A partnership is more work and harder than marriage because you have to:
- get on and stay on the same page
- agree on both of your live's direction and commitment to a path has to be the same for the next 2-3 years
- have the ability to defer to each other in your area of competence
- have to be skilled at learning and getting anything done, whether its business or tech.
- know that your entry and exit goals have to be compatible. Some people want to get rich quick, others are happy with organic growth that scales as well.
- be able to have a disagreement and move on for what's best.
- remember it's not about who's right, but what's right. Have a overarching vision, mission and values that you agree with so you can test any idea against them to see "does it fit how we're trying to do?"
- understand that it's about creating value for your customers, not making your own lives easier through the latest technology that makes something easier for you in development
- remember building channel to a market is more important than anything you build.
- building a financial engine early is the biggest indicator of whether your partnership will last
- building a partnership that grows in to friendship is easier than the other way around. Build things with people who you have experience building things with, and if you're new to each other, see if you can build something small together before taking the plunge.
Almost all of these things apply to marriage as well, minus the bits about exit strategy. If you think committing to the same direction for 2-3 years is difficult, it's not time to get married yet!
A couple doesn't need to have the _same_ direction, they just need to have compatible ones.
For example, a programmer married to a doctor. They have two different directions, but if the only real compatibility requirement is that they live in the same city, then seems fine.
> A couple doesn't need to have the _same_ direction, they just need to have compatible ones.
To the extent that its true, it equally true of partnerships (unsurprisingly, marriage really is a kind of partnership.) They direction must be the same within the scope of the partnership (profession is outside the scope of the partnership in marriage), and the direction outside the scope of partnership must be compatible with the shared direction within the scope of the partnership.
I think what you're describing is exactly the same situation in which start up founders find themselves. The couple needs to agree on the direction and organization of their family, just like the founders need to agree on the direction and organization of their company.
For example, a couple needs to agree on:
* How to divide up responsibilities at home
* Expectations of income (who works? how much?)
* Whether or not to combine their income or keep it separate (and how will they spend it)
* Whether or not to have kids (and who will raise them)
* How to negotiate extended family commitments on both sides
I think your example of the programmer and the doctor underlines the need for more agreement than physical proximity. What if the programmer wants to quit her job and work full time on a start up idea, taking no salary for the next 3 years? The doctor will have to make adjustments in his lifestyle to accommodate that decision. If they are not headed the same direction, that would bring enormous pressure to the marriage.
Absolutely. I only used physical proximity because it's a clear example; even relationships don't even need physical proximity at all times. I myself have spent most of the year away from my long(est)-term partner, because we explicitly agreed to pursue other goals over proximity.
A couple absolutely needs the core directions to be similar. If what was meant is just professions, professions too, ultimately have to be compatible in a way that works for the couple.
Sometimes one career influences the ability for the other to exist. Sometimes both parties want to be location independent. Sometimes both careers are going strong and no one wants to give up or miss an opportunity.
Being in a long term long distance relationship for over 5 years at least in my one situation has drilled home: direction is relevant and important.
Having too many friends who are doctors and programmers:
- Having a incompatible schedule starts out as a small thing
- Small things become big things
- Big things become distance creators, emotionally, mentally, and then physically
- Then we wonder how we got here.
Hope I didn't add to the confusion from other comments.
Very often, the marriages where partners never considered nor discussed potential exit strategies should things not work out are the very same ones that, just like with the business partnerships where this is neglected, end up taking messy detours through the legal system on the way out.
Re rounding out skill set, sometimes it's possible for a solo founder to make a couple key early hires. That lets you shorten this list. Some items still apply, but many don't.
Granted those folks won't have a founder level of commitment. But neither do the kind of half-hearted co-founders the OP wrote about. In fact one way to look at this is that some co-founders should be early hires, instead.
Agreed. If you can manage or cover these points some how, it's fine, but I've generally found them to be necessary in any successful project.
On a side note, sad face that another thread has been taken towards a tangent of exploring marriage instead of partnerships, maybe I shouldn't have said that :)
It is a great point that partnering with a friend is generally dangerous. From my point of view partnering with a friend automatically give you two problems; you have to maintain a friendship while developing a demanding business relationship. The cost of loosing the friendship will make it harder to make demands and walk away if necessary, even if that is objectively the better path.
I would also caution against partnering with people that think their major contribution is the ideas, connections and/or management. If you are a founder, you execute and drive the company through execution. For a tech startup that means you either drive customer traction or make the software.
I've had partnerships fail with friends. And have one succeeding right now.
What it taught me is that not all friendships can handle pressure and you are only friends to a certain depth, intensity, and commitment to each other.
It's a stoic truth that I think can be explained by those friendships that we maintain over the years with little to no effort... with whom spending 24 hours is more than spending months with the wrong people.
There is an absolutely necessity to being able to turn the friendship on/off as well as work. I didn't start working with a very close friend until we were in our early 30's, and I'm glad we waited. As mature as we already were, having 10 years away from each other working on projects has increased the appreciation on both sides of the tables.
Interesting points, but a lot of it is contradictory to the advice you hear from successful startups, so I'd take this with a grain of salt.
"I believe that my previous two ventures failed mainly because of the founding team (which I’m included in). How do I know? Because companies with almost identical products and value propositions succeeded afterwards."
I'm not sure if you're drawing the correct lesson there. Sounds more like implementation issues. I'd recommend you spend some effort improving your ability to implement / find people who can implement and then try again.
You're right, correlation doesn't equal causation. However, in my specific case the implementation issues were came from issues in the team. In the end, implementation comes down to team.
(Hindsight is always 20/20, but everything we did wrong had to do with marketing and building and audience)
I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization.
Someone on your team missed a deadline which fubarr'd your project? Your fault for not checking in with them to make sure they delivering what you wanted.
Someone forget to put the trash out. Your fault for trusting them.
This is a bit dishonest, but empowering for the following reason: You cannot control other people. If you internalize the failure as your own, you can often make more strides to prevent the failure next time than by simply assigning blame.
Of course this theory must be tempered by the old Steven Winterburn quote: "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
The source article explicitly stated "I'm not exempt, I was also guilty of this," and during some particular sections more specifically pled guilty and apologized.
So, "I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization" doesn't sound pedantic. It sounds worse.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to be offensive or indict the author. I also wasn't disagreeing with him.
I was only trying to add my lens of commentary. It wasn't to say that the author wasn't already taking this under advisement, but only to add my additional perspective.
Sorry if my diction led you to believe otherwise :(.
Agreed, the lesson from a product failing because the team didn't work together seems much less likely to be, "trying to start a product with a team doesn't work" and more likely to be, "this team didn't work".
I'll chime in here and say that reading this article sounded exactly like reading about my own 3 previous (failed) partnerships.
My sole successful venture has been solo all along (not including employees), and has outlasted the rises and falls of the other businesses (during the amateur entrepreneur "too many fingers in too many pies" phase). I don't think I'd do a partnership again. But maybe I just don't play well with others?
Anyway, can't speak for the OP, but when intelligent, ambitious friends around you see that you work your tail off and already have succeeded at building a profitable business from scratch, they suddenly get really excited about starting new businesses with you that often sound great. At least in my experience though, many of these people turn out to see themselves as "the visionary" who kinda sorta checks in from time to time and you as "the worker," which, if that isn't the role you're interested in, causes things to unravel rather fast.
I suspect this is a key insight. There is a colloquialism for a company of people all trying to be 'the boss' called "Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians" (in reference to the tribal organization of Native American tribes, where in fact there was exactly one Chief who was the final arbiter) but another spin on this is "Too many Medicine men, not enough Indians."
The "fantasy" life of a startup founder is that they see things others don't (vision) and lead people who make those visions real (workers). Except you can't really lead someone with a vision if you don't know yourself how to make that vision real.
The challenges of startups are that you have to be able to "do it all" in order to know what "doing it" actually entails, then you can bring people in who can do a part of it (that you were previously doing) and know if they are doing it well or not. Folks who are visionary in their thinking but can't break that down into actionable steps toward that vision, and then break those steps into problem assignments, aren't really going to be an asset for your startup until you already have a product and a revenue stream.
Even then, there is nothing more irritating to folks than a clueless visionary. Someone who says something like "The underlying problem is energy dependence, so our goal should be to provide an unlimited energy source to break that dependence, let's get some smart people working on that!" Accurate vision, but ultimately clueless, they just slow people down who have to explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics to them (if they are patient enough).
""(in reference to the tribal organization of Native American tribes, where in fact there was exactly one Chief who was the final arbiter)""
AFAIK absolutely false. It is also a gross generalization about a diverse group of people with differing sociopolitical structures.
I would suggest reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" for an example of a famous and incredibly egalitarian American construct, or just read about Iroquois political structures via Googling, for two examples.
Whiddershins' comment has nothing to do with political correctness, but rather with actual historical correctness. The comment is polite, sincere, and provides a further source of information for those who seek it.
[1] The phrase is the analog of an idiom. It is shorthand for "hierarchy" and used as such. The parent is explaining its use.
[2] There are many tribal organizations. This cuts both ways. Provided there is a single one that was historically rank-hierachical, the data is not even a counterfactual.
[3] Provided [2] is ok, so is [1]. We know [2] is ok. Hence, the comment is logically ~gratuitous.
Thanks for pointing that out for those curious about organizations and history. The more I learn about history, the more I am reminded of the phrase: "It's complicated."
We have the exact same saying in Brazil and our native tribes are very different from north american ones. I am pretty sure this is just an analogy, using the terms everybody knows ("chief" and "indians") to explain whatever environment where are too many people giving orders and too few following them (aka working).
Not related in any way to actual organizations of any actual tribes.
Perhaps a better illustration would be "too many captains and not enough sailors." I understand ships are much more strongly and consistently hierarchical. We already use nautical analogies for businesses, anyway.
In my country we use a phrase, roughly translated as: "Many midwives, tepid child". Sorry, we didn't have Indians to kill and them make a mockery out of them ;)
"Folks who are visionary in their thinking but can't break that down into actionable steps toward that vision, and then break those steps into problem assignments, aren't really going to be an asset for your startup until you already have a product and a revenue stream."
The actionable steps are actually part of the vision, usually the more important part. For example, suppose there might exist some fantastical amazing place full of unicorns and rainbows. What's more important: having detailed visions of what this paradise will look like once you get there? Or actually knowing how to get there?
If you have visionary guy in your startup, he should come with good marketing skills and that should be his main job, so that he can do what he is good at. Selling the vision to customers and investors can be very valuable. Guy who knows the product sells the vision and not the actual product can be very valuable, because the actual product is moving target anyway.
"Every successful enterprise requires three men - a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch." -- Peter McArthur.
Generally speaking, it's very hard to convince the right person to co-found a startup. It's comparatively easy to convince the right-for-now person to join on a noncommittal basis. It's not easy to patiently and persistently search for the former, when the latter is so much quicker to come by.
I failed at founding a startup under similar circumstances. This was back in school, on the verge of graduation, when the idea struck me and I decided to go for it. My timing was terrible, given that my would-be co-founders had full-time jobs lined up. Joining me, and turning down our various offers in pursuit of the startup, was a proposition somewhere between slightly insane and certifiably so.
And so I gave everyone a pass. I "hired" a bunch of them on a part-time basis -- knowing that they'd be leaving to start their day jobs in about two months, and, therefore, inadvertently giving myself two months to generate enough traction to convince them to stick around. God, I was so naive. But I'm glad I learned the lesson at a (relatively) young age.
I don't blame any of them for the failure of that short-lived startup. I blame myself. In retrospect, I realized that my own commitment to the startup had been no deeper than theirs. If it had been, I'd have hustled a lot harder to find committed co-founders.
The misconception about what a 'founder' represents is so true. I've been guilty of it myself till I spotted the danger signs (delegating too much, modelling myself after Steve Jobs with the misconception that all I have to do is have 'vision' :P).
The reality is as a startup founder, you're expected to bear the blunt of the risk as well as majority of the tasks, from getting coffees, to setting 'vision', to product design, and coding the mundane that others don't want to do.
To this day, I still firmly believe that (on my 1st startup, so additional mileage may change that) having a diverse skillset, or the uncompromising willingness to learn anything is key to success - guess that's what PG calls determination.
So going back to the OP's view that solo founding is possible - I totally agree. You may need to hire or get help where your tech / business skills are lacking. But if you have sufficient & diverse work experience, and some financial capital, it's totally feasible to go solo.
A big BUT is the emotional support that a team can offer. This is even more so when you have a solid co-founder. The trials of startups are hard and deeply emotional (I think all founders will naturally develop bi-polar disorder - one day you feel on top of the world with your world changing idea, the next you are filled with doubt), so any kind of support from people that understand what you're going through helps - this is unlikely to be your spouse if they've never been exposed to startups or even the financial burdens of brick-n-mortar business. You can substitute with meetups and surround yourself with startup founders, but someone who doesn't have skin in the game just isn't the same.
TL;DR So while I think it's possible to do it alone, there are added benefits to being able to share the responsibility & emotional rollercoaster of a startup
I also recommend everyone read 'Founder's Dilemma', good data backed analysis of pros & cons of various startup decisions like solo vs. co-founding. Bootstrapping vs. funding, etc.
Adding to what Ryan said, when the time is right for an idea, there are usually multiple competitors out there. 2 is a small sample size to generalize off of. But... There may be other reasons.
I find everything that the article says to be practical advice, but it would have a much more positive spin if the article was titled "pitfalls to avoid when building your team." Instead the author seems to have written off the chance that he will find compatible partners.
If two comapanies look like they are doing the same thing and one fails and one succeeds, I'd have to conclude that there wasn't enough measurement (lean startup measurement) to make apparent the difference.
I think most of the 'tips' and lessons learned make sense and are useful but I don't agree with the overall message. This is like saying 'I went to two restaurants and they were no good (for various reasons that can be avoided in the future), now I'll always eat at home'
I don't think entirely ruling out partnership, or thinking it's the only way is right.
I've done both, and both offer interesting pros and cons. Namely if you have the ability to fund a project yourself while building it, you can be in the drivers seat more and some partners are okay with that.
I think most of the 'tips' and lessons learned make sense and are useful but I don't agree with the overall message. This is like saying 'I went to two restaurants and they were no good (for various reasons that can be avoided in the future), now I'll always eat at home'
I think most people recognize that the team is the most important aspect of a startup - from Paul Graham allowing people to apply to YCombinator without an idea, to investors my co-founder and I have talked to being much more interested in who we are, what we know, how we get along, and why we do what we do than product or traction, I think it's safe to say that the team is the most important aspect of a company.
I wouldn't, however, decide to "go solo" next time; that may even be a worse option. You'll never find someone who you work with 100%, but you need a co-founder. Keep "shopping," find someone you click with, and have another go.
Good points, but I think blindly following the advice can be dangerous. That's exactly what I did. I went out to find a founding them because I knew (from books, YC, PG's essays) that teams are more likely to succeed.
What I really should have done is not "look for some team to increase the chance of success", but rather start solo, and take my time looking for the right team. Of course that's easier said then done. You don't get to know people unless you work with them over a longer period of time.
So, just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that one should go solo completely, but rather wait for the right team. Don't settle for "some team" just because someone says that teams are "better".
Fair enough; the title was a touch misleading then. And it's not just a matter of advice, those are just evidences of people who see the most startup. I can speak for personal experience that if I didn't have a solid co-founder the product would be 1,000x worse than it is now, we'd be going in completely the wrong direction, and the implementation would have been pretty bad. I have a ton of respect and admiration for my co-founder, and without him our company would either not exist or would be pretty terrible.
Not true for me. Got two failed business with bad co-founders. Now, two years alone and never made so well. I really think it´s "co-founder" law is much more relative then it really appears, specially outside SF Bay area.
I disagree with your last paragraph and caution anyone reading to think hard about your statement. Working with a co-founder who isn't as committed as you are will be trouble from day one. Ultimately you will end up with disagreements about everything from equity to product direction and it will be difficult. I'd go alone before working with someone I was dragging along.
Do you honestly believe that you can find two people with exactly the same level of commitment? You can't pretend like there aren't external factors that affect that - families, other opportunities, etc. One can be 99.9% and one can be 99.8%, but that's still different.
I'm getting downvoted like crazy, but I still hold to that statement. You will never, ever, find the absolutely ideal circumstances, but that doesn't mean you should just give up on working with other people.
Building a solid team does not require one or more co-founders. It is entirely possible to start a company on your own, hire employees/contractors and then recruit for key leadership positions.
Of course, if your goal is to have a great team on paper so that an investor will feel comfortable writing you a check, let's call the exercise what it is: building a team that might build a business once it has funding. That's not building a business.
I can only speak for my own experience; I would be dead in the water without a co-founder, and I would never try to do it alone, nor would I recommend someone else try alone.
Fair enough, but translating your experience into such absolutist advice is sort of like saying "I wouldn't be able to drive without an automatic transmission therefore I recommend that everyone avoid manual transmissions."
Thanks for that link. Totally grok what he's saying.
One thing I've realized is that, when pitching, I have to pitch me rather than pitching a team. Or more to the point, pitching that a: I have a real solution for a real problem for real customers (enterprise change management ain't the same as monetizing pictures of cats on the internet), and b: I'm capable of creating a company and building a team to bring this vision to life.
I think it's important to be honest with oneself about the motivations for starting a business with somebody else. From what I see, some entrepreneurs don't want to go it alone because they believe there's safety in numbers. If you're leaving a good job, have a family to take care of, etc., it can be easier to convince yourself that you're doing the right thing if someone else is taking the plunge with you.
This is a really bad excuse for bringing on a co-founder. In my opinion, it's a primary reason you often see bloated founding teams comprised of individuals who have similar skills, not complementary skills.
I co-founded a startup that lasted for 4 years. Once we wound that down I began doing side projects on my own or with another friend of mine.
In the end I decided that I'm better off going at it alone. Mainly because I had a hard time finding someone else to join me at the same commitment level (and that's with a side project).
So I quit my job and started to bootstrap as a solo founder (this time with a wife, two kids and single income --- mine). I brought on a co-founder about 6 months in to fill out a few gaps that I didn't have the experience or time to do myself. Not having enough revenue to pay them meant equity was the only collateral I could offer.
Fast forward 2 years and I can say that without a doubt, if I was a single founder I'd probably have thrown in the towel by now.
And my co-founder is remote! 1/2 way around the world. So as the post suggests, it's harder but I don't think it's impossible.
Obviously it depends on the individual and the business. All I can say is that the value my co-founder brought to the table was different than what I originally thought. The emotional support greatly outweighed what I thought I was bringing him on board for.
If I had picked the wrong co-founder it would have been much worse than not having one at all.
I think your (the author) ability to be a solo founder will probably be a great deal more successful simply because you've been a founder before. That's a huge leveling of the learning curve. I don't think I could recommend going solo to a first-time founder though, unless it's someone who has capital on hand to hire people to fill out the team.
Lack of skills: Don’t work with people that don’t bring unique skills (applicable to a startup) to the table. Having someone like this in your team will down the mood of the other teams members that are providing value. There is one exception to this: Bring on smart people that are willing to learn whatever it takes. Be particularly wary of people that have a certain skillset, but are not motivated to learn new skills relevant to a startup environment.
That's really great advice, but not really a reason to go solo. It's just a reason to pick your partners carefully.
I just figured I'd throw this out there to see if anyone has any insight on it: Do you think certain personality types are probably better off being solo founders? Maybe loners, or people who aren't people persons. Or maybe ADHD types who have trouble keeping relationships on an even keel? Or maybe the Steve Jobs egomaniac, force-of-will types (although, I know he started w/ a co-founder).
Obviously, it could depend on the nature of the startup, in that it could be strategically important to compensate for one of those "weaknesses".
I think it depends on what business you're in. Almost all businesses require a combination of "hustling" (sales/marketing) and "hacking (tech skills). This may be a stereotype, but I think most hackers aren't good hustlers. I'm not a good salesperson, wich is my biggest problem, but I'm trying to learn...
Severe disabilities, like e.g ADHD or autism, will definitely make it harder to successfully partner with someone. But they do not make it impossible to partner well and as you pointed out there are people with disabilities that has partnered well.
However, for a person without such problems it is probably better to avoid this extra complexity unless there is a huge upside to the partnership that compensates for the downside.
I dunno. I'm very much a people person, but I'm going as a solo founder because I haven't found the right partner. My biggest problem isn't skills (I can both hustle and hack), it's bandwidth.
Yep, I definitely see that as an issue. Once you have someone that's "responsible" for something it's easy to blame them instead of doing something about it yourself. If you're a solo founder there's no one else you can blame for the mistakes..
It sounds like your previous endeavors failed before the stages in which you'd wish you had one or more great co-founders. What if you raise a lot of money and want to share the responsibility with someone? What if something urgently needs to be done during Christmas? Who else could you ask to cancel their vacation? (unless Ron Conway is amongst your investors ;)).
In my experience it's easier to start something alone, especially if it's not technologically difficult (i.e. most webapps). Down the line it's important for me to have wingmen, though. Even if you can carry the load intellectually, it's nice to have somebody with skin in the game for moral support when shit hits the fan. Of course anything is better than having co-founders that don't work out for whatever reason.
Yep, you're right. Both of my previous two startups failed in the early stages. I think down the road there's no way around hiring a great team if you want to scale..
> In particular, don’t found a startup with people that ... have newborn kids
As a startup founder with a newborn (well, 14-month-old) I would say that this shouldn't be a global condition. There are plenty like me that I know who can put forth their full commitment - because we have supportive spouses that are completely on board with our entrepreneurial ambitions.
I'll agree and raise another important point: With enough money, almost nothing is a barrier.
I wouldn't found a startup with no income and looking to leverage that success early or your family will starve. If you have an adequate enough padding though, and yes a supportive family, you can easily be solo.
As a father and sole-founder I would most certainly agree and say that a family helps you focus and re-balance while lack of money is putting pressure on both. So bottom-line lack of money is a bigger problem than having a family (which should not be a problem at all)
I'm a single founder and can only say the experience is rather grinding.
I'm all up for the "If you don't help, at least don't get in the way" motto. I decided to pursue my current venture without a cofounder precisaly because I didn't find enough people that had both the skills and (understandably) the willingness to quit their nice paying jobs.
For me, it doesn't really make sense to have people aboard unless they add some real value to the two core functions of what a startup needs to do: building something and sell it. It's fine if you can't build it, but you better be damn good at selling it. Photo ops and "vision, mission and values" statements don't really justify a position on a bootstrapped startup that's trying to get a product out (this obviously varies, having well connected co-founders may make a lot of difference, some people are well worth their pay just because of their business karma).
The big problem of a solo venture, IMO, is that you find yourself doing these two roles simultaneously, which can be exhausting. It is for me, at least. I can do both rather well, but after a while I start finding it difficult to focus on designing a system for scalability, designing its database, reflecting on security, writing and testing Android code, building prospects lists and getting their contacts, getting meetings and attending them, fine-tuning your sales pitch and getting the man to write out a check. And I left out all the menial work that still has to be done.
By the end of the day, you're in agony not only because of that feature that is taking too long to build, but also for not getting enough customer meetings, because of not having enough positive answers and, mostly, because launch is (or should be) just around the corner and there's still a lot of stuff to be done and no one except you to take responsibility for it.
It's an emotional rollercoaster, so having the right partner seems like a good move.
I agree that it is exhausting. I'm 2 months into a solo founded startup and the mental fatigue is not what I expected. Reflecting on it now, it certainly makes sense, but I just didn't know that it can be so taxing.
I've told myself that if I make it to a next round of funding I need to find a partner stat.
Two months? Just wait. I'm 9 months in solo, and day-jobbing to pay for the bootstrap. It's incredibly exhausting.
If I could find a co-founder or two, I'd be thrilled. But finding someone really worth their weight hasn't happened yet. And I'm not going to just sit there and ignore this opportunity just because I can't find someone to hold my hand while I'm doing it. I'm going to get it out the door, even if I have to do every little thing myself.
Having a co-founder is great. But not having one is no excuse to not work.
I'd suspect there are a number of people in your shoes and in the shoes of this entire thread.
I read these responses and thought "Hmm I wonder what it is they're doing. Maybe I could help or at least offer some brain power?" then realized clicking usernames revealed dick-all about any one of you.
I had a thought "Why hasn't there been a matchmaking service for entrepreneurs?" A quick Google search gave me the answer: some already exist. You could try one of those. Alternatively you could use HN to help solicit help by using the about section or use posts like this to give some modicum of detail.
When I see nothing in your about section and nothing in these messages that seem to explain the "what" you're trying to accomplish, I have a hard time believing you're really serious about your search.
It's more likely that you have your own system of who you deal with or you're just passively searching, severely. That's all perfectly fine, just not something I would be doing in either of your shoes.
I took comments on a post to mean "I'm ready for" when I should've realized a lot of what we do as people is talk ourselves up to something.
I wouldn't consider it to be a poor idea at all. I was primarily trying to offer suggestions to help with passively searching when the need arose but I couldn't get around being specific, realizing it could partially sound mean or negative when that wasn't what I was going for at all.
I've seriously offered co-founder positions to two people. One is actively involved, but not as a co-founder. He's my patent/IP lawyer, and an old friend I studied CS with in college. He doesn't want to be fully involved in a startup for a variety of good reasons, but he's willing to take equity for a little private practice work. The other is a former co-worker who would be my easy first choice for CTO. He's considering it, but hasn't decided yet and I'm not rushing him. He has good reasons to hesitate (like baby #5 on the way).
I've also done some "matchmaking" through networking and introductions, but I haven't yet met anyone else I'm willing to trust with it, or whom is ready to go for it (there have been several candidates). So I'm not in a rush to find a co-founder, and not making it my first priority. If it happens, it happens.
Some investors say that they back the team, not so much the product. In which case, if you're going to need a partner to fulfill the vision you sell investors, you may want to pick one sooner.
Full time, I quit my job to dedicate myselff to this after a few rounds of discussing it and getting initial validation from both my targets (yes, it's a marketplace business, even worse to do it alone)
You will be a solo founder next time because anyone who Googles you will realize you are the kind of moron who throws his former cofounders under the bus.
You don't have to be sorry, I thought it was clear you weren't throwing anyone under the bus.
You're also quite the bigger person, I make it a rule not to respond to people who feel the need to use a clear insult like "moron" in addressing someone they don't know, especially here on HN. There was simply no need for that kind of disrespectful language
If you're not good at building a founding team, how will you excel at building a company? Technology and design are great, but companies are the people that they are comprised of.
There's nothing wrong with being a solo founder because being one doesn't mean you can't build a good team. But you obviously have issues with team building, so I'd work on that first or found a company with someone who is actually good at it.
Recruiting employees requires different skills from recruiting cofounders. They have different incentives, different roles, and it happens at different stages in your company.
Recruiting is an entirely separate issue. Building a team begins where recruiting ends.
In this talent market (in Boston in my case) we have a difficult time with recruiting, but our experiences with team building have been far more painful (as growing pains go).
> If you're not good at building a founding team, how will
> you excel at building a company?
This falsely equates "team" (a group of people) with "company" (a business venture). If the business venture requires a team of people to tackle it, then obviously putting together that team is a prerequisite. However, there are many business ventures that don't require a team, and developing better team building skills in those cases doesn't make any sense.
TwitPic and Plenty of Fish come to mind (even Instagram had a very small team for a long time)
It's remarkable how far you can scale certain types of web businesses now with one or just a few people and a pile of hardware.
If you're a social person and you like teams, clearly as always that's a viable path. If you're not, and you prefer going mostly solo, it's also clear that that's a viable path. The variable is you can only build certain types of businesses going solo.
I like being a solo founder, only partly because I can't tolerate all the things listed in other people too. The main, unforeseen, problem is that while growth is not hard as a solo founder, you can quickly run out of time working on the businesses' present than anything for the businesses' future. Having other founders who can be diverted to things like funding, hiring, training, etc, is surely a huge boon, as being the day to day 'boss' but then suddenly adding one of those activities in is quite stressful :-)
I have yet to find a single formulaic way for founders of a business to succeed.
That being said, these are my own findings/thoughts:
- Companies with 1 + n cofounders tend to be more successful
- Working (in a commercial manner) previously to the startup helps massively. You learn a lot about people's business behaviors when you actually work with them (business and personal relationships can be very different)
- Finding a good co-founding experience on your first time is extremely difficult
- Experience with project management (and more specifically stakeholder management) is very valuable
- No more how much you read about startup stories, nothing can prepare you for the experience of a business partner relationship. It's just like dating - it's all about communication and compromise.
- I like the Hustler (CEO), Hacker (CTO), Hippie (CXO) setup for internet based startups. It also helps when each one has a experience with each other roles.
I believe that being a solo founder contributed to the failure of my startup. In short, it puts a lot of pressure on yourself, that can't be split with other members of the team. If the ship is sinking, you have to go down with it. Other friends and mentors can offer support, but they're not in the same boat as you. When times are tough, founders can help pull each other through.
I think the reasons described in the OP are more about having the wrong founding team. This is also why we have things like vesting - if someone decides not to work full time, consult elsewhere then they should lose part of their shareholding.
Don't take this the wrong way, but your entire rationale for having co-founders seems to be based on fear and negativity. Your comment implies that you're most interested in providing yourself with the comfort that somebody else is taking risk too and will be there to drown with you when the ship sinks.
Per my other comment, this is simply the wrong reason to bring on a co-founder. If you truly aren't confident in the opportunity you've identified and don't feel comfortable owning your pursuit of it, convincing two or three other people to come along for the ride isn't going to prevent failure. In fact, it's probably only going to make the process of failing even more stressful.
It's not about fear of failing. I wouldn't do it again unless I was convinced the venture would be successful (and I think there's a significantly increased chance of that, based on what I learnt during the failed startup and since).
What I'm saying is that having equal co-founders gives you the ability to share the workload, emotional strain and get through the pain barrier.
It's obviously not impossible to build a huge business as a single co-founder, but it's unlikely that I'd want to do it again!
I'll take working solo any day, over working with those who can't. Been there, done that.
P.S. Also applies after s/can't/won't/ . And corporate life is full of cases that leave you wondering which apply and in what percentages. "Team" is not a panacea -- not from my perspective.
P.P.S. I do not mean to ignore the roles and need for training and learning. But there are people who hardly seem to benefit from, or even genuinely engage in, these.
"This is one of the reasons why young people often make for particularly good founders. They don’t have a lot of other commitments."
Bleah. It's a balance of ability, interest, commitment, urgency and experience. Interest and commitment are not the same thing and neither is urgency. Experience does have value.
You limit yourself pretty badly if you follow this youth principle. Finding a twenty-something willing to bang his/her head for 80 hours a week is about the least useful thing a startup can do.
In my own experience, item #1 is by far the most critical of all reasons listed. It's big enough to have pages and more pages written solely about it.
I was the technical lead of an "educational platform" being developed and most of its products. As soon as two of the co-founders - out of 5 - found themselves jobs and other full time activities things started to go downhill very fast. One of the most annoying behaviors those then absent co-founders started to display was a sense of: "Why are you asking me that? Isn't this [feature/decision/scope] too obvious for you?". Hey, it's not a matter of being obvious or not; but still current or valid according to project's timeframe. I can't even elaborate on the amount of energy we lost.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 98.9 ms ] thread- get on and stay on the same page
- agree on both of your live's direction and commitment to a path has to be the same for the next 2-3 years
- have the ability to defer to each other in your area of competence
- have to be skilled at learning and getting anything done, whether its business or tech.
- know that your entry and exit goals have to be compatible. Some people want to get rich quick, others are happy with organic growth that scales as well.
- be able to have a disagreement and move on for what's best.
- remember it's not about who's right, but what's right. Have a overarching vision, mission and values that you agree with so you can test any idea against them to see "does it fit how we're trying to do?"
- understand that it's about creating value for your customers, not making your own lives easier through the latest technology that makes something easier for you in development
- remember building channel to a market is more important than anything you build.
- building a financial engine early is the biggest indicator of whether your partnership will last
- building a partnership that grows in to friendship is easier than the other way around. Build things with people who you have experience building things with, and if you're new to each other, see if you can build something small together before taking the plunge.
For example, a programmer married to a doctor. They have two different directions, but if the only real compatibility requirement is that they live in the same city, then seems fine.
To the extent that its true, it equally true of partnerships (unsurprisingly, marriage really is a kind of partnership.) They direction must be the same within the scope of the partnership (profession is outside the scope of the partnership in marriage), and the direction outside the scope of partnership must be compatible with the shared direction within the scope of the partnership.
For example, a couple needs to agree on:
* How to divide up responsibilities at home
* Expectations of income (who works? how much?)
* Whether or not to combine their income or keep it separate (and how will they spend it)
* Whether or not to have kids (and who will raise them)
* How to negotiate extended family commitments on both sides
I think your example of the programmer and the doctor underlines the need for more agreement than physical proximity. What if the programmer wants to quit her job and work full time on a start up idea, taking no salary for the next 3 years? The doctor will have to make adjustments in his lifestyle to accommodate that decision. If they are not headed the same direction, that would bring enormous pressure to the marriage.
Sometimes one career influences the ability for the other to exist. Sometimes both parties want to be location independent. Sometimes both careers are going strong and no one wants to give up or miss an opportunity.
Being in a long term long distance relationship for over 5 years at least in my one situation has drilled home: direction is relevant and important.
Having too many friends who are doctors and programmers:
- Having a incompatible schedule starts out as a small thing
- Small things become big things
- Big things become distance creators, emotionally, mentally, and then physically
- Then we wonder how we got here.
Hope I didn't add to the confusion from other comments.
Re rounding out skill set, sometimes it's possible for a solo founder to make a couple key early hires. That lets you shorten this list. Some items still apply, but many don't.
Granted those folks won't have a founder level of commitment. But neither do the kind of half-hearted co-founders the OP wrote about. In fact one way to look at this is that some co-founders should be early hires, instead.
On a side note, sad face that another thread has been taken towards a tangent of exploring marriage instead of partnerships, maybe I shouldn't have said that :)
I would also caution against partnering with people that think their major contribution is the ideas, connections and/or management. If you are a founder, you execute and drive the company through execution. For a tech startup that means you either drive customer traction or make the software.
I've had partnerships fail with friends. And have one succeeding right now.
What it taught me is that not all friendships can handle pressure and you are only friends to a certain depth, intensity, and commitment to each other.
It's a stoic truth that I think can be explained by those friendships that we maintain over the years with little to no effort... with whom spending 24 hours is more than spending months with the wrong people.
There is an absolutely necessity to being able to turn the friendship on/off as well as work. I didn't start working with a very close friend until we were in our early 30's, and I'm glad we waited. As mature as we already were, having 10 years away from each other working on projects has increased the appreciation on both sides of the tables.
"I believe that my previous two ventures failed mainly because of the founding team (which I’m included in). How do I know? Because companies with almost identical products and value propositions succeeded afterwards."
I'm not sure if you're drawing the correct lesson there. Sounds more like implementation issues. I'd recommend you spend some effort improving your ability to implement / find people who can implement and then try again.
(Hindsight is always 20/20, but everything we did wrong had to do with marketing and building and audience)
I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization.
Someone on your team missed a deadline which fubarr'd your project? Your fault for not checking in with them to make sure they delivering what you wanted.
Someone forget to put the trash out. Your fault for trusting them.
This is a bit dishonest, but empowering for the following reason: You cannot control other people. If you internalize the failure as your own, you can often make more strides to prevent the failure next time than by simply assigning blame.
Of course this theory must be tempered by the old Steven Winterburn quote: "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
So, "I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization" doesn't sound pedantic. It sounds worse.
I was only trying to add my lens of commentary. It wasn't to say that the author wasn't already taking this under advisement, but only to add my additional perspective.
Sorry if my diction led you to believe otherwise :(.
My sole successful venture has been solo all along (not including employees), and has outlasted the rises and falls of the other businesses (during the amateur entrepreneur "too many fingers in too many pies" phase). I don't think I'd do a partnership again. But maybe I just don't play well with others?
Anyway, can't speak for the OP, but when intelligent, ambitious friends around you see that you work your tail off and already have succeeded at building a profitable business from scratch, they suddenly get really excited about starting new businesses with you that often sound great. At least in my experience though, many of these people turn out to see themselves as "the visionary" who kinda sorta checks in from time to time and you as "the worker," which, if that isn't the role you're interested in, causes things to unravel rather fast.
The "fantasy" life of a startup founder is that they see things others don't (vision) and lead people who make those visions real (workers). Except you can't really lead someone with a vision if you don't know yourself how to make that vision real.
The challenges of startups are that you have to be able to "do it all" in order to know what "doing it" actually entails, then you can bring people in who can do a part of it (that you were previously doing) and know if they are doing it well or not. Folks who are visionary in their thinking but can't break that down into actionable steps toward that vision, and then break those steps into problem assignments, aren't really going to be an asset for your startup until you already have a product and a revenue stream.
Even then, there is nothing more irritating to folks than a clueless visionary. Someone who says something like "The underlying problem is energy dependence, so our goal should be to provide an unlimited energy source to break that dependence, let's get some smart people working on that!" Accurate vision, but ultimately clueless, they just slow people down who have to explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics to them (if they are patient enough).
AFAIK absolutely false. It is also a gross generalization about a diverse group of people with differing sociopolitical structures.
I would suggest reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" for an example of a famous and incredibly egalitarian American construct, or just read about Iroquois political structures via Googling, for two examples.
http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=939760...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois
This is silly and trivial. Two reasons:
[1] The phrase is the analog of an idiom. It is shorthand for "hierarchy" and used as such. The parent is explaining its use.
[2] There are many tribal organizations. This cuts both ways. Provided there is a single one that was historically rank-hierachical, the data is not even a counterfactual.
[3] Provided [2] is ok, so is [1]. We know [2] is ok. Hence, the comment is logically ~gratuitous.
See, for example:
http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/too+many+chiefs...
---
I don't think the correct response when called out the use of a racist stereotype is to claim it's silly and trivial.
Not related in any way to actual organizations of any actual tribes.
Most people know that there are more than one chef in the kitchen, yet we still figuratively say there are too many.
silent weeping
"Every successful enterprise requires three men - a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch." -- Peter McArthur.
I failed at founding a startup under similar circumstances. This was back in school, on the verge of graduation, when the idea struck me and I decided to go for it. My timing was terrible, given that my would-be co-founders had full-time jobs lined up. Joining me, and turning down our various offers in pursuit of the startup, was a proposition somewhere between slightly insane and certifiably so.
And so I gave everyone a pass. I "hired" a bunch of them on a part-time basis -- knowing that they'd be leaving to start their day jobs in about two months, and, therefore, inadvertently giving myself two months to generate enough traction to convince them to stick around. God, I was so naive. But I'm glad I learned the lesson at a (relatively) young age.
I don't blame any of them for the failure of that short-lived startup. I blame myself. In retrospect, I realized that my own commitment to the startup had been no deeper than theirs. If it had been, I'd have hustled a lot harder to find committed co-founders.
I've had many fail where one or the other was missing.
The reality is as a startup founder, you're expected to bear the blunt of the risk as well as majority of the tasks, from getting coffees, to setting 'vision', to product design, and coding the mundane that others don't want to do.
To this day, I still firmly believe that (on my 1st startup, so additional mileage may change that) having a diverse skillset, or the uncompromising willingness to learn anything is key to success - guess that's what PG calls determination.
So going back to the OP's view that solo founding is possible - I totally agree. You may need to hire or get help where your tech / business skills are lacking. But if you have sufficient & diverse work experience, and some financial capital, it's totally feasible to go solo.
A big BUT is the emotional support that a team can offer. This is even more so when you have a solid co-founder. The trials of startups are hard and deeply emotional (I think all founders will naturally develop bi-polar disorder - one day you feel on top of the world with your world changing idea, the next you are filled with doubt), so any kind of support from people that understand what you're going through helps - this is unlikely to be your spouse if they've never been exposed to startups or even the financial burdens of brick-n-mortar business. You can substitute with meetups and surround yourself with startup founders, but someone who doesn't have skin in the game just isn't the same.
TL;DR So while I think it's possible to do it alone, there are added benefits to being able to share the responsibility & emotional rollercoaster of a startup I also recommend everyone read 'Founder's Dilemma', good data backed analysis of pros & cons of various startup decisions like solo vs. co-founding. Bootstrapping vs. funding, etc.
I've done both, and both offer interesting pros and cons. Namely if you have the ability to fund a project yourself while building it, you can be in the drivers seat more and some partners are okay with that.
Would you mind sharing your experiences?
I wouldn't, however, decide to "go solo" next time; that may even be a worse option. You'll never find someone who you work with 100%, but you need a co-founder. Keep "shopping," find someone you click with, and have another go.
What I really should have done is not "look for some team to increase the chance of success", but rather start solo, and take my time looking for the right team. Of course that's easier said then done. You don't get to know people unless you work with them over a longer period of time.
So, just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that one should go solo completely, but rather wait for the right team. Don't settle for "some team" just because someone says that teams are "better".
I'm getting downvoted like crazy, but I still hold to that statement. You will never, ever, find the absolutely ideal circumstances, but that doesn't mean you should just give up on working with other people.
Mark Suster's Co-Founder Mythology (http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder...) and comments at Startup Grind earlier this year (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHgGUFjK3c) are well worth reading/watching.
Of course, if your goal is to have a great team on paper so that an investor will feel comfortable writing you a check, let's call the exercise what it is: building a team that might build a business once it has funding. That's not building a business.
One thing I've realized is that, when pitching, I have to pitch me rather than pitching a team. Or more to the point, pitching that a: I have a real solution for a real problem for real customers (enterprise change management ain't the same as monetizing pictures of cats on the internet), and b: I'm capable of creating a company and building a team to bring this vision to life.
This is a really bad excuse for bringing on a co-founder. In my opinion, it's a primary reason you often see bloated founding teams comprised of individuals who have similar skills, not complementary skills.
In the end I decided that I'm better off going at it alone. Mainly because I had a hard time finding someone else to join me at the same commitment level (and that's with a side project).
So I quit my job and started to bootstrap as a solo founder (this time with a wife, two kids and single income --- mine). I brought on a co-founder about 6 months in to fill out a few gaps that I didn't have the experience or time to do myself. Not having enough revenue to pay them meant equity was the only collateral I could offer.
Fast forward 2 years and I can say that without a doubt, if I was a single founder I'd probably have thrown in the towel by now.
And my co-founder is remote! 1/2 way around the world. So as the post suggests, it's harder but I don't think it's impossible.
Obviously it depends on the individual and the business. All I can say is that the value my co-founder brought to the table was different than what I originally thought. The emotional support greatly outweighed what I thought I was bringing him on board for.
If I had picked the wrong co-founder it would have been much worse than not having one at all.
Lack of skills: Don’t work with people that don’t bring unique skills (applicable to a startup) to the table. Having someone like this in your team will down the mood of the other teams members that are providing value. There is one exception to this: Bring on smart people that are willing to learn whatever it takes. Be particularly wary of people that have a certain skillset, but are not motivated to learn new skills relevant to a startup environment.
That's really great advice, but not really a reason to go solo. It's just a reason to pick your partners carefully.
Obviously, it could depend on the nature of the startup, in that it could be strategically important to compensate for one of those "weaknesses".
However, for a person without such problems it is probably better to avoid this extra complexity unless there is a huge upside to the partnership that compensates for the downside.
In my experience it's easier to start something alone, especially if it's not technologically difficult (i.e. most webapps). Down the line it's important for me to have wingmen, though. Even if you can carry the load intellectually, it's nice to have somebody with skin in the game for moral support when shit hits the fan. Of course anything is better than having co-founders that don't work out for whatever reason.
As a startup founder with a newborn (well, 14-month-old) I would say that this shouldn't be a global condition. There are plenty like me that I know who can put forth their full commitment - because we have supportive spouses that are completely on board with our entrepreneurial ambitions.
I wouldn't found a startup with no income and looking to leverage that success early or your family will starve. If you have an adequate enough padding though, and yes a supportive family, you can easily be solo.
I think a main consideration for a co-founder is the ability to weather the inevitable storm, along with the willingness to ride it out.
I'm all up for the "If you don't help, at least don't get in the way" motto. I decided to pursue my current venture without a cofounder precisaly because I didn't find enough people that had both the skills and (understandably) the willingness to quit their nice paying jobs.
For me, it doesn't really make sense to have people aboard unless they add some real value to the two core functions of what a startup needs to do: building something and sell it. It's fine if you can't build it, but you better be damn good at selling it. Photo ops and "vision, mission and values" statements don't really justify a position on a bootstrapped startup that's trying to get a product out (this obviously varies, having well connected co-founders may make a lot of difference, some people are well worth their pay just because of their business karma).
The big problem of a solo venture, IMO, is that you find yourself doing these two roles simultaneously, which can be exhausting. It is for me, at least. I can do both rather well, but after a while I start finding it difficult to focus on designing a system for scalability, designing its database, reflecting on security, writing and testing Android code, building prospects lists and getting their contacts, getting meetings and attending them, fine-tuning your sales pitch and getting the man to write out a check. And I left out all the menial work that still has to be done.
By the end of the day, you're in agony not only because of that feature that is taking too long to build, but also for not getting enough customer meetings, because of not having enough positive answers and, mostly, because launch is (or should be) just around the corner and there's still a lot of stuff to be done and no one except you to take responsibility for it.
It's an emotional rollercoaster, so having the right partner seems like a good move.
I've told myself that if I make it to a next round of funding I need to find a partner stat.
If I could find a co-founder or two, I'd be thrilled. But finding someone really worth their weight hasn't happened yet. And I'm not going to just sit there and ignore this opportunity just because I can't find someone to hold my hand while I'm doing it. I'm going to get it out the door, even if I have to do every little thing myself.
Having a co-founder is great. But not having one is no excuse to not work.
I read these responses and thought "Hmm I wonder what it is they're doing. Maybe I could help or at least offer some brain power?" then realized clicking usernames revealed dick-all about any one of you.
I had a thought "Why hasn't there been a matchmaking service for entrepreneurs?" A quick Google search gave me the answer: some already exist. You could try one of those. Alternatively you could use HN to help solicit help by using the about section or use posts like this to give some modicum of detail.
When I see nothing in your about section and nothing in these messages that seem to explain the "what" you're trying to accomplish, I have a hard time believing you're really serious about your search.
It's more likely that you have your own system of who you deal with or you're just passively searching, severely. That's all perfectly fine, just not something I would be doing in either of your shoes.
I wouldn't consider it to be a poor idea at all. I was primarily trying to offer suggestions to help with passively searching when the need arose but I couldn't get around being specific, realizing it could partially sound mean or negative when that wasn't what I was going for at all.
I've also done some "matchmaking" through networking and introductions, but I haven't yet met anyone else I'm willing to trust with it, or whom is ready to go for it (there have been several candidates). So I'm not in a rush to find a co-founder, and not making it my first priority. If it happens, it happens.
You're also quite the bigger person, I make it a rule not to respond to people who feel the need to use a clear insult like "moron" in addressing someone they don't know, especially here on HN. There was simply no need for that kind of disrespectful language
There's nothing wrong with being a solo founder because being one doesn't mean you can't build a good team. But you obviously have issues with team building, so I'd work on that first or found a company with someone who is actually good at it.
In this talent market (in Boston in my case) we have a difficult time with recruiting, but our experiences with team building have been far more painful (as growing pains go).
It's remarkable how far you can scale certain types of web businesses now with one or just a few people and a pile of hardware.
If you're a social person and you like teams, clearly as always that's a viable path. If you're not, and you prefer going mostly solo, it's also clear that that's a viable path. The variable is you can only build certain types of businesses going solo.
Everything falls on you to succeed.
That being said, these are my own findings/thoughts:
- Companies with 1 + n cofounders tend to be more successful
- Working (in a commercial manner) previously to the startup helps massively. You learn a lot about people's business behaviors when you actually work with them (business and personal relationships can be very different)
- Finding a good co-founding experience on your first time is extremely difficult
- Experience with project management (and more specifically stakeholder management) is very valuable
- No more how much you read about startup stories, nothing can prepare you for the experience of a business partner relationship. It's just like dating - it's all about communication and compromise.
- I like the Hustler (CEO), Hacker (CTO), Hippie (CXO) setup for internet based startups. It also helps when each one has a experience with each other roles.
I think the reasons described in the OP are more about having the wrong founding team. This is also why we have things like vesting - if someone decides not to work full time, consult elsewhere then they should lose part of their shareholding.
Per my other comment, this is simply the wrong reason to bring on a co-founder. If you truly aren't confident in the opportunity you've identified and don't feel comfortable owning your pursuit of it, convincing two or three other people to come along for the ride isn't going to prevent failure. In fact, it's probably only going to make the process of failing even more stressful.
What I'm saying is that having equal co-founders gives you the ability to share the workload, emotional strain and get through the pain barrier.
It's obviously not impossible to build a huge business as a single co-founder, but it's unlikely that I'd want to do it again!
I'll take working solo any day, over working with those who can't. Been there, done that.
P.S. Also applies after s/can't/won't/ . And corporate life is full of cases that leave you wondering which apply and in what percentages. "Team" is not a panacea -- not from my perspective.
P.P.S. I do not mean to ignore the roles and need for training and learning. But there are people who hardly seem to benefit from, or even genuinely engage in, these.
Bleah. It's a balance of ability, interest, commitment, urgency and experience. Interest and commitment are not the same thing and neither is urgency. Experience does have value.
You limit yourself pretty badly if you follow this youth principle. Finding a twenty-something willing to bang his/her head for 80 hours a week is about the least useful thing a startup can do.
Either way, this is an interesting perspective - thank you for sharing your experience!