9 ms·

Being a Solo Founder: Pros, Cons, Tips and Tricks (2017)

174 points by doppp 7y ago

hbcondo714 7y ago
Written in 2017 but certainly still relevant today, especially with his blog post from last month about almost selling for $5M: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22013700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22013700
mrskitch 7y ago
Loneliness is a big issue for sure. When I started browserless, it was very much that way. In all honesty when I open sourced the project it helped quite a bit, and it’s nice to hear both good and bad feedback versus wondering if folks like it. That said, I think I’d make the same decision again. I like being the decision maker and feeling the weight of those decisions. And like Josh says, you can move so incredibly quick when an idea does surface.
- throw03172019 7y ago
  Browserless is great! Thanks for a great product - Keep it up! Disclosure: Paying customer :)
superflit 7y ago
I am the SOLO Tech/coder guy for a startup. The other part is the salespeople only. The worst thing is not having anyone to bounce ideas and discuss. "Should we do multi-tenant?" "Terraform + ansible, or Container?" "Chef, puppet, ansible?" Is my code good? or just "enough"? Am I good or lucky? When you have a team it is easier to answer these questions.
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  Sounds like y'all need to hire
- kesor 7y ago
  Can always get a consultant for a few hours to hash ideas with
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  None of those questions matter (aside from how to do multi-tenant.)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
adventured 7y ago
I've been an entrepreneur non-stop for about 20 years. 15 of those as a solo-founder, across a few different start-ups. I'll echo the common ones: some loneliness (the sense of being in an exhausting fight against terrible odds by yourself); and not having a co-founder confidant to bounce ideas off of and to interrupt your bad ideas or occasional bouts of doubt & skepticism. You can certainly find people to bounce ideas off of, however, two serious issues will routinely impede that: the occasional need for various degrees of privacy on internal development matters, and deep contextual knowledge of exactly what you're doing. Very few people on the outside are going to understand what you're doing well enough to provide super valuable opinions. I've spent ~18 months working full-time on a new start-up alone. It was supposed to take half that time, of course. It's the most important work I've ever done by far and it's the last thing I intend to ever build as an entrepreneur. I would have enjoyed having a co-founder on this project, however, realistically few people would be able to go along with something this time consuming and risky (no salary for two years). Sometimes it's just going to be all on you and you have to want it badly enough to persevere. It's a fascinating situation in the non-VC start-up land these days (that is to say, I'm intentionally not raising VC, I need max control to see it through long-term; a VC would fuck it up by prioritizing profit as the prime motive and their get-big-too-fast mantra). For a good engineer to join me for two years to do this, they might have to forsake $300,000 to $400,000 or more in total compensation. Or you have to take a dilution & control smack to the face up front and go raise a million dollars in VC. In my opinion, having watched the industry closely since the mid 1990s, the huge financial trade-off for engineers in doing non-VC start-ups is an epic problem that dissuades a lot of people (for good, sane reason). It's a simple equation: you're an engineer in a top five tech city, are you going to sacrifice a million dollars (possibly a lot more in SV) in total compensation across three to five years to do a thing, if that's what it takes? That's a monster risk to take, particularly if you're still in prime earnings years. That equation also enables me and others to do things many other people won't or can't dare to try, they won't eat the shit necessary to do it, or can't rationally take on the risk. It weeds out some competition.
- alixanderwang 7y ago
  If you’re open to sharing, what are you building?
amirathi 7y ago
I agree with everything except, > Don’t add a co-founder after the fact Late co-founder makes a lot of practical sense to me. - It's less risky for the incoming person to join a small profitable company instead of joining an idea - You broadly know the problem space you will be working in (market, customers etc.) and the vision/direction of the company. Less likely to have fallouts a year or two down the line - More informed equity negotiation than just splitting it equally
- sokoloff 7y ago
  While I'm not in the camp that says rigidly that a "founder" has to be there from the very first moment, I would struggle to think of someone as a co-founder who joined long after the company was formed and only after it was de-risked all the way to profitability. That person would be an early employee in my book, not a co-founder.
paulie_a 7y ago
If you are not a great salesperson you are doomed. 8 hours of your day should be selling. The rest of your day can be focused on tech
- Eikon 7y ago
  Ah yes, the myth of the 15+hours of work a day!
  - paulie_a 7y ago
    Not at all just that sales is more important than the shiny tech.
- doctor_eval 7y ago
  On the contrary, the best sales person is the person who built it. They know what they’re talking about, they love the product, they can answer 100% of the questions with no bullshit, and customers can feel it. Good customers love buying from founders. The most productive selling period of my life was when I downed tools for 5 years and went on the road with my sales manager. As with all things the trick is to find the right balance, and the balance is different for every product.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hef19898 7y ago
That article resonates a lot. Being a solo founder 3 months in, I can agree with basically all of it. Especially the over thinking and over analyzing part. You have the idea, got some initial positive market feedback, got a general direction and plan. But then you have to get out and actually do it. Which is a lot harder alone than I had thought. Not being in SV, there is less risk of a startup echo chamber so. What did help a lot so far in my case was to get out and have concrete discussions with established people in my industry. Luckily I have some great people I can talk to, and bouncing ideas around with them on how to implement it and discuss concrete ways going forward to start a partnership really helped. It also forces you to get get moving. And as some comment also stated, things tend to take a lot longer when you are alone than, at least I had, initially planned for.
lnsru 7y ago
I am working alone, but at the end, there are many people with similar background around. I can discuss technical topics and applications easily. Of course, co-founder is nice to have. Another engineer at the very beginning and sales person with domain knowledge when rough prototype is on the table (I am in hardware business). The biggest issue with being alone is that nobody is funding single person ventures, bus factor is too high. Though I am not sure, if hardware ideas are easy to align with venture capital growth mantra in general. Maybe I will stay relatively small in small niche, that would satisfy me.
ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
Good article. I like it when people share from personal experience, as opposed to theory. In my case, I've been slowly building something up. It's been taking a lot of time. I'm fortunate, in not having to rush, and in not having to seek money from others. I also have changed direction a few times. I started off, wanting to save the world, and have had to reduce my scope quite a bit. I ran head-on into the ageism issue. No one wants to play with an old guy. Even though my particular mix of skills and experience are almost ideal for a startup, the grey hair outweighs it by a lot. It's been rather jarring. So I just gave up trying to work with others, and am doing it myself. No matter. I have what it takes; it will just take longer. It's not what I wanted, but it's what I got.
Blake_Emigro 7y ago
There are so many internal battles that you have; paralysis by analysis, over-optimization, learn/build versus buy, impostor syndrome, waiting too long to do xyz, and on and on. Then you have those days where you get stuck on something and wonder if anyone even cares about or notices what you do. But, would you have it any other way?
1hakr 7y ago
I'm solo founder making microstartups. My recent one is https://visalist.io https://visalist.io and it's making $7000 per month. I built all my microstartups startups to solve my own problems and that I think is the best indicator for successful product.

174 points by doppp 7y ago

Written in 2017 but certainly still relevant today, especially with his blog post from last month about almost selling for $5M: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22013700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22013700

mrskitch 7y ago

Loneliness is a big issue for sure. When I started browserless, it was very much that way. In all honesty when I open sourced the project it helped quite a bit, and it’s nice to hear both good and bad feedback versus wondering if folks like it. That said, I think I’d make the same decision again. I like being the decision maker and feeling the weight of those decisions. And like Josh says, you can move so incredibly quick when an idea does surface.

throw03172019 7y ago
Browserless is great! Thanks for a great product - Keep it up! Disclosure: Paying customer :)

superflit 7y ago

I am the SOLO Tech/coder guy for a startup. The other part is the salespeople only. The worst thing is not having anyone to bounce ideas and discuss. "Should we do multi-tenant?" "Terraform + ansible, or Container?" "Chef, puppet, ansible?" Is my code good? or just "enough"? Am I good or lucky? When you have a team it is easier to answer these questions.

unlinked_dll 7y ago
Sounds like y'all need to hire
kesor 7y ago
Can always get a consultant for a few hours to hash ideas with
redis_mlc 7y ago
None of those questions matter (aside from how to do multi-tenant.)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

adventured 7y ago

I've been an entrepreneur non-stop for about 20 years. 15 of those as a solo-founder, across a few different start-ups. I'll echo the common ones: some loneliness (the sense of being in an exhausting fight against terrible odds by yourself); and not having a co-founder confidant to bounce ideas off of and to interrupt your bad ideas or occasional bouts of doubt & skepticism. You can certainly find people to bounce ideas off of, however, two serious issues will routinely impede that: the occasional need for various degrees of privacy on internal development matters, and deep contextual knowledge of exactly what you're doing. Very few people on the outside are going to understand what you're doing well enough to provide super valuable opinions. I've spent ~18 months working full-time on a new start-up alone. It was supposed to take half that time, of course. It's the most important work I've ever done by far and it's the last thing I intend to ever build as an entrepreneur. I would have enjoyed having a co-founder on this project, however, realistically few people would be able to go along with something this time consuming and risky (no salary for two years). Sometimes it's just going to be all on you and you have to want it badly enough to persevere. It's a fascinating situation in the non-VC start-up land these days (that is to say, I'm intentionally not raising VC, I need max control to see it through long-term; a VC would fuck it up by prioritizing profit as the prime motive and their get-big-too-fast mantra). For a good engineer to join me for two years to do this, they might have to forsake $300,000 to $400,000 or more in total compensation. Or you have to take a dilution & control smack to the face up front and go raise a million dollars in VC. In my opinion, having watched the industry closely since the mid 1990s, the huge financial trade-off for engineers in doing non-VC start-ups is an epic problem that dissuades a lot of people (for good, sane reason). It's a simple equation: you're an engineer in a top five tech city, are you going to sacrifice a million dollars (possibly a lot more in SV) in total compensation across three to five years to do a thing, if that's what it takes? That's a monster risk to take, particularly if you're still in prime earnings years. That equation also enables me and others to do things many other people won't or can't dare to try, they won't eat the shit necessary to do it, or can't rationally take on the risk. It weeds out some competition.

alixanderwang 7y ago
If you’re open to sharing, what are you building?

amirathi 7y ago

I agree with everything except, > Don’t add a co-founder after the fact Late co-founder makes a lot of practical sense to me. - It's less risky for the incoming person to join a small profitable company instead of joining an idea - You broadly know the problem space you will be working in (market, customers etc.) and the vision/direction of the company. Less likely to have fallouts a year or two down the line - More informed equity negotiation than just splitting it equally

sokoloff 7y ago
While I'm not in the camp that says rigidly that a "founder" has to be there from the very first moment, I would struggle to think of someone as a co-founder who joined long after the company was formed and only after it was de-risked all the way to profitability. That person would be an early employee in my book, not a co-founder.

paulie_a 7y ago

If you are not a great salesperson you are doomed. 8 hours of your day should be selling. The rest of your day can be focused on tech

Eikon 7y ago
Ah yes, the myth of the 15+hours of work a day!
- paulie_a 7y ago
  Not at all just that sales is more important than the shiny tech.
doctor_eval 7y ago
On the contrary, the best sales person is the person who built it. They know what they’re talking about, they love the product, they can answer 100% of the questions with no bullshit, and customers can feel it. Good customers love buying from founders. The most productive selling period of my life was when I downed tools for 5 years and went on the road with my sales manager. As with all things the trick is to find the right balance, and the balance is different for every product.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hef19898 7y ago

That article resonates a lot. Being a solo founder 3 months in, I can agree with basically all of it. Especially the over thinking and over analyzing part. You have the idea, got some initial positive market feedback, got a general direction and plan. But then you have to get out and actually do it. Which is a lot harder alone than I had thought. Not being in SV, there is less risk of a startup echo chamber so. What did help a lot so far in my case was to get out and have concrete discussions with established people in my industry. Luckily I have some great people I can talk to, and bouncing ideas around with them on how to implement it and discuss concrete ways going forward to start a partnership really helped. It also forces you to get get moving. And as some comment also stated, things tend to take a lot longer when you are alone than, at least I had, initially planned for.

lnsru 7y ago

I am working alone, but at the end, there are many people with similar background around. I can discuss technical topics and applications easily. Of course, co-founder is nice to have. Another engineer at the very beginning and sales person with domain knowledge when rough prototype is on the table (I am in hardware business). The biggest issue with being alone is that nobody is funding single person ventures, bus factor is too high. Though I am not sure, if hardware ideas are easy to align with venture capital growth mantra in general. Maybe I will stay relatively small in small niche, that would satisfy me.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

Good article. I like it when people share from personal experience, as opposed to theory. In my case, I've been slowly building something up. It's been taking a lot of time. I'm fortunate, in not having to rush, and in not having to seek money from others. I also have changed direction a few times. I started off, wanting to save the world, and have had to reduce my scope quite a bit. I ran head-on into the ageism issue. No one wants to play with an old guy. Even though my particular mix of skills and experience are almost ideal for a startup, the grey hair outweighs it by a lot. It's been rather jarring. So I just gave up trying to work with others, and am doing it myself. No matter. I have what it takes; it will just take longer. It's not what I wanted, but it's what I got.

Blake_Emigro 7y ago

There are so many internal battles that you have; paralysis by analysis, over-optimization, learn/build versus buy, impostor syndrome, waiting too long to do xyz, and on and on. Then you have those days where you get stuck on something and wonder if anyone even cares about or notices what you do. But, would you have it any other way?

1hakr 7y ago

I'm solo founder making microstartups. My recent one is https://visalist.io https://visalist.io and it's making $7000 per month. I built all my microstartups startups to solve my own problems and that I think is the best indicator for successful product.