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Ask HN: Do I hide the fact that I am a sole-founder?

51 points by mryan ↗ HN
Hi HNers,

I am about to put up a landing page for my startup, which is almost ready for a public beta.

While writing the marketing copy, I have stumbled across a dilemma on which I would appreciate some input. The landing page includes a brief story, told in the first person, about the problem I am attempting to solve with this site. It occurs to me that some people might be put off by this, and would rather use a service that appears to have a big team behind it. However, I feel a bit uncomfortable with just doing s/I/we/g.

I would rather not detail the idea fully just yet (as I am shooting for some exclusive coverage from a popular blog in this space), but it is a tech/game-based site, essentially B2C SaaS for a particular subset of the gaming market. The tech nature of the site makes me worry that people would want/expect a big support team behind it, so showing that I am a single founder might put off some customers.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Is it better to be 100% open and risk some people not using the service? Or should I change the wording on the site to make it appear as though there is a big team behind the site?

TIA for any responses.

42 comments

[ 334 ms ] story [ 1351 ms ] thread
6ren
We do. But seriously, think of yourself as representing the company. Use 'I' for yourself as a person, and 'we' for the company: the company isn't actually you.

Recent Business of Software discussion on this very topic: http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.834579.1...

robinwarren
This is a nice distinction between what you mean when you say we vs. I. With a company of more than one it's pretty obvious you'd say we but I think it's fair to say the same when representing the company as an entity.

If nothing else it means you can more easily scale up the company by hiring without having to rewrite all your copy ;)

gojomo
If you have anyone helping you, even informally; if you have participating customers or a user community, who believe in your vision; if you have a legally-incorporated entity, which is itself a legal person separate from yourself; if you ever use other contract work, or will add contractors/employees as soon as the volume requires it... then I think it's OK to use 'we' when speaking as the company.

There are enough senses in which it is true, and true to what people expect. And for the few who get the wrong impression because they think 'we' only means multiple full-time employees... well, the 'we' will either become true soon enough, or become moot with your failure.

davidw
Speaking of... both you and patio11 mentioned that forum. It's not one I currently follow.

Worth it?

patio11
BoS is a major reason why BCC succeeded. That said, the forum is smaller and less vibrant than it used to be.
mryan
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one wasting time on this problem. Thanks for the response and the link.
tuhin
If the app is a serious business you are looking forward to, safer to use We. Soon enough you will be more than one employee in that case.

If this is a weekend project, use I till it turns out to be bigger than your wildest dreams.

However, in all cases, in your About section, have people with their real images shown so that users are not left in the dark.

Often I chose the support expected from a project based on how many people are there, but it is a disaster if I know it is one man and they never tell that in About page.

patio11
Two seconds spent worrying about this issue is two seconds of your life you will never get back. Use whichever is more pleasing to your ear. Your customers do not care about this. No really, they don't.

This is almost the canonical question on the Business of Software forums asked to avoid launching. Don't avoid launching. All good things come from launching.

speleding
> Your customers do not care about this. No really, they don't.

Depending on the service, some do actually. I'm the sole founder of an appointment scheduling SaaS business and I frequently got questions about the reliability/stability of my company. I lost a few customers who explicitly expressed concern about the company size when I still had to answer "1" on the company size question (I've grown since).

I agree with the sentiment that you should just launch anyway, but there will be customers who pass you by until you're bigger.

patio11
I have qualified agreement with you for B2B, particularly B2BigFreakingEnterprise, but B2PoorGamersWhoDoNotPayForAnything does not have a problem with this. (There is another problem with that market - I may have left a subtle hint.)

I get the size question with regards to AR, too. A surprising portion are mollified by a straight answer and mentioning that I've run a software business with thousands of customers for five years with 99% uptime.

mryan
Thank you both for your responses. I was actually going to use BCC and AR as an example - I imagine the size question comes up with AR more than it does with BCC, making "I" more suitable for the latter.

But given that this is for a bit of blurb on revision one of my landing page, I shall stick with "I" and not spend any more time on it.

I noticed the subtle hint, it is something I have thought/worried about. I am hoping to disrupt an existing market by providing a service that gamers are already paying for in a new way, rather than convincing them to purchase an entirely new service. So I will be aiming for the B2SmallProportionOfGamersWhoActuallyPayForStuff rather than B2PoorGamersWhoDoNotPayForAnything, which is admittedly a much smaller market :-)

swombat
Would they have been any less worried if you had answered "2" though?
matt1
Last week I received several emails from a woman who was having trouble creating timelines on my web app, Preceden. She repeatedly asked for our customer service representatives to call her to work through her issue. When I finally did call her, she was upset because I was not calling her from an 800 number and was surprised (disappointed?) that it was just me.

I'd be up for A/B testing some landing page copy on Preceden to test the results of saying "We" vs "I". Any recommendations on how to set up a test so that the results are good?

patio11
That is a pathological customer. Do you want more customers like her?

The A/B testing math is not kind to small changes in small businesses. What do you think it's worth, ballpark-wise? 5%? 10%? I think either of those is ridiculously optimistic and, although I don't have your numbers, I think you'd probably need a few months to discriminate between A and A + 5% at your traffic levels (if my impression of how large Preceden is is accurate).

matt1
Yeah, you're probably right that it's not worth the time to implement and that it would take a while to get accurate results.

Maybe one day when Preceden has millions of monthly visitors we can take another look. :)

damoncali
Some customers don't care. Some very much do. At my last full time gig, we were trying to sell enterprise software to publicly traded companies. Not only did they want to know our full time head count, they were extremely cautious about doing business before we had received outside funding, despite the fact that we had been operating for over 2 years.

However, for my bug tracking app, http://trackjumper.com, I am the only one involved, yet I still say "we". Not because I'm trying to be deceptive, but because I'm talking for the company, not myself. And there is no first person pronoun for "the company" - so "we" it is. And I agree, in situations like this, the customers really don't know or care.

yurylifshits
In research papers it is common to use 'we' even in the single-author cases.
papaf
Somebody told me the reason for this which I found interesting. Even if you felt you did the research yourself, somebody funded the research, somebody commented on it, somebody at the library ordered journals for you, you attended talks in your institution that inspired you etc.
merijnv
Personally I use "we" in scientific writing mostly because its a convenient neutral way of addressing your reader. Referring to the reader directly with "you" can be jarring or to informal.
robryan
In my case it was to make the paper look like me and my supervisor worked as a real team even though it was all essentially me with a small comment here and there.
bdfh42
All good advice here so far. One additional item - when you get your business cards printed - style yourself something like "Technical Director" (Vice President it it in your part of the world?). It gives you the authority you need with customers and suppliers while implying a whole management board backing you up.
mryan
Interesting tactic/title - I like it. "Technical Director" sounds good, without being as egotistical as "Supreme Ruler and CEO of all he surveys", which had been my first choice.
shareme
Be unassuming do not lie, TELL YOUR STORY!

biases: One person founder

ignifero
Use "we" and refer to your startup as a company because that's what it is (and is going to hopefully grow to be). It also shows a certain humility, like when people write a research paper and refer to themselves as "we". But there are other reasons too: suppose some psycho troll takes aim at your startup for some reason (it has happened in our facebook games) and decides to make your life hell; you 'd rather they did not know you are their only enemy
delano
It's never a good idea to be disingenuous. If you plan to run the company on your own, use I. If you can conceive of and are hopeful of building a team, use we.

People that would be turned off by that are not the kind of customers you would want at this stage.

mryan
Although I am planning on building a team if the site takes off, for the moment it is just myself. I will go with "I" for now, and hopefully change it in future.
mikiem
Use "we" for/as the entity that is the company. Use "I" when speaking as yourself. I believe this has been common and accepted behavior for as long as I have ever known. Even if the company is only you for now, your company will eventually be more than just you. Ask your mom this question, forget what she says, and now you are "we". I will reiterate a previous comment.... You have already spent too much time on this... Launch the page now!
jasondavies
I think it's best to 100% open so that you attract the right people at the stage that you're at. You should read "You’re a little company, now act like one": http://blog.asmartbear.com/youre-a-little-company-now-act-li...

Do you really want to attract the kind of people who expect a big support team, when you don't have a big support team? Probably not, unless you want to disappoint them!

fleitz
A/B test it, which ever leads to more sales, use that.
xiaoma
Integrity is more important than a small edge from pretending that you're more than one person.

Use "I" or the company name.

adario
No need to lie, just use the company name instead of the royal we. Further, if you need to get more detailed and/ or personal, create a separate blog post on your site as a "message from the founder." In the end no one really cares if they like your site. Back when Pud ran f-ckedcompany.com, a very popular web 1.0 site, everyone assumed he ran it alone, it had no negative effect I could discern. Don't sweat it!
feint
No of of course not. I'm a sole founder - I founded Pen.io and a bunch of other stuff. I recently was at the Launch conference. The judges new I was a sole founder and that didn't stop me winning an award and get a bunch of attention from both press and investors. Of course, it might not matter with my app, but even from the sound of yours, I doubt people will worry that much about the people behind it.

If you worry about silly things like that, you won't get anywhere.

HyprMusic
If it's a back story, then there's nothing to suggest you haven't brought more people on board since.
_b8r0
It's entirely down to you, I wouldn't be afraid of being a singular smart individual in your firm, lots of other people do it. Peldi was a single person founder and he managed to bootstrap himself to $2 million, from Italy no less - http://balsamiq.com/company
oceanician
I think the main thing to consider is how you are going to provide support. If there's any interaction with customers at all, you will not be able to cope / provide good service as a one man outfit as you go from (perhaps) 10 customers to 1000. I think bigger companies recognise this. It doesn't mean you can't do it though. You just have to be clear that they're not buying support. Either via email, phone, or in person. It either works for them, or it doesn't. You can do that as a one man company.
eftpotrm
I've never founded a company. But, for over a year, I was the sole IT resource for what was in effect a startup. If I'd gone under a bus, they'd have been in real trouble.

One thing I quickly learnt then and find myself instinctively doing now with hundreds of colleagues is that any work I do is the work of the system which has placed me to do it and so not directly and personally mine. Net result, no matter the external context - talking with clients or friends - I always say 'We'. Never I.

The company is the entity which is producing the work. That it currently only contains you is not relevant to many and not something you want to advertise to a few. So don't; if they ask then be honest but until then, the company is offering the service, it is a corporate entity and IMHO any personalised references to its actions should be in the plural, not the singular.

mkr-hn
A lot of people in your target market like giving independent business people a shot. Those people won't worry much about the number of employees as long as the service is good, and they'll tell others about your service if it's good.
melvinram
Why do you need to be specific about how many founders you have? In your story, focus on the problem and the customers. Having a professional website, business cards, grasshopper phone lines, etc will help project the professional image you think you need. However, if people were to ask, I'd be honest. Be proud of what you've accomplished alone. You might loose a few sales but you'll earn those in the future. Authenticity counts.
cheez
Depending on the market segment and mission critical status, no one cares. In fact, people may actually like it. I make no effort to hide that it is just me and my customers include EA, AT&T, other big companies.
herval
I'm also sole founder - one thing I can say is that customers may really not care if you're alone on it, as long as you provide a great pre-post sales experience (which is harder when you're solo, anyway).

On the flipside, I'm finding that getting investors is WAY harder when you're solo. They want teams, and not having one kinda sends the wrong signal about yourself (even if you're solo BECAUSE YOU WANT TO...)