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OK, no. I appreciate the support for single founders, but this isn't a supporting argument. > If books can be written by one person and become successful. Why

OK, no. I appreciate the support for single founders, but this isn't a supporting argument. > If books can be written by one person and become successful. Why can’t startups? Because books and startups have nothing in common? Lots of successful endeavors are done by a single person, but that doesn't put the efforts of a single person vs. a team on the same footing, /especially/ as the problems increase in difficulty. Here's a better example: "If children can be raised by one person and become successful, why can't startups?" Sure. There are many children who have been raised by single parents and have become very successful. But that doesn't mean /statistically/, this is as easy as having both parents.[0] The point that is being made counter to this is very simple: Yes, starting a startup can be done by one person. As can a lot of things. But statistically speaking, there are more successful startups that have multiple founders than single founders. You already provided the pie charts in support of this argument! Now to be fair, correlation does not prove causation, but the point is generally: Starting a startup is hard. Understanding the needs of your customers and both developing a solution to meet these need and reserving time to convince them that you've met their needs (selling) is very, very hard. One of Ryan Carson's arguments (#2) was in essence that having no co-founders means you can top-down dictate leadership. I don't know about you, but I'm not always right. I've never actually met anybody who's always right. Having a team who's on equal footing with you allows you to vet concepts before they catastrophically destroy your company. To paraphrase Chris Rock: Yes, you can do it without a [co-founder], but that doesn't mean it's to be done. A good co-founder will almost always make your business more successful. And that's all there is to it. [0] http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/outreach/upload/parentalconflict.pdf http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/outreach/upload/parentalcon...

liquimoon 14y ago
Perhaps I should rephrase this. The odds of getting onto the NYT as an author is the probably the same as creating the next billion dollar company. And I think the ease of technology has gone down so much that the amount of effort it takes in writing a book is almost the same as writing a basic web app. So, if productivity gain has improved so dramatically, perhaps we should question our decades old assumptions. It's easy to bring up example like Steve Jobs and Wozniak. But creating a web app nowadays is considerably easier than building the first PC. Even marketing is easier now. So, why is it that we still hold the same belief about starting companies?
- aclimatt 14y ago
  > And I think the ease of technology has gone down so much that the amount of effort it takes in writing a book is almost the same as writing a basic web app. That I agree with. Well, I agree as much as I can, because I haven't written a book, but I have written a few web apps (and have started a company). Let's say for the sake of discussion they're reasonably similar, even if perhaps they aren't. Yes, creating technology is a lot easier than it used to be. Marketing is probably easier as well. But I don't believe whatsoever that building a web app is the same as building a billion dollar business. There are a few examples of business which got lucky, fine, but having started a startup myself, I can say (in line with many others, pg included) that running a company is so much different -- and so much more difficult -- than just hacking up a web app. Steering a company to massive success requires so many difficult decisions and skills that often have nothing to do with your core competencies (unless you're one of those mythical creatures who can 'do it all'), that you need the support of at least one other person who is either A) better at it than you are, or B) can work together with you to figure out how. Those mythical creatures are the 11% in the pie chart, but the other 89% of us need more manpower behind the wheel. Whipping up a Rails app in a weekend is not the same as running a company.
  - liquimoon 14y ago
    The hardest part of starting up is at the beginning. I think once you raise lots of money and have reached product market fit, whether you have a cofounder is not all that important. Yet, the solo founder discrimination starts at the beginning stage. Sure, there is data to back it up. But the sample size is small to begin with given how reluctant they are at funding solo founders. I think the biggest reason is probably once past YC, VC and other investors don't fund solo founders. It's really hard to break the conventional wisdom that all the large companies are started by a team. What I am trying to point out is that this conventional wisdom is deeply rooted in a time when the cost of starting up is very high. So, the real question is if you can build a prototype, gain traction and make revenue, why is it still frown upon that you are a solo founder.
    - aclimatt 14y ago

liquimoon 14y ago

Perhaps I should rephrase this. The odds of getting onto the NYT as an author is the probably the same as creating the next billion dollar company. And I think the ease of technology has gone down so much that the amount of effort it takes in writing a book is almost the same as writing a basic web app. So, if productivity gain has improved so dramatically, perhaps we should question our decades old assumptions. It's easy to bring up example like Steve Jobs and Wozniak. But creating a web app nowadays is considerably easier than building the first PC. Even marketing is easier now. So, why is it that we still hold the same belief about starting companies?

aclimatt 14y ago
> And I think the ease of technology has gone down so much that the amount of effort it takes in writing a book is almost the same as writing a basic web app. That I agree with. Well, I agree as much as I can, because I haven't written a book, but I have written a few web apps (and have started a company). Let's say for the sake of discussion they're reasonably similar, even if perhaps they aren't. Yes, creating technology is a lot easier than it used to be. Marketing is probably easier as well. But I don't believe whatsoever that building a web app is the same as building a billion dollar business. There are a few examples of business which got lucky, fine, but having started a startup myself, I can say (in line with many others, pg included) that running a company is so much different -- and so much more difficult -- than just hacking up a web app. Steering a company to massive success requires so many difficult decisions and skills that often have nothing to do with your core competencies (unless you're one of those mythical creatures who can 'do it all'), that you need the support of at least one other person who is either A) better at it than you are, or B) can work together with you to figure out how. Those mythical creatures are the 11% in the pie chart, but the other 89% of us need more manpower behind the wheel. Whipping up a Rails app in a weekend is not the same as running a company.
- liquimoon 14y ago
  The hardest part of starting up is at the beginning. I think once you raise lots of money and have reached product market fit, whether you have a cofounder is not all that important. Yet, the solo founder discrimination starts at the beginning stage. Sure, there is data to back it up. But the sample size is small to begin with given how reluctant they are at funding solo founders. I think the biggest reason is probably once past YC, VC and other investors don't fund solo founders. It's really hard to break the conventional wisdom that all the large companies are started by a team. What I am trying to point out is that this conventional wisdom is deeply rooted in a time when the cost of starting up is very high. So, the real question is if you can build a prototype, gain traction and make revenue, why is it still frown upon that you are a solo founder.
  - aclimatt 14y ago