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Comment by robertandy | Hacker News Reader

Here is a great sum of your post in one line:

“If you’re absent during my struggle, don’t expect to be present during my success.” - Will Smith

In my view the way YC has been openly crushing morale of solo-founders for years is simply pathetic. Is it a crime to be a solo-founder? Despite equal number of successful startups from solo-ists, they continue to snub the potential and rather host even those who would easily rip-off ideas and interface from others.

Given that they are almost a monopoly and monopsony "middleman" of all things startups and nearly control other movements (media/VCs/other stakeholders) I see this as a dangerous precedent for startups in general.

Last thing we want is an Amazon-like agent that controls our destiny.

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Robertandy, YC is incredibly encouraging at stages that nobody else is. They have open lectures on how to start a startup. You can watch them for free right now.

I feel your frustration that they don't fund certain things, but this should not be called crushing morale.

Please remember one thing: the reason YCombinator is a monopoly is that others are cowardly, don't know how to invest at the seed stage and help founders build huge, scalable businesses with a community of awesome people around them. This community is a hallmark of YC, and one of the obvious things that must be true about any founding group that has at least 2 members is that by definition they are social enough to keep a group of at least 2 cofounders together.

If you feel YCombinator is a monopoly you have to please by having a cofounder, why don't you get a cofounder?

Disagree!

The entire process is rigged against solo-founders and you CANNOT deny that fact. Even your own last sentence in the end contradicts you.

> why don't you get a cofounder.

Dude what about this: I don't want to marry. I do not want to own a house. I do not want a co-founder.

Can you share anything about your startup?

so what, you just want some money? sell something online. I don't see what YC has to do with your plans. if you don't like their preferences (over things you control) then what do you need YC for?

it's easier to build something that starts making money online, than it is to put together an application that gets accepted by YC. (even with a team.) if you just want money do that.

You're not required to have a co-founder. No need to be angry about this, but be objective: two or three smart people can accomplish more than one smart person.

You can work hard and maybe bootstrap your way to an MVP of a product, but sooner or later the amount of work in the startup will become too much. When it does, you are going to need to build a team around you to handle the load.

The fact that you are so adamant about not wanting a co-founder is detrimental in that it signals that you are missing the point about how a company is mostly about building a good team that can execute, and second, about focusing that team on an interesting idea.

> The fact that you are so adamant about not wanting a co-founder is detrimental in that it signals that you are missing the point about how a company is mostly about building a good team that can execute

I disagree. Having a team of employees is quite different from giving up 50% of your equity.

Its been said by YC partners themselves that co-founder disputes are a major reason why startups fail. A co-founder just means a lot of additional risk.

May be if you both have some crucial skills that you bring to the table, it'd be worth taking on a co-founder. But if you can build the product on your own, I just don't see any good reason to give up 50% equity + take on the risk of disputes arising.

Simply put: being able to build the product is less than half of building a business.

If you can make the product, market it, keep your customers happy, continue to improve it as competitors spring up, build partnerships, and take care of the day-to-day of running a business, all on your own, then great.

You could probably also make a fortune selling the device that's giving you an extra 100 hours in a week.

When it gets to that point, you can take on employees.

The reason single co-founder companies are less likely to be accepted is that, once you start to get to a certain scale, there's just FAR too much work for one person to do.

We're already experiencing this. There are two of us and we need an extra 24 hours in the day to get everything done.

Get a co-founder if at all possible, it'll save your sanity.

It might - and it might not. Can go both ways.

If you have a natural co-founder, someone who developed an idea with you, and you trust deeply, great. (If it's a close friend, you might be losing that friend eventually, though, but I think I'd prefer someone in friend territory).

If you are going to be doing sales/fund-raising versus having the money come to you, it can be very hard to do all of that. But I don't believe in the idea that it can't be done either - especially if it's a website where somebody can sign up and pay, and you don't need sales - and ideally can avoid fundraising.

Anyway, if you don't immediately have a perfect idea for who a "co-founder" should be, consider whether you want one. I think it's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, perhaps a bit too lightly. I wish they were really just called "founders" really - and if you had an idea, the person you brought on later is "help", not the founder. Consider granting significantly less equity and keeping your control.

If not, realize that this relationship is a lot like marriage, and you're much less likely to be in love with this person, and probably will see them more. A co-founder is not something to be simply go out and "got".

You will probably need lots of help, but "co-founder" just isn't something to be given away casually. Hire the help you need, sure.

Second this.

I'm a single founder of a medical devices startup looking for a co-founder. It is very hard as a single founder to keep all the plates spinning, not impossible, just hard. There is enough risk in what we are doing, so finding a co-founder is, in my opinion, a sensible way to reduce risk.

However, for me, its also the ability to talk things through, bounce things off each other and, in the tough times, keep each other going. I'm sure others will agree that it can be incredibly lonely and isolating at times running a startup. From personal experience, there are some pretty low moments and times when you have no idea what the right path to take is. Having another person there, who is equally committed to building an amazing company, is a major plus and thats why I'm putting a lot of time into doing that right now.

The flip side though is having the wrong co-founder. Again, I have experienced this and its debilitating and led to the end of friendships.

PS: As mentioned, looking for a co-founder with skills in machine learning, AI and bio-informatics ;) Contact details on profile.

The idea is to hire as you grow. You can be one founder or 10, at a point, you hire for what you need.

I do agree with GP a bit on the solo founder. Here is the thing, I have enough contacts in the industry that if I wanted, I could form a very good team if I had the money to pay them (thus, the idea of getting investment money as a solo founder), but none of those people would agree to be co-founders as they know the chance of striking it big are very very small and they can clear very very good salaries as employees. Sure, if you are 22 and have a few friends just graduating at the same age, you will find co-founders, but if you are 35+, have 15 or more years under your belt, and most of your network as well, they won't leave very high paid jobs to be co-founders, and honestly, after working with them and knowing what they are capable, I wouldn't want a 22 fresh graduate as a co-founder either (unless he was truly exceptional)

Everyone over 30 had been thru this cycle before. I brought a number of great co-founders in when I started my first virtual reality start-up in 2000. Then of course we all got burned when the markets crashed in 2001. I even managed to convince some of them to return in 2004 when we got a large contract. We built the company into one of the best in the world in virtual reality product in the world. Only to be screwed by a partner with a much much larger legal budget. I have come to realize the contract disputes are usually won by the party with the larger legal budget. At this point they all just want to ride their companies into retirement.

YC doesn't have some sort of moral objection to solo founders. They simply exist to find and fund huge companies, and smart risk/upside management is fundamental to winning that game.

Being a solo founder represents added execution risk, particularly in the early stages of a startup -- which coincidentally, is precisely where YC funds most companies. They aren't the only party with this bias either. Downstream investors share these concerns, and when you add financing risk to execution risk, you start to get the picture.

Of course, all of this can be overcome as a solo founder, and YC does fund solo founders at a roughly 1/10 ratio to co-founded teams. However, it usually means de-risking yourself in some other area (i.e show tons of traction, have a proven track record, already have an exit, etc).

It's not a crime to be a solo founder, and plenty of great companies get built that way. Just understand that without the above, you may not have a venture-fundable company.

> YC doesn't have some sort of moral objection to solo founders.

I disagree with you here. Sure, rest of the bay area sucks even more, but YC (being the frontier) can't get away from its terrible karma here first.

From http://foundrs.com/find-a-cofounder :

(the wrong reasons to want a co-founder:) Yes, it's true that startups with only one founder are more likely to fail. But it's due to signaling: if you, as passionate about your idea as you are, can't even convince one more person to join you, how will you get users excited to download your app, get investors excited about the market, and get Microsoft and Coca-Cola to partner with you?

Solo founders usually fail because they are bad at convincing anyone of anything.

> usually fail because they are bad at convincing anyone of anything.

Without any data on usually vs. unusually a debate is lost anyway! FWIS there are enough stories of successes from solo-founders to contradict your theory - flat on its face.

> can't even convince one more person to join you

... is not the same thing as don't want another person in the founding team. I still do not see how that 10 year old logic of a co-founder must-have is going to hold good in the coming next 10 years. I may individually fail but times for startups have changed, haven't they?

Also it is still a bad deal for most entrepreneurs (especially those who are outside) to let YC become the fulcrum of startup destiny - for it has almost become a monopoly and a monopsony as I'd mentioned earlier. It doesn't matter whether YC likes it or not.

Could you share your data on sucessful solo founders vs teams of 2 or more ?

Notable ones that come to my mind are eBay, Balasmiq, Khan Academy, Amazon but there are definitely more stories out there.

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