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It's got nothing to do with being smartest person in the room. When your wellbeing gets put into other people's hands it's super stressful, and if they fuck up

It's got nothing to do with being smartest person in the room. When your wellbeing gets put into other people's hands it's super stressful, and if they fuck up, or you fuck up, or even if you just argue with them, then it's way, way more stressful than if you're just doing things on your own. The stress leads to a relationship death spiral, and then you end up losing everything. Not having cofounders won't stop you from making mistakes, but it will prevent the relationship/business death spiral. I've always said that I prefer to make my own mistakes, instead of implementing other people's. I wish I'd listened to my own advice before I brought in co-founders for my previous business; my next caper is going to be 100% solo.

prirun 4y ago
With 2 co-founders, you have to agree on everything. That's hard. 3 co-founders let's you do a majority thing on decisions, but that IMO can easily turn into politics: you do this for me, I'll do that for you, we are better friends so you need to vote with me on this, etc. Having previously started and exiting a 2-founder 50/50 business, I wouldn't do it again. I might give equity, but even that can be very tricky. See for example the case of Craigslist having a minority shareholder who sold his shares to eBay. The original minority shareholder may not have caused the other shareholders any problems, but having a large competing corporation as a minority shareholder is a whole 'nother thing.
- withinboredom 4y ago
  Oof. I can’t imagine a 50/50 relationship. My marriage isn’t even 50/50, unless we are getting a divorce. In my marriage we each have “domains” that we are gods of. When it comes to money, she has domain over day-to-day expenses and I have control over making sure bills are paid and taxes are accounted for and we reconcile this fairly regularly. My point is, there has to be some kind of “tie-breaker” that isn’t biased/random. Whether that is a “fact” that something falls into someone’s “domain” or whether it’s a person. 50/50 just doesn’t seem realistic or a recipe for stress.

prirun 4y ago

With 2 co-founders, you have to agree on everything. That's hard. 3 co-founders let's you do a majority thing on decisions, but that IMO can easily turn into politics: you do this for me, I'll do that for you, we are better friends so you need to vote with me on this, etc. Having previously started and exiting a 2-founder 50/50 business, I wouldn't do it again. I might give equity, but even that can be very tricky. See for example the case of Craigslist having a minority shareholder who sold his shares to eBay. The original minority shareholder may not have caused the other shareholders any problems, but having a large competing corporation as a minority shareholder is a whole 'nother thing.

withinboredom 4y ago
Oof. I can’t imagine a 50/50 relationship. My marriage isn’t even 50/50, unless we are getting a divorce. In my marriage we each have “domains” that we are gods of. When it comes to money, she has domain over day-to-day expenses and I have control over making sure bills are paid and taxes are accounted for and we reconcile this fairly regularly. My point is, there has to be some kind of “tie-breaker” that isn’t biased/random. Whether that is a “fact” that something falls into someone’s “domain” or whether it’s a person. 50/50 just doesn’t seem realistic or a recipe for stress.