4 ms·
pg's take: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html 1. Single Founder Have you ever noticed how few succe
by pitdesi 15y ago
pg's take: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
1. Single Founder
Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.
What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.
But even if the founder's friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage. Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.
The last one might be the most important. The low points in a startup are so low that few could bear them alone. When you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a way that seems to violate conservation laws. Each thinks "I can't let my friends down." This is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and it's missing when there's just one founder.
- dstein 15y agoCan anyone give some examples of big companies that were solo founders? I think Dropbox was.
- cheez 15y agoSAS?
- sskates 15y agoDrew found a cofounder before doing YC. Can't think of any truly one man operations off the top of my head, although Zuckerberg was almost running the entire show at Facebook.
- Humourisok 15y agothis is exactly the idea: as a single founder you can cash the same amount as a small company
- neworbit 15y agoI want to say Oracle
- answerly 15y agoLarry Ellison had two co-founders. I believe that both of them left the company in the early '90s.
- xiaoma 15y agoHow about Richard Branson, Felix Dennis, or Jeff Bezos?
- arram 15y agoRichard Branson had partners when we started Virgin Records. After Virgin Records, he had enough money to hire for all his other businesses right off the bat. Felix Dennis was solo, and strongly believes in holding on to as much equity as possible, but if you read his book, he'll tell you what a miserable time it was. (He often wished he was dead.) I've bootstrapped a business to significant traction as a single founder. I don't recommend it. It's possible, but morally exhaustive.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Hisoka 15y agoAs someone working on his own idea right now, I'm also afraid if I take on another 'co-founder', he/she will not work as hard as I will because it was originally my idea, and I work really really hard (sometimes to the point of being unhealthy). I highly doubt I can find someone as devoted to the idea as I am.. even if I gave him less than 50% equity, say 30%.. I still doubt I could find someone who could work half as hard as I. People have day jobs, families to take care of, etc... Somehow I feel BOTH founders need to reach the idea together for both of them to be 50/50 partners.
- math 15y agoI think a way to do this fairly is to maintain a spreadsheet where each week everyone marks off how much effort they've put in and effectivley gets newly issued shares for this effort (diluting all existing shares in the process). Probably the best measure of effort is time spent, though that is not perfect. Maybe you can have bonuses for great work, or agreeing someone's time is more valuable and issuing shares at a higher rate. You adjust the [effort]:[shares issued] ratio from time to time based valuation (which to start with doesn't need to be explicitly known, it's all relative). I never see this method discussed. Am I missing some major downside to this approach? Of course you wouldn't issue real shares that frequently - it's just done on aspreadsheet. Good for early idea stage where you probably don't even have a company set up yet. edit: minor edit for correctness.
- bokonist 15y agoIntuit, although very early on Scott Cook found a young hacker who a partial salary and some equity and essentially became a junior partner.