3 ms·

I've never been as lonely as when I started a one-founder company. Long hours practically made my social life go away. Sure, I hired people, but I couldn't affo

I've never been as lonely as when I started a one-founder company. Long hours practically made my social life go away. Sure, I hired people, but I couldn't afford to hire the people I really wanted to work with. Lessons? Don't start alone. Pick your co-founders really well (think "marriage"). Make sure you have people you really want to work with who are ready to leave their jobs and work for less money because they really want to work with you.

hooande 17y ago
It seems like that approach greatly increases the cost of starting a company. Finding a suitable partner for "marriage" isn't easy...ask any middle aged single woman. It's almost a full time job in and of itself. And then you have to face the herculian task of creating something out of nothing. I think the lesson here is that if loneliness is a big problem for you, you might not want to start your own company.
- wheels 17y ago
  I think the thing is that a lot of entrepreneurial minded folks tend to have a working set of people they wouldn't mind founding a company with. Where, exactly, you find those people or what you should look for in them is a lot more vague before you've started your first company. But ideally you've got some smart friends that aren't completely risk averse before you decide to start a company, and those are probably a good set of folks to bounce it off of. I'm always dubious of people "finding" co-founders through systematic searches. I'd known my co-founder for 3 years before we started our company, and it's amazing how much more you learn when the pressure is turned up. I can only imagine that a lot of startups fly apart at the hinges when there isn't some basic level of getting along that's preexisting.
  - lionheart 17y ago
    One thing that made me luck out in this case was the recession. My old friend, and first employee, is too risk averse to join a startup in a normal environment. But since the company he was working for went bankrupt and he wasn't able to find a job for months, he gladly came to work for me and it has worked out very well.
  - mmt 17y ago
    For those of us who are particularly introverted (contrasting with shy, though, together, they could be a double whammy), this ideal has never existed and probably never will.
    - wheels 17y ago
      Lots of introverts have active social circles. I'm not quite sure what you mean.
      - mmt 17y ago
        How many is "lots"? How introverted are they (on any scale)? How active are they within these circles, and how big are the circles? My point is: intensity introversion introversion inherently limits the the size of any useful social circle by requiring excessive emotional energy to grow beyond that. For me, that size is probably on the order of a couple dozen people, though that's well beyond the comfortable level of emotional expenditure, which is closer to only one dozen. Filtering by technical aptitude (notwithstanding a disproportionately high ratio) and startup compatibility, reduces the number to zero.
    - rjurney 17y ago
      Sole introverts make terrible founders - startups are very social activities, if they go anywhere.
      - mmt 17y ago
        Although, intuitively, I don't disagree, do you have evidence? What about introverted co-founders?

hooande 17y ago

It seems like that approach greatly increases the cost of starting a company. Finding a suitable partner for "marriage" isn't easy...ask any middle aged single woman. It's almost a full time job in and of itself. And then you have to face the herculian task of creating something out of nothing. I think the lesson here is that if loneliness is a big problem for you, you might not want to start your own company.

wheels 17y ago
I think the thing is that a lot of entrepreneurial minded folks tend to have a working set of people they wouldn't mind founding a company with. Where, exactly, you find those people or what you should look for in them is a lot more vague before you've started your first company. But ideally you've got some smart friends that aren't completely risk averse before you decide to start a company, and those are probably a good set of folks to bounce it off of. I'm always dubious of people "finding" co-founders through systematic searches. I'd known my co-founder for 3 years before we started our company, and it's amazing how much more you learn when the pressure is turned up. I can only imagine that a lot of startups fly apart at the hinges when there isn't some basic level of getting along that's preexisting.
- lionheart 17y ago
  One thing that made me luck out in this case was the recession. My old friend, and first employee, is too risk averse to join a startup in a normal environment. But since the company he was working for went bankrupt and he wasn't able to find a job for months, he gladly came to work for me and it has worked out very well.
- mmt 17y ago
  For those of us who are particularly introverted (contrasting with shy, though, together, they could be a double whammy), this ideal has never existed and probably never will.
  - wheels 17y ago
    Lots of introverts have active social circles. I'm not quite sure what you mean.
    - mmt 17y ago
      How many is "lots"? How introverted are they (on any scale)? How active are they within these circles, and how big are the circles? My point is: intensity introversion introversion inherently limits the the size of any useful social circle by requiring excessive emotional energy to grow beyond that. For me, that size is probably on the order of a couple dozen people, though that's well beyond the comfortable level of emotional expenditure, which is closer to only one dozen. Filtering by technical aptitude (notwithstanding a disproportionately high ratio) and startup compatibility, reduces the number to zero.
  - rjurney 17y ago
    Sole introverts make terrible founders - startups are very social activities, if they go anywhere.
    - mmt 17y ago
      Although, intuitively, I don't disagree, do you have evidence? What about introverted co-founders?