I've been a solo developer for many years now. It's definitely a skill that takes time to develop. Almost as much as trying to work with others. The main difference is that other people are much more of an unknown variable.
That first additional worker is a major first hurdle. Putting it off until later can make it even more daunting. Solo-dev means that certain verticals become very easy, e.g. the technicals. But a successful business has 2-3 really important parts that are more "horizontal" like good communication or business skills. Having multiple people really increases the easy of filling in that gap.
In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. From what I've seen, they basically don't and get by because the competition is sparse or they get lucky and they get help from not another founder, but someone that is heavily invested and acts as a strong advisor.
There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. Which is pretty high risk in that it's very sink or swim since those additional skills are unlikely to ever be useful outside of the startup the founder is working on. It's what I opted for, and we'll so how that works out.
What I did is the latter, learning everything. It's really not as hard as it sounds, due to the Pareto principle. I taught myself most of what I needed regarding sales, marketing, and design, enough to sell my products.
Not sure why you say the skills aren't useful outside of the startup, sales for example is extremely good at teaching interpersonal communication.
The main problem with doing it all yourself is the time sink/cost eventually becomes an issue, especially since in my experience communications/marketing/sales and programming/technical work tend to involve exactly opposite working styles and requirements: Programming and other technical work really benefits from long periods of uninterrupted work, whereas sales/customer service/marketing is very 'you work when the work needs done'.
(I'm a programmer who worked in communications a bit.)
Learning all aspects of running a business is definitely plausible, but actually doing all the work becomes a logistical nightmare of opportunity costs very quickly.
>There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer.
It will likely take a lot longer than you expect, sucking your whole life into it. Set a hard stop for yourself ahead of time, so that you know when to quit and try something else in life.
> In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems.
I realized that what I wanted to do is write software — the software that I wanted to write. I don’t want to build a business or an organization or make money.
So that’s what I do. Material luxuries and hedonic treadmills are a trap.
I get your point and also think that optimizing for money may be problematic at the moment. Ideally you should get rewarded(with money)if what you create is of great value to society. But this system seems to be broken otherwise we wouldn't have so many problems. Nevertheless I still think that society will reward you if you make a big contribution.
I always like to poke fun at the “How to deal with being the smartest person in the room/industry/world”-style blog posts that make for common front-page schlock here, but this is a fascinating and relatively rare sub-species of “You ARE the smartest person in the room/industry/world. Anyone that suggests otherwise is ‘considered harmful’”
I love that the extension of this is “making friends considered harmful”, “trusting others considered harmful”, “forming professional relationships considered harmful (unless they’re subservient to your supreme vision, intellect and command)”
False dichotomy. Going out on your own doesn't mean you think you are the smartest person in the room. It's often about freedom. If I decide I want to go biking alone, doesn't mean I think I am the best biker.
I decided to keep going the solo-founder route precisely so that my social circle could be enlarged and enriched. Now I don't have to spend most of my time around tech bros and cofounders whose main interest in business. Instead, I cultivate my social relationships in completely unrelated domains: the arts, community outreach, my physical neighbourhood, religion/philosophy and other hobbies. That gives me both the motivation and the space to think and keep going at the business, because my work fuels something other than itself.
I’m glad that worked out for you professionally and socially, but what exactly are you saying here?
If you had a co-founder you wouldn’t have time for friends that are into art, philosophy, religion, neighborhoods, hobbies?
edit: To clarify, if I had a business partner that cost me that much, I would definitely sever from that relationship. I would consider that a failure of a single relationship rather than waxing poetic about how everybody would cost that much. To do so would be for me to put myself above theoretical individuals because of a single event.
That probably wouldn’t be the sort of error that I would see as reasonable when thinking about anybody I’d maybe do business with…
Interesting, what kind of business are you running that is successful enough to go solo?
I've been thinking about the same thing, but most solo founders or "digital nomads" i've met are actually working in marketing, affiliate or social media, not really coding, or SAAS.
This comment is needlessly harsh on the article. I read this much more as why not consider the opposite view. One of my frustrations with the advice YC and others seem to give is that it is all hearsay and I don’t believe it needs to be that way. Especially for an organisation that prides itself on being scientifically lead there must be a way to show data around most of their claims. The whole point of the scientific method is trying to prevent people from guessing from their perceived experiences because we so easily fool ourselves into believing without the statistical proof to back it up.
This article is also not purely true, I’m certain there are cofounders that work perfectly together and people who are better at selecting them for themselves. I think the stuff about handling high stress situations is very useful and testing that somehow seems like a good idea. I’m not sure how many difficult situations I’ve had with my best friend to be honest, let alone a stranger.
I find it really surprising that a solo cofounder is more likely to succeed. Can anyone refute or confirm this?
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.
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.
Disclaimer: I am an initial founder with a minority shareholding, and it truely sucks (even though the business is a centipede (very very approximately 1/100 of a unicorn).
I'm seeing what you are doing here, people who criticize are often subconsciously perceived as more intelligent and powerful. But apart from your small power move, let me ask you, since there are some stats in the article, what exactly is wrong about the statement ?
If you have a specific destination in mind it is certainly better to remain the captain. Naivity in dealing with other people has killed many great ideas and therefore some warnings are appropriate.
I’m not sure how my clearly-stated poking fun is a “small power move” but are you aware of the irony in your post?
The topic of my post was a benign “I think this article is kind of silly” point. The topic of your response is that criticism is a “power move”? And your impulse is to yourself criticize?
It’s interesting how intense and emotional the criticism of this kind of reasoning tends to be, and your comment is a prime example. It makes me think there is self-interest or some strong ideological basis at its root.
I realize it’s fairly pointless to ask, but why does this feel so threatening to you? Is it “smart person doesn’t need me – can make shitload of money without conforming to my social norms / letting me freeload”? ;)
While I agree with the sentiment, it does need to be said that trying to find a cofounder can be incredibly difficult, and doing it solo should definitely be a consideration.
A lot of talk here about the flaws in the study. I gotta say, founding a startup is not a numbers game, if you see it that way you've already lost. It's about the founder(s): their vision, their judgement, their force-of-will, and most of all, what they do every day. The pros and cons of solo vs group founding are well analyzed, but for your startup, the one trying to build something from nothing, the data tells you nothing, it's just the noise of averages which is utterly irrelevant to your specific situation as a founder. The only thing that matter is what you are doing each day in your vertical. Are you making progress? Do you have traction? Is it working?
I'm not saying solo vs group isn't significant. It is. But you have to make a call and run with it. Reading more articles about it won't help. Everyone's situation is different. Successful entrepreneurs are above all resourceful. Don't get caught playing house.
Agree with you 100%. But note that my comment was not about industry or domain data, it was specifically about the data this article used to suggest solo founding is better than cofounding.
The study this relies on has big limitations that should be noted.
- It is based on Kickstarter data only, which tend to be specific business models.
- The metric of success is a self-reported "still alive" status, not valuation or other size criteria. Results can be equally explained as "solo founders are less likely to officially close failed businesses than teams".
Seems like a business is likely to fall apart if just one of the founders leaves. One founder gives you a success probability of P. Two is P*P. P*P is less than P unless success was 100%.
At the time that one founder leaves... The company with a solo founder fails 100% of the time, whereas the company with 2+ founders frequently survives to keep trying.
This is a not often talked about topic that I'd like more data on, or simply more case studies. IIRC, Y Combinator takes the stance that they'd highly prefer two founders over a solo founder.
Maybe this is exclusively a networking or proximity problem but considering the tech circles I run in internationally, there just isn't an abundant amount of people I want to do business with as partners. And frankly, yes, it is because most people are woefully underqualified.
There are undoubtedly people on HN that you and I run into on a regular reading basis who have more knowledge in a random technical space than most people on the planet. There just aren't a ton of us the further you go in.
Let's not get carried away here, one person working in ANY space in the world for a short amount of time making the right decisions can very quickly become a top 1% knowledge carrier in a field with low intellectual barriers to entry. When you hear people you think are bragging about being a top person in their field, the reality is more like there are only 10,000 participants in 7 billion people on the planet, and 20% of those 10,000 are actively working on their problem.
I've considered cofounders twice, maybe three times, in my life. As far as my experience takes me, they're not frequent occurrences. You will have an expiration on how many life experiences will allow you the affordances to meet these types of people organically.
Otherwise, you need to find a cofounder through a Y Combinator-like space. And frankly, I don't see the value in that other than the immediate logarithmic fall-off of early labor split between two members with skin in the game.
So the probability space is already working against you. I'm certain there is an obvious flaw with my thinking like, having to cofounders with specialties across two spaces is undervalued, but even then you just are not going to run into enough people in your life who you're going to say, yes I want to do business with this person for 10-20+ years. Warren Buffetts and Charlie Mungers or otherwise good friends, true partners in business, are not popping up left and right. You can't pick one up at your corner store Circle K.
Edit: There are other cofounders besides technical ones, but the same truths hold across disciplines as well.
Maybe this is exclusively a networking or proximity problem but considering the tech circles I run in internationally, there just isn't an abundant amount of people I want to do business with as partners. And frankly, yes, it is because most people are woefully underqualified.
I think this is the attitude tech accelerators are actively trying to avoid when they look for startups with more than one founder. The most important thing by far in a startup is the ability of the founders to work with other people - to be successful in an accelwrator you'll need to work with the accelerator team, other founders, investors, people you hire, and your customers. Having a co-founder or two is a strong signal that you can do that. You will have no control whatsoever over who most of those people are, or how "qualified" they might be. You have to have the ability to get on well with them and work with them no matter what.
That doesn't mean you can't be a solo founder and succeed. People do that. It just means you're much less likely to succeed in an accelerator if you can't demonstrate the ability to work well with others.
At the end of the day, I don't think there's a right choice here. Either way we choose to go, with or without a cofounder, starting a startup is just damn hard, and either path has a ton of potential pitfalls, so the best we can do is just pick the path that better suits our life situation/preferences.
FWIW, the actual recommendations in the article are a lot more nuanced than the rather inflammatory title. I for one appreciated it, if nothing more than as something to counter the prevailing propaganda in the valley around how having a cofounder always increases your chances to succeed, even though cofounder conflict consistently ranks as one of the top startup killers. I especially concur with the conjecture that "cofounder dating" (and services that facilitate and encourage it) likely leads overwhelmingly to bad outcomes for the vast majority of cases, and people might have better chances to succeed as a solo founder than to resort to founding with someone they've been on just a handful of "dates" with.
I wonder if it should be "advice" considered harmful in general. There is SOOOOOO much business advice, and taking it all seriously can paint you in to a corner of paralysis.
The problem is that the economy is not a very valid environment in which get useful & timely feedback. It's therefore almost impossible to become an expert. Moreover I think a large part of sucess is people skills.
But there are certainly some key aspects which do help a lot:
- Start with why(Simon Sinek)
- Move (preferably were there is higher return - similar to hill climbing algorithms)
- Discipline, Focus & Persistence
- Improve your social intelligence
- Learn about power dynamics (Power from Jeffrey Pfeffer)
Based on my prior experiences, I am thoroughly convinced of wanting to be a solo founder going forward. I know the statistics of VCs and whatnot are conducive to co-founder startups but I just don't care. It's liberating to work by oneself.
It’s liberating but also tiring. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone to lean on. To commiserate with. To share success with. And no one is perfect. It’s nice to have someone fill in your weaknesses. I solo founded once. I won’t do it again. It’s too lonely. And I’m not even a social person.
I’m not convinced that taking VC money is even a winner if you’re actually trying to build a business because everything becomes so much about either short term or growth at all costs.
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That first additional worker is a major first hurdle. Putting it off until later can make it even more daunting. Solo-dev means that certain verticals become very easy, e.g. the technicals. But a successful business has 2-3 really important parts that are more "horizontal" like good communication or business skills. Having multiple people really increases the easy of filling in that gap.
In fact, I am really curious how other solo-devs solve these problems. From what I've seen, they basically don't and get by because the competition is sparse or they get lucky and they get help from not another founder, but someone that is heavily invested and acts as a strong advisor.
There's also the option of just doing everything yourself by learning to be good at multiple things and taking much longer. Which is pretty high risk in that it's very sink or swim since those additional skills are unlikely to ever be useful outside of the startup the founder is working on. It's what I opted for, and we'll so how that works out.
Not sure why you say the skills aren't useful outside of the startup, sales for example is extremely good at teaching interpersonal communication.
(I'm a programmer who worked in communications a bit.)
Learning all aspects of running a business is definitely plausible, but actually doing all the work becomes a logistical nightmare of opportunity costs very quickly.
It will likely take a lot longer than you expect, sucking your whole life into it. Set a hard stop for yourself ahead of time, so that you know when to quit and try something else in life.
I realized that what I wanted to do is write software — the software that I wanted to write. I don’t want to build a business or an organization or make money.
So that’s what I do. Material luxuries and hedonic treadmills are a trap.
I love that the extension of this is “making friends considered harmful”, “trusting others considered harmful”, “forming professional relationships considered harmful (unless they’re subservient to your supreme vision, intellect and command)”
This reads like a very angry breakup letter.
I decided to keep going the solo-founder route precisely so that my social circle could be enlarged and enriched. Now I don't have to spend most of my time around tech bros and cofounders whose main interest in business. Instead, I cultivate my social relationships in completely unrelated domains: the arts, community outreach, my physical neighbourhood, religion/philosophy and other hobbies. That gives me both the motivation and the space to think and keep going at the business, because my work fuels something other than itself.
If you had a co-founder you wouldn’t have time for friends that are into art, philosophy, religion, neighborhoods, hobbies?
edit: To clarify, if I had a business partner that cost me that much, I would definitely sever from that relationship. I would consider that a failure of a single relationship rather than waxing poetic about how everybody would cost that much. To do so would be for me to put myself above theoretical individuals because of a single event.
That probably wouldn’t be the sort of error that I would see as reasonable when thinking about anybody I’d maybe do business with…
I've been thinking about the same thing, but most solo founders or "digital nomads" i've met are actually working in marketing, affiliate or social media, not really coding, or SAAS.
I wonder if it's feasible.
This article is also not purely true, I’m certain there are cofounders that work perfectly together and people who are better at selecting them for themselves. I think the stuff about handling high stress situations is very useful and testing that somehow seems like a good idea. I’m not sure how many difficult situations I’ve had with my best friend to be honest, let alone a stranger.
I find it really surprising that a solo cofounder is more likely to succeed. Can anyone refute or confirm this?
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.
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.
https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-co-founder-mythology-791...
Disclaimer: I am an initial founder with a minority shareholding, and it truely sucks (even though the business is a centipede (very very approximately 1/100 of a unicorn).
If you have a specific destination in mind it is certainly better to remain the captain. Naivity in dealing with other people has killed many great ideas and therefore some warnings are appropriate.
The topic of my post was a benign “I think this article is kind of silly” point. The topic of your response is that criticism is a “power move”? And your impulse is to yourself criticize?
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I realize it’s fairly pointless to ask, but why does this feel so threatening to you? Is it “smart person doesn’t need me – can make shitload of money without conforming to my social norms / letting me freeload”? ;)
I'm not saying solo vs group isn't significant. It is. But you have to make a call and run with it. Reading more articles about it won't help. Everyone's situation is different. Successful entrepreneurs are above all resourceful. Don't get caught playing house.
Forensic evidence tells nothing to the average joe, but get the right man for the job and they will tell you who is the killer.
The great libraries of the world tells nothing to the illiterate.
Interrogating data is a special skill, requires understanding of both the industru/domain and statistics in general. It actually is rare to have both.
- It is based on Kickstarter data only, which tend to be specific business models.
- The metric of success is a self-reported "still alive" status, not valuation or other size criteria. Results can be equally explained as "solo founders are less likely to officially close failed businesses than teams".
Maybe this is exclusively a networking or proximity problem but considering the tech circles I run in internationally, there just isn't an abundant amount of people I want to do business with as partners. And frankly, yes, it is because most people are woefully underqualified.
There are undoubtedly people on HN that you and I run into on a regular reading basis who have more knowledge in a random technical space than most people on the planet. There just aren't a ton of us the further you go in.
Let's not get carried away here, one person working in ANY space in the world for a short amount of time making the right decisions can very quickly become a top 1% knowledge carrier in a field with low intellectual barriers to entry. When you hear people you think are bragging about being a top person in their field, the reality is more like there are only 10,000 participants in 7 billion people on the planet, and 20% of those 10,000 are actively working on their problem.
I've considered cofounders twice, maybe three times, in my life. As far as my experience takes me, they're not frequent occurrences. You will have an expiration on how many life experiences will allow you the affordances to meet these types of people organically.
Otherwise, you need to find a cofounder through a Y Combinator-like space. And frankly, I don't see the value in that other than the immediate logarithmic fall-off of early labor split between two members with skin in the game.
So the probability space is already working against you. I'm certain there is an obvious flaw with my thinking like, having to cofounders with specialties across two spaces is undervalued, but even then you just are not going to run into enough people in your life who you're going to say, yes I want to do business with this person for 10-20+ years. Warren Buffetts and Charlie Mungers or otherwise good friends, true partners in business, are not popping up left and right. You can't pick one up at your corner store Circle K.
Edit: There are other cofounders besides technical ones, but the same truths hold across disciplines as well.
I think this is the attitude tech accelerators are actively trying to avoid when they look for startups with more than one founder. The most important thing by far in a startup is the ability of the founders to work with other people - to be successful in an accelwrator you'll need to work with the accelerator team, other founders, investors, people you hire, and your customers. Having a co-founder or two is a strong signal that you can do that. You will have no control whatsoever over who most of those people are, or how "qualified" they might be. You have to have the ability to get on well with them and work with them no matter what.
That doesn't mean you can't be a solo founder and succeed. People do that. It just means you're much less likely to succeed in an accelerator if you can't demonstrate the ability to work well with others.
FWIW, the actual recommendations in the article are a lot more nuanced than the rather inflammatory title. I for one appreciated it, if nothing more than as something to counter the prevailing propaganda in the valley around how having a cofounder always increases your chances to succeed, even though cofounder conflict consistently ranks as one of the top startup killers. I especially concur with the conjecture that "cofounder dating" (and services that facilitate and encourage it) likely leads overwhelmingly to bad outcomes for the vast majority of cases, and people might have better chances to succeed as a solo founder than to resort to founding with someone they've been on just a handful of "dates" with.
But there are certainly some key aspects which do help a lot:
- Start with why(Simon Sinek)
- Move (preferably were there is higher return - similar to hill climbing algorithms)
- Discipline, Focus & Persistence
- Improve your social intelligence
- Learn about power dynamics (Power from Jeffrey Pfeffer)
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People act like raising money is easy. It's not.