Cofounders Are a Dumb Requirement | Hacker News Reader

Cofounders Are a Dumb Requirement

arisx.com

44 pointseliam221 comments

Investors like cofounders because they don’t like betting on people who either think they can do everything or can’t work with others. Why? Because starting and running a business is really, really hard—-there are many things to do all at the same time—-and the software or other technology is only a small part of job. Solo founders are just not very likely to succeed. There is too much risk.

Oh, and “finding” a cofounder is not something one does by searching on the Internet. It’s a result of being a team player over the years and developing strong working relationships. (Oops, there’s that team player thing again…)

> Oh, and “finding” a cofounder is not something one does by searching on the Internet.

Why not? I've had serious offers to co-found companies from random seatmates on bus rides between Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Frankly, the biggest obstacle I've had is not in finding team-players (with all due respect to everyone reading this, team-players are a dime a dozen; how could any company function if the majority of people in our society weren't team players?).

For me the biggest obstacle (by far), has been, finding people with drive. I mean, think about all the people who struggle to do remote work, how are they going to find the drive to produce when they don't even have a boss anymore?

Good luck going into business with seatmates on bus rides.

If you co-own company and other owner goes into full "steal as much shit as possible" mode and you are left with downfall as a co-owner.

You can get into serious trouble and end up dragged through courts for years instead of building your dream company.

Then to prevent that - you start doing due diligence on "bus seatmates" - then it turns out, instead of building your dream company you are spending money/time on screening people.

In the end "finding people with drive" is also finding people that care about the same stuff as you do.

The second paragraph is so out of touch. You can do everything right, be a “team player” and never find someone willing to work for free, grind after work and start a startup.

Perhaps put another way - as a company grows a good founder needs to be able to locate skilled individuals with an appetite for risk, that are willing to bet on a vision and that founder's ability to execute that vision, and importantly can align with the founder on that vision. VCs help with this later in the growth cycle but the requirement is still there.

Having a good cofounder signals you can align your vision with a similarly high performer and convince them you can execute

If you can find a spouse on the internet, regardless of how and where, then you can also find a friend. Some friends are cofounder material. Intentionally finding cofounders is daunting because there's little or nothing else besides the current venture to encourage their continuity of working together.

If you happen to find a good cofounder or a good spouse, then you don't keep changing them. That team is worth more than the current venture.

The problem of lacking a cofounder is lacking another pair of eyes and another brain who can help moderate wacky ideas. Everything seems like a great idea and a utopia, in isolation. But in the real world, some ideas are better than others. No one person can think of everything exhaustively and can prioritize it.

The spouse analogy works on several levels because "divorces" with cofounders can also be equally messy for everyone involved.

Having a cofounder also allows investors to potentially drive a wedge in between the founders in a fight for the control of the company.

This is the side that no one talks about. No one seems to ever question it and just regurgitates the story investors tell them.

If your cofounder lets you do this, you picked the wrong cofounder. In reality it's the cofounders vs. the world (including investors)

Absolutely, now how do you reliably determine whether someone is going to break under pressure, be tempted by money/power and ego? From my observations, given enough pressure & temptation many people can be easily manipulated in predictable ways.

>you picked the wrong cofounder.

Picking a cofounder can be extremely difficult. It's almost like finding a partner to marry.

You have to trust them on so many levels: - That they're putting the same amount of effort in as you are, they're as invested (tons of horror stories about this.) - That they have the compatible (maybe not exactly the same but close enough) long term vision for the company (general roadmap, how and when to take funding) - You have to figure out a division of duties that's equitable. This can be extremely challenging especially if it's a software company and one of the cofounders isn't technical.

Past early 20's it gets extremely dicey. If you're taking year(s) off your career to build this thing, and investing money into it pre-seed, you're taking a huge gamble and you're just introducing this big additional wildcard. It's not like these people who meet in college and have nothing to lose.

I recently started a company and received several offers from people I didn't know at all to be my cofounder. Just like, cold LinkedIn messages. Like, you don't even know what the premise of my company is, and you haven't suggested what you would offer.

Even with friends - it's like that saying goes. Don't become roommates with your best friend. Once a lot of money is involved, things change.

I'm not saying it's impossible to have a good cofounder, but it's extremely difficult. Building a business is already hard enough. I almost wish it more common to take on a first employee who serves as a sort of co-founder who will wear a lot of hats, and still gets a great equity grant that vests over time (like 15%) but the risk is much more mitigated.

> Don was a brass tacks semiconductor sales guy who founded Sequoia Capital in 1972 with the novel idea of investing in markets, not founders. He could care less about the number of founders in a startup. Half the time, he’d replace them.

Thought this was a weird characterization. If he’s willing to go so far to put specific people in charge of companies, seems like the leaders of the business are very important to him indeed.

The leaders are important, but the founders don't need to be the leaders, so that importance does not transfer over. Likewise you don't want to live in a house painted an ugly color, but it's safe to buy a house painted an ugly color because it's an easy fix.

Maybe I missed something. Because I see it simple: Life happens - one founder can die/disappear suddenly and then what? This is why you should have more than one backup drive, more than one device with your crypto-keys, more than one email account, ... (And this is without being a team player or not)

This is yet another factor which drives homogeneity in venture as well.

I have lots of friends and associates who I work well with and respect, but none are "tech people.". They're teachers, nurses, retail entrepreneurs, etc. I appreciate them because they are not like me, and after always being in a small minority in my education and career they're my people who keep me grounded. None could be a co-founder.

If I had a nickel for every time a VC suggested they could "help me find a business co-founder (CEO) with tech credentials" (all of whom were white straight Stanford dudes) I'd have 15¢, which isn't much, but it's depressing that it's happened thrice.

Depends where you are. If startups/innovation is not the norm in your circle, then it's difficult to find someone with the same values and skills beyond the norm. But then again, VCs are likely not there either.

Cofounders are a waste of time unless it’s someone who is more skilled than the solo founder - in which case the prospect would be better off on their own. Any skill can be hired in the marketplace, so any skills the solo founder doesn’t have can be farmed out to others. And if the founder doesnt have the funding or skills to get the concept to the point where they are hiring others, they need a better roadmap.

Solo Founder here. Great article. I wish I'd been more focused on cultivating co-founder relationships over the past 5-10 years, but I'd have to time-travel and give myself that advice. I had no clue I'd wind up founding a company!

Here are some support resources that've helped me:

- Mastermind groups

- Growing a community Discord (almost 250 people)

- Volunteering to organize industry events, like Women in 3D Printing.

Recruiting is a very important skill for a VC-backed founder, so I understand why few VCs are interested in backing a solo founder.

My plan is to de-risk for institutional investors by raising a pre-seed round, 25k x 6 angels for 150k@2M. Combined with revenue, that's enough to hire a founding engineer and add another line of business to my product.

Why is it so hard to find the right cofounder? Maybe solo founders are underrated. I'm starting an experiment to find out.

> It’s particularly dangerous if a smart person gave you the requirements because you might not question them enough. Everyone’s wrong. No matter who you are, everyone’s wrong some of the time.

The source of this quote can be polarizing, but it's quite true unless you're in some really rarified circle.

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