12 ms·

You can do it alone

534 points by ryancarson 14y ago

nashequilibrium 14y ago
You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
bsims 14y ago
Everyone commenting on this thread should read Founder's Dilemma to at least give some statistical information about success rates of founding teams. http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691149135 http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundat... Regardless of one's opinion of solo vs team, statistically it is easier with co-founders. That doesn't mean it can't be done solo, but you have better odds. And YC makes investments so why wouldn't you play the odds?
calgaryeng 14y ago
I'm with ya - you just have be slightly crazier than any "normal" entrepreneur :)
namank 14y ago
Doesn't exactly instil confidence when "You can do it alone" is prefaced by "The Naive Optimist". That said, upvoted!
- ryancarson 14y ago
  The only way to survive is to be naively optimistic ;)
  - fitandfunction 14y ago
    It takes a certain amount of "willful naivete" to try anything new and uncertain. Doesn't mean you're an idiot to the facts. Just means that you're willing to temporarily overlook short-term problems / obstacles to pursue a long-term goal. I'm with you on this one
muratmutlu 14y ago
I think that many founders won't be in the same position as you as having come from a successful business and be well known and respected in the industry. I think either way is cool, I'm happy to share 50% with my co-founder because money isn't my primary goal and he's a fun and clever guy to work with which makes the journey even more enjoyable
bencoder 14y ago
Somewhat off topic but I'd like to ask about this: > We’ve grown from three people to 54, and $0 revenue to $3.4m+, all in just two years. I'm completely naive about these things and I'm not involved in business, but isn't this very risky? That equals to only 63k/head revenue. I guess this is banking on future growth but is this a standard pattern for a growing startup?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  We're not profitable yet. That's the whole reason we raised $5m in Apr 2012: To increase head count faster than revenue growth.
  - photorized 14y ago
    You think revenue will follow?
    - matwood 14y ago
      His actions of hiring ahead of revenue say yes. Investors giving him $5M show they think the same thing. Actions always speak louder than words.
  - tbrooks 14y ago
    I think you should change the pricing from per month to per course. You'll be able to do more price testing, make more profit, and I bet your customer LTV will increase as well. Have you guys thought of this or are you totally committed to monthly SaaS model?
vlokshin 14y ago
I think I speak for most young, yet-to-be-successful, founders when I say: I'd rather keep 15-30% of something that has a 5% chance of success than 70-100% of something that has a .01% chance of success. I thoroughly believe doing it alone (even if you're REALLY good) is a .01% chance, and doing it with complementary talents that have skin, heart, reputation in the game brings that up a ton. That being said, congrats on being in the 0.01% of that equation.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  You act as if I knew Treehouse was going to be a success. When we launched it I had no idea if we'd make it.
  - vlokshin 14y ago
    No no, I'm not being sarcastic in the congratulations. I just actually think the single vs. co-founded projects are vastly different in % chance of success. I do think the difference really is .01% to 5%, sorry if I wasn't being as tactful as I could've been in delivering the message. I haven't hit a success yet, but I've tried to put the puzzle together alone and with others. I think it'd be a lot harder to do alone. We disagree there, and as of today, you have a lot more credibility than I do -- and it's ok to disagree. We've all got 100 different factors in the equation, not just 1 control to tweak. That's why different shoes for different feet are a-ok :)
    - ryancarson 14y ago
      I wasn't offended at all :) Just pointing out that I was taking the same risk as I had no guarantee of success.
goldfeld 14y ago
The point I find to ring the truest with me is that of a single life goal. If your startup is the love of your life, your ultimate passion and purpose on Earth, it gets very hard to find someone to share in on that passion. And taking someone on board for half equity because they see it as an exit opportunity doesn't feel right.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Agreed. It's very hard to completely align.
- cardine 14y ago
  This is the primary reason I am a single founder. I am extremely passionate about the company I run and have a very clear vision for what I want this company to accomplish and I do not want to have to fight for this vision with a cofounder or a board.
rauljara 14y ago
"I believe Paul and David are stressing the importance of co-founders because they’re talking about young founders with no previous business experience." "I funded the business with cash from my previous business" Ryan has thoroughly convinced me that if you've run some successful businesses in the past, it's probably better to go it alone your new one. However, I don't think he convinced me that PG was wrong (and I'm not sure he was trying to), just that PG's advice doesn't necessarily apply to serially successful entrepreneurs. All of PG's cautions about the dangers of going it alone still seem completely valid. However, it's not like there aren't dangers to having a co-founder (the marriage analogy, though a little cliche, is cliche because it rings true). I suppose, as with all things, the thing to do is take stock of your own particular situation and weigh the risks. But if you don't have direct experience overcoming at least some of challenges PG refers to, a co-founder still seems like the more sensible route.
jonathanjaeger 14y ago
Mark Suster agrees that you don't need the 'typical' co-founder split. Here's his take: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder-mythology/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder...
- hknews 14y ago
  That's a great link that describes the common problems of having multiple founders! If your technical "circle" already includes people that you want to be co-founders with and you guys agree to start something because the chances look good, then this is a powerful situation to start from -- better than being a single founder. But if you don't have that "social infrastructure" established (and you have not been hanging out with that type of crowd), then just adding a co-founder may cause more problems than helping.
timedoctor 14y ago
A big factor if you are trying to succeed while doing it alone is can you hire a great team to complement your skills. This usually costs more money in the beginning stages in salaries than having a co-founder. It means the founder must have some money behind them and usually means they must have succeeded in business before.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Exactly. This is why I used cash from my other business to bootstrap.
petenixey 14y ago
As I think Ryan would be the first to agree, he may have built Treehouse on his own but his early businesses have all been very much built with the support and partnership of his wife Gill. Ryan has also been a master of bootstrapping businesses upon business. He built Carsonified on the foundation of simple workshops he ran, he built ThinkVitamin on the foundation of Carsonified and he built Treehouse on the combination of both of them. I say that not as a critic but as an admirer. I think he's done a first class job of building his reputation, wealth, influence and expertise through all of these. However I think it's somewhat disingenuous for Ryan to state that because he has done Treehouse on his own, "so too can you". It's what the people want to hear and it will bring the enthusiasm of the bulk of HN readers who are going it alone. However the risk for most startups is not that they will exit for millions and the CEO will only own a paltry 20% of the company rather than 70%. It's that they will die. It has taken me many years to realise it but the presence of a true co-founder dramatically reduces this likelihood. It feels odd writing this all these years later because I knew Ryan at the very start of my career and almost the start of his. I then was a single-founder, he was working with Gill. I feel like we've passed each other going the opposite direction. I gave only a small fraction of equity to my first co-founder and paid a high price for that. I have now come full circle and realise the importance of a good co-founder and of an even split between you. Ryan is right in that he can do it without a co-founder. However if you fit that mold you probably already know that and are running a business quite possibly as the sole influencer already. If you don't then I think there is good reason for the astonishing faith of the valley in the co-founder. There is a degree of group-thought, sure but there are a lot of very, very sound reasons not to go it alone.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  Hi Pete - great hearing from you. :) Yes, Gill has played a huge role in running our earlier businesses. She has also supported me hugely during the running of Treehouse. But I've shouldered the weight of making all of the big decisions at Treehouse. The buck still stops with me. I wrote this post not as a "anyone can do what I did" post but rather a counter point to the rhetoric that is coming out of The Valley. It's important for new Founders to hear both sides of the argument.
pg 14y ago
You can certainly start a business without a cofounder. What's hard to do, empirically, is to start one that gets really big. There are a handful of counterexamples, like Amazon, but Treehouse is not one of them yet. We have a lot more data about what happens in startups than any individual founder does. What interest would we have in mischaracterizing it?
- ryancarson 14y ago
  I don't think you're mischaracterizing it (new word for me :D). I'm writing the post out of my own personal experience. I wanted to point out that your advice is optimized for the success of Y Combinator (as it should be). This of course doesn't mean it's good general advice for all Startups. Single-Founders who grow their revenue to medium size ($5-$25m) will usually be extremely happy. They don't need to be doing $100m of revenue to succeed.
  - pg 14y ago
    It's rather low to say that I tell people this because it's "optimized for the success of Y Combinator." I was saying it before we started Y Combinator. For example, in "How to Start a Startup" (http://paulgraham.com/start.html http://paulgraham.com/start.html): Ideally you want between two and four founders. It would be hard to start with just one. One person would find the moral weight of starting a company hard to bear. Even Bill Gates, who seems to be able to bear a good deal of moral weight, had to have a co-founder. I already knew then, both from my own experience and from watching other startups, how necessary cofounders were. Since then I've observed the trajectories of over 450 startups YC has funded. I'm even more convinced now that cofounders are necessary. And that you dismiss as "rhetoric" and offer instead one piece of anecdotal evidence that is not even conclusive yet? You do not make a very convincing case.
    - ryancarson 14y ago
      Fair point on the timing of your essay. I didn't realize it was written before you started YC. Can you guys please release your empirical data about the success rates of YC companies, broken down by various things like market, year founded, location, number of founders, etc?
webwright 14y ago
I don't think anyone has ever said that you can't. Just that it's harder and success is less likely. Yes, certainly co-founder add additional risks to the equation and do indeed reduce the magnitude of success, should you find it. But as others have said, the more important # to optimize is your chance of success. I'd love to see data to the contrary versus an (admittedly inspiring) anecdote... All of the data that I've ever heard about (from PG and other sources) seems to support that ideas that people who find a co-founder have a better shot.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  As PG said in the comment above, businesses with Co-Founders have a better chance of becoming "really big". I'm not sure what data they have about company survival and what "really big" means in terms of revenue and net profit.
  - chimi 14y ago
    Ryan, I don't know about you, but I didn't start any of my companies to become big. I started them to be my own boss and achieve the happiness you can only get through control of your time. I wake up when I want to and work on what I want to when I want to. I think both paths can be successful, but each entrepreneur should evaluate their goals and make decisions from there. A single person who has a great idea will probably be better off building that idea into a business fueled by their own passion than they will be by hunting around for someone who will join them in the quest. If you come up with an idea in a group or with someone and it's a shared vision, that's one thing. If you're an individual with a vision that no one around you understands, don't throw it in the trash because you can't find a co-founder. Go build it, make money, and then hire people to fill in the gaps.
duncanwilcox 14y ago
Amen.
Kiro 14y ago
"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." Wow, pg is so wrong. Whenever I get an idea I want to execute it myself. Bringing in friends is not something I even consider.
- larrys 14y ago
  "It probably means the founder couldn’t talk any of his friends" PG also has an age bias in that statement as it would practically be true only for a certain age group (young, in or recently out of college, without kids) anyway. Someone who is, say, 33 years old, married with two kids and with friends who are in a similar situation (and assuming those friends even live in the same town at the time) would find it quite difficult to pull those people from their possibly established careers (say as an attorney, doctor, or rising manager) to leave on a "startup". Additionally not everybody has a large group of friends who share the same goals and interests. Obviously.
fitandfunction 14y ago
I'd love to see someone (ryancarson or pg?) write a complementary article about "what if you have to do it alone?" In other words, sometimes, it's not your choice to be a solo co-founder. Many people have compared finding a co-founder to finding a spouse. In both life decisions, I don't think anyone seriously advocates for "sucking it up, and going with the least bad option." Sometimes, you're poorly geographically positioned, or in a "strange" market, or later in life (friends are already "matched up" or in secure jobs), etc For myriad reasons, you could sincerely try to recruit a co-founder and come up short. The question then becomes ... do you make the best of it and go for it anyway? Or, is the lack of a co-founder a signal (to yourself and others) that your idea / plan is unworthy? I hope the answer is the former because that is what I am doing. Someone remind me to write this article when I figure it out.
- ryancarson 14y ago
  I think it comes down to personality. For better or worse, I have a personality that allows me to barrel into big-risk situations and not worry. I don't think it's bravery though, it's closer to naive optimism (hence the name of my blog). If you have no choice but to be a Single-Founder, then it's probably down to whether or not you could survive your startup failing. If you can, then it's down to whether or not you feel happy taking the risk.
eande 14y ago
yes, you can do it alone and I had some success building up my hardware company. But at some point I decided to change and bring in co-founders and our momentum just build up x-times higher. First hand experience tells me too, that starting up a company alone is not only really hard, but slower as well, which these days speed is more crucial than ever. I have to agree on common wisdom and recommendation here that if you want to start a company and create something with impact try to partner up. Finding the right partners is another whole chapter by itself.
dutchbrit 14y ago
I'd hate to have a cofounder. I'd really have to find someone with same amount of passion and who's on the exact same line. I don't like people messing with my vision, having too much control. Don't get me wrong, I listen and take in other people's advise and views, but I want the final say. Also, I think a lot of people look for funding, while they don't even need it, but that's another issue..
liquimoon 14y ago
It's misleading to point out how startups worked in Bill Gates and Steve Jobs era. Then, it really took a team to build anything. The technology has improved drastically. 10 years ago, it requires millions of funding to start a web business. Today, a team of talented developers can build an impressive app in a weekend. Even marketing has become easier. With App Store, it's now possible to have apps distributed to millions of users over night. Yet, our assumption about startups stayed the same disregarding the change of context. Sure, even Steve Jobs had a cofounder. But then what would be the equivalent of building a PC in today’s age? And have that distributed to millions of users in that age? Take into account now it takes a beginner Rails developer 15 minutes to build a blogging app. If the cost of running a startup is going down as technology matures, then it really shouldn’t take a team to build a startup. It should take one guy with a vision, a few freelancers and/or interns. Solo founders are being discriminated against for all the bullshit reasons. Time has changed, technology has matured. It’s time to end it!
- 18pfsmt 14y ago
  There is a lot more to a business than simply making the product.
  - liquimoon 14y ago
    True, but even marketing has become a lot easier. Like they say, the 1 million users is the new 100K.
photorized 14y ago
Yes you can. Best part is focus, clarity, and instant decision making. If you feel you have a great idea, just go for it. Don't waste time convincing others.
nodesocket 14y ago
I just applied to TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for http://commando.io http://commando.io and was denied as a single founder. I knew it was a long shot, but had to apply just for the amazing opportunity that is TechStars and the mentors and experience. Being a single founder is bloody hard. Mostly though it is lonely. Nobody to talk with, nobody to bounce ideas around and debate features or implementation with. Should we use MongoDB or Riak? Being a single founder you make all the decisions. Also investors believe if you can't convince anybody else to join your company, than its probably a bad idea. I don't necessarily believe this, since I am myself a single founder. So, why is finding a co-founder hard. I moved up to San Francisco over a year ago, left my pool of friends, and drove up in my car with everything I owned. Finding people in San Francisco that are either not already doing their own startup, or already working at a badass company is extremely difficult. Even more, there is the catch-22, I don't have any capital to pay you, but I have equity. Again, not a really convincing proposition for a rockstar developer or designer. Startups are hard, the hardest thing you will probably ever do. So being a single founder is just not mentally healthy and as productive as having co-founders.
- benatkin 14y ago
  > I just applied to TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for http://commando.io http://commando.io and was denied as a single founder. I knew it was a long shot, but had to apply just for the amazing opportunity that is TechStars and the mentors and experience. You speak this highly of TechStars, and yet you're still running an LLC?
  - nodesocket 14y ago
    What does that have to do with anything? By the way, 37Signals is an LLC.
    - benatkin 14y ago
      http://ask.techstars.org/corporate-structure http://ask.techstars.org/corporate-structure
- 14y ago
rvivek 14y ago
Startups are a function of the morale of the founder(s). When it becomes zero, the startup dies. And there will be hopeless times when it'll almost approach zero. Empirically, having a co-founder can be a huge boost during those times which in turn means you're increasing your odds of success by playing longer. You can definitely do it alone (kudos), it's all about increasing your odds.
nhangen 14y ago
If it hadn't been for my co-founder, I would be insane at best, and at worst, divorced and nearly dead. We keep each other going, pick up each other's slack when we're having a bad day/week/month, and keep each other energized throughout the day. I'm sure you can do it alone, but I wouldn't want to.
- cardine 14y ago
  I'm glad that you and your co-founder help each other do that. Some people can self motivate, have enough self confidence to avoid startup depression, talk to other company owners in the industry on a daily basis, and have enough cash to hire employees from the beginning to do work that the single founder isn't as good at. This "everyone should do it this way" attitude is stupid. For some people having a co-founder is necessary and for some it isn't.
  - nhangen 14y ago
    It's a shame I can't downvote your post. Such a smug attitude, and so unnecessary. There's not one spot where I said 'everyone should do it my way,' and your first paragraph is a rather astonishing ad hominem attack EDIT: I've done some more thinking about this, looking to the times when I wished I was a solo founder, and I've come to the realization that the entire thing is situational. My co-founder and I are co-founders because that's the way things worked out. For others, it might happen the opposite way. We've already identified our differences and understand that eventually we'll have to make new decisions based on our dissimilar visions for our own personal futures. I completely recognize the desire and drive to be the captain of your own ship.
earroway 14y ago
Glad it worked for you, Ryan. You makes some very valid points, especially in #3. As I am learning daily, techpreneurship has so many facets from the core technical, to biz dev, sales and day to day activities. Can be overwhelming to go solo (assuming one has all the various abilities). Though I am not personally sold no the idea of having a co-founder, I think it helps to bring in folks to augment as needed.
jermaink 14y ago
Let's ignite a candle and hug each other. And then let's watch Bob Ross painting a sunset lake.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
Fascinating discussion, one of the nice things about multiple founders is you get to hear people who don't agree with you. I've found a huge number of people 'self edit' around the boss, even when you tell them not to. So when you're doing something stupid you really need to hear that from someone else because if it was obvious it was stupid to you, well you wouldn't be doing it. That is something that always impresses me about teams with a solid level of trust, they can talk about anything. They trust that everyone wants the same thing, success for the endeavor and nobody worries that someone is trying to make them look bad in front of someone else or to the team.
benatkin 14y ago
The title of the article is plainly and simply wrong. The you is every prospective founder of a tech company. A fraction of this group of people can build a company to the point of testing their hypothesis. A fraction of this fraction can do that without a cofounder. Besides that there are some good points in the article, it's fairly well written, and being a solo founder has put its author in a good position.
zacman85 14y ago
I went through YC as a solo, first-time founder and I would not recommend it to anyone. Despite working the hardest I have ever worked in my life, I barely made it through Demo Day, and my Demo Day presentation was not exactly riveting. Furthermore, after Demo Day, you still have to continue building the business. Solo, first-time founders will undoubtedly lack the emotional support systems necessary to give them even a baseline sense of sanity and the mental clarity to persevere. They are far more likely to make stupid and irrational decisions. It was not until I found a cofounder, long after YC, that our company began to behave even remotely like a normal company. Having a cofounder to share the load with has unforeseen compounding value that one does not have the awareness of to offset in their first company. Maybe in a second or third company you can pull it off by planning around the repercussions of being a solo founder. Unfortunately, without previous experience, you will have no idea how to do that.
freework 14y ago
I think single founders have it hard because in order to succeed, you need both introvert and extrovert personalities present. Most people are either one or the other. You need one brain thats social and salesman-like. You need another brain thats analytical and details-oriented. Some people (such as myself) are terrified of the idea of going to a party to meet people and make connections. But I have no problem obsessing over a problem that needs solving. Other people love going to parties to meet new people, but would hate the idea of staying home all weekend to fix a technical problem. You really need both 'types' of people to have both types of tasks covered.
- cardine 14y ago
  Introverts can still be authorities in their field and have a big influence over others. And they can capitalize on this influence. A small company doesn't need to be doing all of its biz dev at parties or social gatherings.
jeremyjh 14y ago
I think a co-founder would be great, but I'm afraid I'd have to totally re-arrange my life at this point in order to find one. It would be like dating. It would take up a long time where I wouldn't get as much work done, and I'd still end up hooking up with someone I wasn't anywhere near 100% sure of.
saddino 14y ago
Although I am in agreement, I believe it best to re-emphasize the qualifiers for such an endeavor (totally IMO): 1) A single founder must have already had an exit; 2) A single founder must be able to speak to their own weaknesses and address how to balance those to potential investors; 3) A single founder must have domain experience. Finally, although most people anticipate a single founder as a CEO with technical skills, I believe that a better single founder is a CTO with business skills. But I guess we'll see where I end up... ;-)
dorkitude 14y ago
IMO whether or not you have good cofounders correlates pretty well to whether or not you'll be able to hire good employees.
justjimmy 14y ago
Ryan has built businesses before Treehouse - ThinkVitamin and Carsonified for example. He knows the people, has the connections, the talent pool to pick from. PG's YC (using YC since that's the case being used) are tend to be populated with fresh/younger people, who probably never ran a business prior to YC. Not really fair to try and compare the two and draw conclusions that will blanket the other side of the argument. Are you going to succeed right out of college as a single founder with your very first business? Probably not. Would you succeed if you had decade of experience under your belt, built previous successful businesses, know the industry, know the players, and etc? Most likely.
- erichocean 14y ago
  Agree, with one exception: pg isn't arguing about "success", he's arguing that single founder companies (which he further qualifies to mean "and that have no early employees") will not, statistically speaking, grow into large companies. Of course, pg's stacking the deck by disallowing early employees for solo founders (which he does by claiming that early employees are "founders", and thus, support his multi-founder hypothesis). I do think it's correct to say that companies without employees are rarely very large, but this doesn't seem all that insightful. The more interesting question is why pg disallows solo founders with early employees? The vast majority of large, successful companies actually fall into that camp, and not the multi-founder camp, of which Google is a large, successful example. To pg, a "founder" is apparently an early employee who (a) wants the company to succeed, (b) plays some kind of "important" role (e.g. is not a janitor), and (c) has some skin in the game to benefit from "success". I think that's far too broad, and that we should call them early employees with equity (i.e. what they are), not "founders" (what pg apparently wishes them to be).
hahahahhafun 14y ago
The title shows us the Tragedy Life Of A Lonely IT Guy...
seeingfurther 14y ago
He didn't start a business as a single founder. He had his wife, and I don't mean as moral support, I mean as a defacto founder. To quote his wife Gillian's own blog... " I left publishing to start a business with my husband. We sold that company and we now run an online training company called Treehouse"
just2n 14y ago
I'm sorry, but this just comes off as a guy ranting about how he defied Graham so that he would have more equity and no one to question his decisions. You know what that says to potential hires and the rest of us? "Huge red flag."
marcamillion 14y ago
I am curious, Ryan says: > This is also why I don’t ever want to take Treehouse public. I hate the idea of having to answer to outside investors who don’t have day-to-day knowledge of the challenges and opportunities we face. They also don’t share the insane passion that I have for the business. But Treehouse has raised $5M. How did that work? What outcome are those investors looking for? If you didn't want to go public, then what did you sell the investors on? Seems to me that you are weakening your hand - because any potential acquirer knows that your options are limited because you don't want to go public. What's the point of publicly disclosing something like that? Given that VC investing is a hits driven business, I can't see any rational investor being satisfied with you not swinging for a large outcome for them. Given that you own 70% of your company, if we make the simplistic assumption that you sold 30% for $5M - which would give you a $16M post-money valuation...you would have to sell to Google or some other deep pocket for almost $40M just for them to double their money. Assuming this doesn't happen for 5 years, those returns look paltry. What is the end game for them? P.S. If you never told them that you didn't want to swing for the fences, then this must be a sucky way for them to find out.
- millennia 14y ago
  An exit is not the only way for a company to return money to investors. If it makes money it can pay the a steady stream of dividends.
  - rpm4321 14y ago
    As a practical matter, how would this work? Wouldn't there have to be a fair amount of upfront and unique legal legwork to put something like this in place? Would the investors be guaranteed a certain percentage of any money Carson takes out of Treehouse? I'm pretty much allergic to the idea of answering to a board, shareholders, and and analysts myself. 37 Signals seems to have an interesting idea about how to compensate employees in the unlikely case of a liquidity event, but some sort of structure that would allow profit sharing, without requiring a path to IPO or acquisition would be great: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2987-an-alternative-to-employee-optionsequity-grants http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2987-an-alternative-to-employ...
david927 14y ago
What makes some start-ups succeed where others fail is so poorly understood that superstitions start to creep in -- such as this one: that a co-founder is needed. It's widely believed and utter nonsense. Worse, it leads people to find co-founders artificially and to accept a co-founder when they would be much better served going it alone. When you add a co-founder, you might have increased your chances of success but you certainly have increased your chances of failure.
zupa-hu 14y ago
The article being #1 on the front page tells a lot about how much driven (we) solo founders really are! ;) Go for it!!!
ludicast 14y ago
Since dropbox's valuation might be bigger than that of all the other YC companies (including airbnb) combined, it serves as blazing evidence that you don't need a cofounder. Possibly the truth is that singlefounder companies have more struggles but are capable of bigger wins (which is what investors should want). Kinda how many succesful dyslexics (like Ari Emmanuel) credit dyslexia for their success. The fact is that many of the extraordinary people YC looks for are often written off by YC's own bias against single founders. That's silly, but in the end it hurts YC more than the founder, because of all the other Dropboxes they miss out on. So forgive them for knowing not what they do. An investor usually has only one chance to pass or invest, whereas the entrepreneur has many chances to succeed. Single founder or not, if you are tenacious you will keep having chances for as long as you are willing to fight. Many more chances than any one investor does.
dschiptsov 14y ago
From you own point of view it is much better to be the only boss - share nothing, nothing special. From the point of view of any investor, investing in a single-founder is a much higher risk. In case of any accident the second founder could be of some use, where in a single-hero case it would be a guaranteed lose. Another issue is that smart investor would try everything in his power to engage all co-founders in a competition, a standard manipulation about position and respect. Very useful technique. So, it seems possible to do things alone, and a lot of people do, but investing in a single-founder startup is too risky - there is a single point of failure.)
zerostar07 14y ago
It may just be down to logistics. In the past starting a company just required more time in the beginning phase (i.e. someone to build the hardware while someone else writes the code and someone else does bureaucracy). Nowadays, with the cloud, the outsourcing of all kinds of work, accounting and legal stuff, you can build a company literally in a day.
liquimoon 14y ago
So, I created a FB group for solo founders: http://www.facebook.com/groups/390441457703323/ http://www.facebook.com/groups/390441457703323/ It would be great to have a group where we can share experiences and motivate one another. Remember, just because you are a solo founder doesn't mean you have to work by yourself. Would appreciate if you up vote tomorrow around 2pm EST. Thanks!
jamesmcbennett 14y ago
From what I've learned, Don't find a co-founder because most internet reports say that a business needs two co-founders to be sucessful. (Despite statistically proven) I would of have be much leaner/faster going solo and not worrying who number 2 was, and did the vast majority of work early on anyway of which those co-founders left. If you know the task you need a co-founder to do, find a co-founder... otherwise keep moving and find a co-founder/employee later...

534 points by ryancarson 14y ago

You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

bsims 14y ago

Everyone commenting on this thread should read Founder's Dilemma to at least give some statistical information about success rates of founding teams. http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundation-Entrepreneurship/dp/0691149135 http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Dilemmas-Anticipating-Foundat... Regardless of one's opinion of solo vs team, statistically it is easier with co-founders. That doesn't mean it can't be done solo, but you have better odds. And YC makes investments so why wouldn't you play the odds?

calgaryeng 14y ago

I'm with ya - you just have be slightly crazier than any "normal" entrepreneur :)

namank 14y ago

Doesn't exactly instil confidence when "You can do it alone" is prefaced by "The Naive Optimist". That said, upvoted!

ryancarson 14y ago
The only way to survive is to be naively optimistic ;)
- fitandfunction 14y ago
  It takes a certain amount of "willful naivete" to try anything new and uncertain. Doesn't mean you're an idiot to the facts. Just means that you're willing to temporarily overlook short-term problems / obstacles to pursue a long-term goal. I'm with you on this one

muratmutlu 14y ago

I think that many founders won't be in the same position as you as having come from a successful business and be well known and respected in the industry. I think either way is cool, I'm happy to share 50% with my co-founder because money isn't my primary goal and he's a fun and clever guy to work with which makes the journey even more enjoyable

bencoder 14y ago

Somewhat off topic but I'd like to ask about this: > We’ve grown from three people to 54, and $0 revenue to $3.4m+, all in just two years. I'm completely naive about these things and I'm not involved in business, but isn't this very risky? That equals to only 63k/head revenue. I guess this is banking on future growth but is this a standard pattern for a growing startup?

ryancarson 14y ago
We're not profitable yet. That's the whole reason we raised $5m in Apr 2012: To increase head count faster than revenue growth.
- photorized 14y ago
  You think revenue will follow?
  - matwood 14y ago
    His actions of hiring ahead of revenue say yes. Investors giving him $5M show they think the same thing. Actions always speak louder than words.
- tbrooks 14y ago
  I think you should change the pricing from per month to per course. You'll be able to do more price testing, make more profit, and I bet your customer LTV will increase as well. Have you guys thought of this or are you totally committed to monthly SaaS model?

vlokshin 14y ago

I think I speak for most young, yet-to-be-successful, founders when I say: I'd rather keep 15-30% of something that has a 5% chance of success than 70-100% of something that has a .01% chance of success. I thoroughly believe doing it alone (even if you're REALLY good) is a .01% chance, and doing it with complementary talents that have skin, heart, reputation in the game brings that up a ton. That being said, congrats on being in the 0.01% of that equation.

ryancarson 14y ago
You act as if I knew Treehouse was going to be a success. When we launched it I had no idea if we'd make it.
- vlokshin 14y ago
  No no, I'm not being sarcastic in the congratulations. I just actually think the single vs. co-founded projects are vastly different in % chance of success. I do think the difference really is .01% to 5%, sorry if I wasn't being as tactful as I could've been in delivering the message. I haven't hit a success yet, but I've tried to put the puzzle together alone and with others. I think it'd be a lot harder to do alone. We disagree there, and as of today, you have a lot more credibility than I do -- and it's ok to disagree. We've all got 100 different factors in the equation, not just 1 control to tweak. That's why different shoes for different feet are a-ok :)
  - ryancarson 14y ago
    I wasn't offended at all :) Just pointing out that I was taking the same risk as I had no guarantee of success.

goldfeld 14y ago

The point I find to ring the truest with me is that of a single life goal. If your startup is the love of your life, your ultimate passion and purpose on Earth, it gets very hard to find someone to share in on that passion. And taking someone on board for half equity because they see it as an exit opportunity doesn't feel right.

ryancarson 14y ago
Agreed. It's very hard to completely align.
cardine 14y ago
This is the primary reason I am a single founder. I am extremely passionate about the company I run and have a very clear vision for what I want this company to accomplish and I do not want to have to fight for this vision with a cofounder or a board.

rauljara 14y ago

"I believe Paul and David are stressing the importance of co-founders because they’re talking about young founders with no previous business experience." "I funded the business with cash from my previous business" Ryan has thoroughly convinced me that if you've run some successful businesses in the past, it's probably better to go it alone your new one. However, I don't think he convinced me that PG was wrong (and I'm not sure he was trying to), just that PG's advice doesn't necessarily apply to serially successful entrepreneurs. All of PG's cautions about the dangers of going it alone still seem completely valid. However, it's not like there aren't dangers to having a co-founder (the marriage analogy, though a little cliche, is cliche because it rings true). I suppose, as with all things, the thing to do is take stock of your own particular situation and weigh the risks. But if you don't have direct experience overcoming at least some of challenges PG refers to, a co-founder still seems like the more sensible route.

jonathanjaeger 14y ago

Mark Suster agrees that you don't need the 'typical' co-founder split. Here's his take: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder-mythology/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/05/09/the-co-founder...

hknews 14y ago
That's a great link that describes the common problems of having multiple founders! If your technical "circle" already includes people that you want to be co-founders with and you guys agree to start something because the chances look good, then this is a powerful situation to start from -- better than being a single founder. But if you don't have that "social infrastructure" established (and you have not been hanging out with that type of crowd), then just adding a co-founder may cause more problems than helping.

timedoctor 14y ago

A big factor if you are trying to succeed while doing it alone is can you hire a great team to complement your skills. This usually costs more money in the beginning stages in salaries than having a co-founder. It means the founder must have some money behind them and usually means they must have succeeded in business before.

ryancarson 14y ago
Exactly. This is why I used cash from my other business to bootstrap.

petenixey 14y ago

As I think Ryan would be the first to agree, he may have built Treehouse on his own but his early businesses have all been very much built with the support and partnership of his wife Gill. Ryan has also been a master of bootstrapping businesses upon business. He built Carsonified on the foundation of simple workshops he ran, he built ThinkVitamin on the foundation of Carsonified and he built Treehouse on the combination of both of them. I say that not as a critic but as an admirer. I think he's done a first class job of building his reputation, wealth, influence and expertise through all of these. However I think it's somewhat disingenuous for Ryan to state that because he has done Treehouse on his own, "so too can you". It's what the people want to hear and it will bring the enthusiasm of the bulk of HN readers who are going it alone. However the risk for most startups is not that they will exit for millions and the CEO will only own a paltry 20% of the company rather than 70%. It's that they will die. It has taken me many years to realise it but the presence of a true co-founder dramatically reduces this likelihood. It feels odd writing this all these years later because I knew Ryan at the very start of my career and almost the start of his. I then was a single-founder, he was working with Gill. I feel like we've passed each other going the opposite direction. I gave only a small fraction of equity to my first co-founder and paid a high price for that. I have now come full circle and realise the importance of a good co-founder and of an even split between you. Ryan is right in that he can do it without a co-founder. However if you fit that mold you probably already know that and are running a business quite possibly as the sole influencer already. If you don't then I think there is good reason for the astonishing faith of the valley in the co-founder. There is a degree of group-thought, sure but there are a lot of very, very sound reasons not to go it alone.

ryancarson 14y ago
Hi Pete - great hearing from you. :) Yes, Gill has played a huge role in running our earlier businesses. She has also supported me hugely during the running of Treehouse. But I've shouldered the weight of making all of the big decisions at Treehouse. The buck still stops with me. I wrote this post not as a "anyone can do what I did" post but rather a counter point to the rhetoric that is coming out of The Valley. It's important for new Founders to hear both sides of the argument.

pg 14y ago

You can certainly start a business without a cofounder. What's hard to do, empirically, is to start one that gets really big. There are a handful of counterexamples, like Amazon, but Treehouse is not one of them yet. We have a lot more data about what happens in startups than any individual founder does. What interest would we have in mischaracterizing it?

ryancarson 14y ago
I don't think you're mischaracterizing it (new word for me :D). I'm writing the post out of my own personal experience. I wanted to point out that your advice is optimized for the success of Y Combinator (as it should be). This of course doesn't mean it's good general advice for all Startups. Single-Founders who grow their revenue to medium size ($5-$25m) will usually be extremely happy. They don't need to be doing $100m of revenue to succeed.
- pg 14y ago
  It's rather low to say that I tell people this because it's "optimized for the success of Y Combinator." I was saying it before we started Y Combinator. For example, in "How to Start a Startup" (http://paulgraham.com/start.html http://paulgraham.com/start.html): Ideally you want between two and four founders. It would be hard to start with just one. One person would find the moral weight of starting a company hard to bear. Even Bill Gates, who seems to be able to bear a good deal of moral weight, had to have a co-founder. I already knew then, both from my own experience and from watching other startups, how necessary cofounders were. Since then I've observed the trajectories of over 450 startups YC has funded. I'm even more convinced now that cofounders are necessary. And that you dismiss as "rhetoric" and offer instead one piece of anecdotal evidence that is not even conclusive yet? You do not make a very convincing case.
  - ryancarson 14y ago
    Fair point on the timing of your essay. I didn't realize it was written before you started YC. Can you guys please release your empirical data about the success rates of YC companies, broken down by various things like market, year founded, location, number of founders, etc?

webwright 14y ago

I don't think anyone has ever said that you can't. Just that it's harder and success is less likely. Yes, certainly co-founder add additional risks to the equation and do indeed reduce the magnitude of success, should you find it. But as others have said, the more important # to optimize is your chance of success. I'd love to see data to the contrary versus an (admittedly inspiring) anecdote... All of the data that I've ever heard about (from PG and other sources) seems to support that ideas that people who find a co-founder have a better shot.

ryancarson 14y ago
As PG said in the comment above, businesses with Co-Founders have a better chance of becoming "really big". I'm not sure what data they have about company survival and what "really big" means in terms of revenue and net profit.
- chimi 14y ago
  Ryan, I don't know about you, but I didn't start any of my companies to become big. I started them to be my own boss and achieve the happiness you can only get through control of your time. I wake up when I want to and work on what I want to when I want to. I think both paths can be successful, but each entrepreneur should evaluate their goals and make decisions from there. A single person who has a great idea will probably be better off building that idea into a business fueled by their own passion than they will be by hunting around for someone who will join them in the quest. If you come up with an idea in a group or with someone and it's a shared vision, that's one thing. If you're an individual with a vision that no one around you understands, don't throw it in the trash because you can't find a co-founder. Go build it, make money, and then hire people to fill in the gaps.

duncanwilcox 14y ago

Amen.

Kiro 14y ago

"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." Wow, pg is so wrong. Whenever I get an idea I want to execute it myself. Bringing in friends is not something I even consider.

larrys 14y ago
"It probably means the founder couldn’t talk any of his friends" PG also has an age bias in that statement as it would practically be true only for a certain age group (young, in or recently out of college, without kids) anyway. Someone who is, say, 33 years old, married with two kids and with friends who are in a similar situation (and assuming those friends even live in the same town at the time) would find it quite difficult to pull those people from their possibly established careers (say as an attorney, doctor, or rising manager) to leave on a "startup". Additionally not everybody has a large group of friends who share the same goals and interests. Obviously.

fitandfunction 14y ago

I'd love to see someone (ryancarson or pg?) write a complementary article about "what if you have to do it alone?" In other words, sometimes, it's not your choice to be a solo co-founder. Many people have compared finding a co-founder to finding a spouse. In both life decisions, I don't think anyone seriously advocates for "sucking it up, and going with the least bad option." Sometimes, you're poorly geographically positioned, or in a "strange" market, or later in life (friends are already "matched up" or in secure jobs), etc For myriad reasons, you could sincerely try to recruit a co-founder and come up short. The question then becomes ... do you make the best of it and go for it anyway? Or, is the lack of a co-founder a signal (to yourself and others) that your idea / plan is unworthy? I hope the answer is the former because that is what I am doing. Someone remind me to write this article when I figure it out.

ryancarson 14y ago
I think it comes down to personality. For better or worse, I have a personality that allows me to barrel into big-risk situations and not worry. I don't think it's bravery though, it's closer to naive optimism (hence the name of my blog). If you have no choice but to be a Single-Founder, then it's probably down to whether or not you could survive your startup failing. If you can, then it's down to whether or not you feel happy taking the risk.

eande 14y ago

yes, you can do it alone and I had some success building up my hardware company. But at some point I decided to change and bring in co-founders and our momentum just build up x-times higher. First hand experience tells me too, that starting up a company alone is not only really hard, but slower as well, which these days speed is more crucial than ever. I have to agree on common wisdom and recommendation here that if you want to start a company and create something with impact try to partner up. Finding the right partners is another whole chapter by itself.

dutchbrit 14y ago

I'd hate to have a cofounder. I'd really have to find someone with same amount of passion and who's on the exact same line. I don't like people messing with my vision, having too much control. Don't get me wrong, I listen and take in other people's advise and views, but I want the final say. Also, I think a lot of people look for funding, while they don't even need it, but that's another issue..

liquimoon 14y ago

It's misleading to point out how startups worked in Bill Gates and Steve Jobs era. Then, it really took a team to build anything. The technology has improved drastically. 10 years ago, it requires millions of funding to start a web business. Today, a team of talented developers can build an impressive app in a weekend. Even marketing has become easier. With App Store, it's now possible to have apps distributed to millions of users over night. Yet, our assumption about startups stayed the same disregarding the change of context. Sure, even Steve Jobs had a cofounder. But then what would be the equivalent of building a PC in today’s age? And have that distributed to millions of users in that age? Take into account now it takes a beginner Rails developer 15 minutes to build a blogging app. If the cost of running a startup is going down as technology matures, then it really shouldn’t take a team to build a startup. It should take one guy with a vision, a few freelancers and/or interns. Solo founders are being discriminated against for all the bullshit reasons. Time has changed, technology has matured. It’s time to end it!

18pfsmt 14y ago
There is a lot more to a business than simply making the product.
- liquimoon 14y ago
  True, but even marketing has become a lot easier. Like they say, the 1 million users is the new 100K.

photorized 14y ago

Yes you can. Best part is focus, clarity, and instant decision making. If you feel you have a great idea, just go for it. Don't waste time convincing others.

nodesocket 14y ago

I just applied to TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for http://commando.io http://commando.io and was denied as a single founder. I knew it was a long shot, but had to apply just for the amazing opportunity that is TechStars and the mentors and experience. Being a single founder is bloody hard. Mostly though it is lonely. Nobody to talk with, nobody to bounce ideas around and debate features or implementation with. Should we use MongoDB or Riak? Being a single founder you make all the decisions. Also investors believe if you can't convince anybody else to join your company, than its probably a bad idea. I don't necessarily believe this, since I am myself a single founder. So, why is finding a co-founder hard. I moved up to San Francisco over a year ago, left my pool of friends, and drove up in my car with everything I owned. Finding people in San Francisco that are either not already doing their own startup, or already working at a badass company is extremely difficult. Even more, there is the catch-22, I don't have any capital to pay you, but I have equity. Again, not a really convincing proposition for a rockstar developer or designer. Startups are hard, the hardest thing you will probably ever do. So being a single founder is just not mentally healthy and as productive as having co-founders.

benatkin 14y ago
> I just applied to TechStars Cloud in San Antonio for http://commando.io http://commando.io and was denied as a single founder. I knew it was a long shot, but had to apply just for the amazing opportunity that is TechStars and the mentors and experience. You speak this highly of TechStars, and yet you're still running an LLC?
- nodesocket 14y ago
  What does that have to do with anything? By the way, 37Signals is an LLC.
  - benatkin 14y ago
    http://ask.techstars.org/corporate-structure http://ask.techstars.org/corporate-structure
14y ago

rvivek 14y ago

Startups are a function of the morale of the founder(s). When it becomes zero, the startup dies. And there will be hopeless times when it'll almost approach zero. Empirically, having a co-founder can be a huge boost during those times which in turn means you're increasing your odds of success by playing longer. You can definitely do it alone (kudos), it's all about increasing your odds.

nhangen 14y ago

If it hadn't been for my co-founder, I would be insane at best, and at worst, divorced and nearly dead. We keep each other going, pick up each other's slack when we're having a bad day/week/month, and keep each other energized throughout the day. I'm sure you can do it alone, but I wouldn't want to.

cardine 14y ago
I'm glad that you and your co-founder help each other do that. Some people can self motivate, have enough self confidence to avoid startup depression, talk to other company owners in the industry on a daily basis, and have enough cash to hire employees from the beginning to do work that the single founder isn't as good at. This "everyone should do it this way" attitude is stupid. For some people having a co-founder is necessary and for some it isn't.
- nhangen 14y ago
  It's a shame I can't downvote your post. Such a smug attitude, and so unnecessary. There's not one spot where I said 'everyone should do it my way,' and your first paragraph is a rather astonishing ad hominem attack EDIT: I've done some more thinking about this, looking to the times when I wished I was a solo founder, and I've come to the realization that the entire thing is situational. My co-founder and I are co-founders because that's the way things worked out. For others, it might happen the opposite way. We've already identified our differences and understand that eventually we'll have to make new decisions based on our dissimilar visions for our own personal futures. I completely recognize the desire and drive to be the captain of your own ship.

earroway 14y ago

Glad it worked for you, Ryan. You makes some very valid points, especially in #3. As I am learning daily, techpreneurship has so many facets from the core technical, to biz dev, sales and day to day activities. Can be overwhelming to go solo (assuming one has all the various abilities). Though I am not personally sold no the idea of having a co-founder, I think it helps to bring in folks to augment as needed.

jermaink 14y ago

Let's ignite a candle and hug each other. And then let's watch Bob Ross painting a sunset lake.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

Fascinating discussion, one of the nice things about multiple founders is you get to hear people who don't agree with you. I've found a huge number of people 'self edit' around the boss, even when you tell them not to. So when you're doing something stupid you really need to hear that from someone else because if it was obvious it was stupid to you, well you wouldn't be doing it. That is something that always impresses me about teams with a solid level of trust, they can talk about anything. They trust that everyone wants the same thing, success for the endeavor and nobody worries that someone is trying to make them look bad in front of someone else or to the team.

benatkin 14y ago

The title of the article is plainly and simply wrong. The you is every prospective founder of a tech company. A fraction of this group of people can build a company to the point of testing their hypothesis. A fraction of this fraction can do that without a cofounder. Besides that there are some good points in the article, it's fairly well written, and being a solo founder has put its author in a good position.

zacman85 14y ago

I went through YC as a solo, first-time founder and I would not recommend it to anyone. Despite working the hardest I have ever worked in my life, I barely made it through Demo Day, and my Demo Day presentation was not exactly riveting. Furthermore, after Demo Day, you still have to continue building the business. Solo, first-time founders will undoubtedly lack the emotional support systems necessary to give them even a baseline sense of sanity and the mental clarity to persevere. They are far more likely to make stupid and irrational decisions. It was not until I found a cofounder, long after YC, that our company began to behave even remotely like a normal company. Having a cofounder to share the load with has unforeseen compounding value that one does not have the awareness of to offset in their first company. Maybe in a second or third company you can pull it off by planning around the repercussions of being a solo founder. Unfortunately, without previous experience, you will have no idea how to do that.

freework 14y ago

I think single founders have it hard because in order to succeed, you need both introvert and extrovert personalities present. Most people are either one or the other. You need one brain thats social and salesman-like. You need another brain thats analytical and details-oriented. Some people (such as myself) are terrified of the idea of going to a party to meet people and make connections. But I have no problem obsessing over a problem that needs solving. Other people love going to parties to meet new people, but would hate the idea of staying home all weekend to fix a technical problem. You really need both 'types' of people to have both types of tasks covered.

cardine 14y ago
Introverts can still be authorities in their field and have a big influence over others. And they can capitalize on this influence. A small company doesn't need to be doing all of its biz dev at parties or social gatherings.

jeremyjh 14y ago

I think a co-founder would be great, but I'm afraid I'd have to totally re-arrange my life at this point in order to find one. It would be like dating. It would take up a long time where I wouldn't get as much work done, and I'd still end up hooking up with someone I wasn't anywhere near 100% sure of.

saddino 14y ago

Although I am in agreement, I believe it best to re-emphasize the qualifiers for such an endeavor (totally IMO): 1) A single founder must have already had an exit; 2) A single founder must be able to speak to their own weaknesses and address how to balance those to potential investors; 3) A single founder must have domain experience. Finally, although most people anticipate a single founder as a CEO with technical skills, I believe that a better single founder is a CTO with business skills. But I guess we'll see where I end up... ;-)

dorkitude 14y ago

IMO whether or not you have good cofounders correlates pretty well to whether or not you'll be able to hire good employees.

justjimmy 14y ago

Ryan has built businesses before Treehouse - ThinkVitamin and Carsonified for example. He knows the people, has the connections, the talent pool to pick from. PG's YC (using YC since that's the case being used) are tend to be populated with fresh/younger people, who probably never ran a business prior to YC. Not really fair to try and compare the two and draw conclusions that will blanket the other side of the argument. Are you going to succeed right out of college as a single founder with your very first business? Probably not. Would you succeed if you had decade of experience under your belt, built previous successful businesses, know the industry, know the players, and etc? Most likely.

erichocean 14y ago
Agree, with one exception: pg isn't arguing about "success", he's arguing that single founder companies (which he further qualifies to mean "and that have no early employees") will not, statistically speaking, grow into large companies. Of course, pg's stacking the deck by disallowing early employees for solo founders (which he does by claiming that early employees are "founders", and thus, support his multi-founder hypothesis). I do think it's correct to say that companies without employees are rarely very large, but this doesn't seem all that insightful. The more interesting question is why pg disallows solo founders with early employees? The vast majority of large, successful companies actually fall into that camp, and not the multi-founder camp, of which Google is a large, successful example. To pg, a "founder" is apparently an early employee who (a) wants the company to succeed, (b) plays some kind of "important" role (e.g. is not a janitor), and (c) has some skin in the game to benefit from "success". I think that's far too broad, and that we should call them early employees with equity (i.e. what they are), not "founders" (what pg apparently wishes them to be).

hahahahhafun 14y ago

The title shows us the Tragedy Life Of A Lonely IT Guy...

seeingfurther 14y ago

He didn't start a business as a single founder. He had his wife, and I don't mean as moral support, I mean as a defacto founder. To quote his wife Gillian's own blog... " I left publishing to start a business with my husband. We sold that company and we now run an online training company called Treehouse"

just2n 14y ago

I'm sorry, but this just comes off as a guy ranting about how he defied Graham so that he would have more equity and no one to question his decisions. You know what that says to potential hires and the rest of us? "Huge red flag."

marcamillion 14y ago

I am curious, Ryan says: > This is also why I don’t ever want to take Treehouse public. I hate the idea of having to answer to outside investors who don’t have day-to-day knowledge of the challenges and opportunities we face. They also don’t share the insane passion that I have for the business. But Treehouse has raised $5M. How did that work? What outcome are those investors looking for? If you didn't want to go public, then what did you sell the investors on? Seems to me that you are weakening your hand - because any potential acquirer knows that your options are limited because you don't want to go public. What's the point of publicly disclosing something like that? Given that VC investing is a hits driven business, I can't see any rational investor being satisfied with you not swinging for a large outcome for them. Given that you own 70% of your company, if we make the simplistic assumption that you sold 30% for $5M - which would give you a $16M post-money valuation...you would have to sell to Google or some other deep pocket for almost $40M just for them to double their money. Assuming this doesn't happen for 5 years, those returns look paltry. What is the end game for them? P.S. If you never told them that you didn't want to swing for the fences, then this must be a sucky way for them to find out.

millennia 14y ago
An exit is not the only way for a company to return money to investors. If it makes money it can pay the a steady stream of dividends.
- rpm4321 14y ago
  As a practical matter, how would this work? Wouldn't there have to be a fair amount of upfront and unique legal legwork to put something like this in place? Would the investors be guaranteed a certain percentage of any money Carson takes out of Treehouse? I'm pretty much allergic to the idea of answering to a board, shareholders, and and analysts myself. 37 Signals seems to have an interesting idea about how to compensate employees in the unlikely case of a liquidity event, but some sort of structure that would allow profit sharing, without requiring a path to IPO or acquisition would be great: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2987-an-alternative-to-employee-optionsequity-grants http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2987-an-alternative-to-employ...

david927 14y ago

What makes some start-ups succeed where others fail is so poorly understood that superstitions start to creep in -- such as this one: that a co-founder is needed. It's widely believed and utter nonsense. Worse, it leads people to find co-founders artificially and to accept a co-founder when they would be much better served going it alone. When you add a co-founder, you might have increased your chances of success but you certainly have increased your chances of failure.

zupa-hu 14y ago

The article being #1 on the front page tells a lot about how much driven (we) solo founders really are! ;) Go for it!!!

ludicast 14y ago

Since dropbox's valuation might be bigger than that of all the other YC companies (including airbnb) combined, it serves as blazing evidence that you don't need a cofounder. Possibly the truth is that singlefounder companies have more struggles but are capable of bigger wins (which is what investors should want). Kinda how many succesful dyslexics (like Ari Emmanuel) credit dyslexia for their success. The fact is that many of the extraordinary people YC looks for are often written off by YC's own bias against single founders. That's silly, but in the end it hurts YC more than the founder, because of all the other Dropboxes they miss out on. So forgive them for knowing not what they do. An investor usually has only one chance to pass or invest, whereas the entrepreneur has many chances to succeed. Single founder or not, if you are tenacious you will keep having chances for as long as you are willing to fight. Many more chances than any one investor does.

dschiptsov 14y ago

From you own point of view it is much better to be the only boss - share nothing, nothing special. From the point of view of any investor, investing in a single-founder is a much higher risk. In case of any accident the second founder could be of some use, where in a single-hero case it would be a guaranteed lose. Another issue is that smart investor would try everything in his power to engage all co-founders in a competition, a standard manipulation about position and respect. Very useful technique. So, it seems possible to do things alone, and a lot of people do, but investing in a single-founder startup is too risky - there is a single point of failure.)

zerostar07 14y ago

It may just be down to logistics. In the past starting a company just required more time in the beginning phase (i.e. someone to build the hardware while someone else writes the code and someone else does bureaucracy). Nowadays, with the cloud, the outsourcing of all kinds of work, accounting and legal stuff, you can build a company literally in a day.

liquimoon 14y ago

So, I created a FB group for solo founders: http://www.facebook.com/groups/390441457703323/ http://www.facebook.com/groups/390441457703323/ It would be great to have a group where we can share experiences and motivate one another. Remember, just because you are a solo founder doesn't mean you have to work by yourself. Would appreciate if you up vote tomorrow around 2pm EST. Thanks!

jamesmcbennett 14y ago

From what I've learned, Don't find a co-founder because most internet reports say that a business needs two co-founders to be sucessful. (Despite statistically proven) I would of have be much leaner/faster going solo and not worrying who number 2 was, and did the vast majority of work early on anyway of which those co-founders left. If you know the task you need a co-founder to do, find a co-founder... otherwise keep moving and find a co-founder/employee later...