it, it seems like a good route — a neutral third party is able offer (professional) support, punch holes into your thinking, reflect back, ask great questions etc, without sacrificing your freedom and equity. Curious if solo-founder folks have tried the business coach approach and how does it compare?

Unless you went to grade school together, have been working together closely for a decade, or everyone is very professional, there’s no point. If you’re getting a co-founder for any reason other than the need and want to add this person as a co-founder, you’re in for a world of hurt.

These stories aren’t mine to tell so I won’t recount them in detail.. But, my god, you know how some people lose a friend group after a breakup? Imagine losing seven years of work and your standing in an industry because of a person you brought into your company four months before launch. Imagine not even wanting to bring them in in the first place.

Nope.

Build a company and hire good people.

Could it be that many “solo” founded businesses never make it out of the garage stage, never incorporate, don’t pass go and their data is not being tracked?

Or perhaps, the meme exists to mitigate risk for VCs. Just in case the founder they invested a billion dollars into gets hit by a bus. (A non zero chance)

I agree that team conflict harms many companies, and is often cited as a common reason for startups failing.

However, I like to say starting a business is like raising a child, the child benefits from have two parents compared to one, But a village is even better.

I absolutely despise these "considered harmful" posts. They make an argument from authority which ironically most authors don't even have. If the first "considered harmful" paper was written by Dijkstra on an underlying consensus in the software development community that he was verbalising, now everyone with a controversial thought is slapping this clickbait poop in the title. Even worse, it devalues the ideas in the article, like the ideas themselves weren't good enough to begin with.

Success is all about network(ing). No matter how good your product is if you don't have network of people to approach and sell, you won't succeed. More people join together - bigger the network, more potential customers. It's harder due internal structure and struggles, sure. It's ok to be solo founder, it has it's perks. If that is what makes you happy, go for it. But to consider co-founding harmful is simply wrong, it's not what we see in practice for the last couple of decades.

Success is all about SEO rankings. If you rank well, they will come and you will sell.

Funny you mention SEO. SEO is good example how network impacts your reach. SEO ranking is all about the network. You can't have good SEO ranking without network (other people and websites referencing to you). So network wins, again. More people you know and share your product in early phase, the better. They will mention it in social, on their blogs etc. If you knew few people, fewer people will knew for you too.

Being co-founders is 'just' like marriage. Some marriages work, others don't. But when it works, it is really great. And just like in marriages, the ones that actually work, are statistically speaking a rare thing. And when they don't work, they can get ugly in variety of ways.

Whether it's a marriage, or being a co-founder, understanding that you're in it for a long term, keeping a cool head, managing expectations, talking, apologising, and never humiliating the other goes a long way.

Startup Compass did longiutdinal data (NOT Kickstarter biased data) and showed that 2 is the optimal number for a cofounding team to succeed, followed by 3, 1, and 4.

Do you by chance have a link to that study? I did some Googling but I'm not sure whether I found what you are referring to. Is it the one that says that the optimal number of cofounders is 2.09?

This didn't mention the expected value of the outcome by co-founder status, which to me would be the most important consideration and likely supports having one.

They did mention that the valuation would be lower as a solo, and offered the mitigation strategy of lining up potential first hires as a way to raise more.

It's really difficult to be a solo founder. There's a lot of mental health stuff with starting a startup that someone might not realize outright.

Flo is very different from most founders, imo. He's a silicon valley veteran and knows what he's doing... he's not a "typical" founder in the sense of being new to the industry and building something big before learning the ways of silicon valley. I mention this to say, for him specifically, founding his company this way was the best way to be successful. Kyle Vogt from Cruise (and JTV / Twitch) also comes to mind as another SV veteran who started solo but added a close friend (Daniel Kan) later on.

Flo's advice is pretty on point I'd argue. I was a solo founder who added 3 other cofounders (in terms of equity) later in our journey. We had worked together for multiple years by that point, and they were CRUCIAL to the business succeeding. If any of them left, our company simply wouldn't have worked at all.

We didn't succeed in building a successful long term business, but our tech and team joined meta in 2018.

I have never once regretted them as cofounders.

Originally I had a part-time "cofounder" who really siphoned off equity, but did little else in the grand scheme of the product. He was useful in moving the company forward, turning it from a science project into a real company, but I didn't know him and mostly was just looking for a cofounder because it was the thing to do.

I got into YC after firing him, and didn't add my "new cofounders" till 2 years after YC.

There is no one solution. Trustworthy cofounders who feel like people you would go to war with are great. Mercenaries are terrible.

Fwiw I don’t think my company would still be around today if I had started it alone instead of with my co-founder.

You gotta be lucky to get along, and we get along disgustingly well. We hardly knew each other when we started and now it feels like we’ve been besties since primary school or something. That’s pure luck, like so many things.

But the way we’ve carried each other through hard times is, to me, irreplaceable.

At the end of the day, there are people who succeeded solo and then there are those who succeeded with a cofounder(s).

Guess theres no one “only” way to do it. Suppose you gotta do what feels right for you, experiment, iterate and find something that makes you happy to do what you do.

If I am not happy doing something solo whats the use going solo and If I am not happy co-founding whats the use of doing it with a team?

The study this relies on has big limitations that should be noted.

- It is based on Kickstarter data only, which tend to be specific business models. - The metric of success is a self-reported "still alive" status, not valuation or other size criteria. Results can be equally explained as "solo founders are less likely to officially close failed businesses than teams".

Anyone have experience with cofounder agreements which pre-negotiate a buyout price (via some kind of algorithm) such that either cofounder can buy the other out without question later on? To avoid drawn out and painful separation negotiations later on for even simple cases such as one side losing interest.

Ideas are a dime a dozen, but workmanship costs real time and money. No sane investor will touch a company that lacks the resources to complete their project. The number one warning sign a company is doomed, is when the senior technical staff jump ship.

Also, many successful co-founders end up hating each other by the end of a project, and often end up in epic legal battles. Getting your contracts clearly settled early does help prevent tax shenanigans that can hit a small firm hard. Example: if an ex-employee claims dependent contractor status on a return, than a business could be on the hook for a $70k government tax/pension bill.

Founders syndrome is an ugly disease, that quickly rots a firm back into a $90k glass-ceiling business. ;)

Having a co-founder is a simple way to show you have an idea other people may actually buy into. Credibility is crucial and people like quick assurances. It's like having a degree from an Ivy League school.

Then it’s the first vanity metric.

I was interviewed for YC and not accepted for the reason that I didn’t have a cofounder. The rejection email said that otherwise it was very close. I was obviously a little disappointed to be rejected, but (1) I’d had experience of co-founders before - they create as many problems as they solve, and (2) after some reflection after the YC rejection, I ended up bootstrapping the business and I’ve been able to create something free of the stresses of investors and more aligned to my own personal objectives.

Being a solo founder means you start out owning 100% of the company, instead of 50%, or 33% if you have 3 co-founders.

At my company, this means on average employees receive double the average equity given by other startups because there's more of it available to be shared.

As a solo founder, once you get past the initial hurdles of building the MVP, etc, and enter scale/growth mode, I highly recommend finding and hiring a COO. A good CEO/COO relationship is essentially the same as a founder/founder relationship.

> "All IP belongs to the company we’ll form. This is unilaterally severable by either of us for no compensation, after which we’d both be free to go our own way and do whatever we want, related or not to this idea.”

Please don't do this - it's way too simplified. Who gets the company assets and liabilities when you split? You can't just split a 50/50 company; each asset and liability has to be given to one or the other, including the company itself.

Myths perpetuated by VCs: -You need a cofounder -You need investors -You need a board

Just build a great product and focus on your customers and it will self fund and you will have zero non essential people.

This really only works if you're initially profitable. If you're growth hacking and need to lean on VC money to get to some critical inflection point of profitability, you'll never get there because VCs heavily favor duos. It makes sense, too. They don't want to leave their investment in the hands of one individual, a single point of failure.

So we are going to have a discussion of 'Should you have a co-founder' without any analysis of different types of co-founder relationships, how to find the right partners, how it might be different for different industries, skills, personalitites, anything?

I am sorry, but the entire thread had the maturity of a 14 year old emo going 'society sucks man'

I remember meeting a business angel like late 90 early 2000. It was just a lunch for chit chatting no project involved. One of the key point of what he shared this day was: « i only invest in project where there is an explicit and mutually agreed exit strategy defined ». This was the best indicator for him of the seriousness of the candidates.

Akin to "pump and dump". They don't look to create product that makes a difference while making money, but at making money only. That's a red flag and I would never work with someone like that.

When you get married most of the time you don’t even consider « what if » divorce. Exit strategy is all about divorcing with your married co-founder partner. Most un-forçasted divorce are disaster for one side or both.

Same apply with business partner, only looking at the honey-moon without never considering that one day you may divorce and should talk seriously about mitigating all the consequences before it occurs, is the best path to failure and bankruptcy . Divorce is the first cause of personal bankruptcy in the world cause 99% of people never prepare for a potential divorce years before.

When you are young and broke at univ dorm it’s easy to share a commun fighting spirit with another and everything run smoothly. Year after when $ millions are at stake, it often turn out that lake of legal preparation is an open door for lot of dirty jobs.

This is one of the best pieces of startup thought out there recently. So I had to dig a little, and found out it's by the creator of Teamflow, which the last team I was a part of (in the UK) used and was amazing. Not surprised.

Co-founders bring psychological interrupt operated randomly regardless of activities. Having people to point fingers to around in stressful environment and condition, that's the best place to raising evils.

I have looked at getting a co-founder but decided to stay solo. For me being solo is good, was never convinced about the benefits of having a partner. I do work with others on aspects of my projects.

This is silly. Delivering quality requires focus. Focus requires departmentalization.

There is no value in the CEO spending time on finance, accounting or legal.

This is very useful; thank you for the wonderful blog post!

Actually, solo-founding is INCREDIBLY difficult and taxing. If anyone is looking to become a co-founder of whatboard.app with me... reach out. Looking for someone who has either raised money before, or who is deeply technical.

Please ignore this unless they are a billionaire already after being a legit solo founder.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com