<story><title>Absolutely, DO NOT, get a co-founder!</title><text>
An oft lamented consern is the difficulty in finding a co-founder.  Next to this is the regular discussion of what kind of founder to get, how to know you&apos;ve got a good one... and all the possible problems that can happen when founders don&apos;t agree.&lt;p&gt;Well, I&apos;m am old man at almost 40 and I&apos;ve spent the last 18 years working for startups of less than 100 people, many of them successful, and almost all of them founded by more than one person-- and in almost all situations I knew at least one of the founders very well. &lt;p&gt;The number one thing that caused the unsuccessful companies to fail was fights between the co-founders.  And the successful ones-- were ones where the co-founders were very harmonious, because they had worked together for &lt;i&gt;years&lt;/i&gt; before founding the company (multiple instances of this.)  Of course, there were also instances where co-founders had worked before and they still fought all the time.&lt;p&gt;A co-founder is not what you need, unless you already have one, and you have as good a relationship with them as the best relationship you&apos;ve ever had with anyone in your life.  If you KNOW you&apos;re not going to have a problem, then great.&lt;p&gt;But for most of you-- those who don&apos;t know others who are as entreprenurial or don&apos;t already know someone - and have known for quite awhile that they would be a good co-founder-- you should not get a cofounder.&lt;p&gt;I know that PG says you need a co-founder, but while his intentions are good he&apos;s slightly off the mark.  Sure, its better to have more than one person in the company... and feel free to call your second thru fourth employees &quot;co-founders&quot; or give them &quot;founders stock&quot;... whatever.&lt;p&gt;But at the end of the day, if its your idea and you are the one who has decided to dedicate the next several years of your life to this project, then found the company and make everyone else who joins you an employee.&lt;p&gt;Employees can have good chunks of stock.  But you gotta have the authority question out of the way.  You have to be a good leader to run a company... and getting people in you don&apos;t know too well works much better when you both know they are employees (Even if they are called founders or whatever, how about &quot;founding team&quot; or &quot;founding employees&quot;.) &lt;p&gt;Its  better for you to have the ultimate say and make a few wrong decisions, than for you and your co-founders to be fighting.&lt;p&gt;Nobody will ever have as much passion for the idea than the originator, and genuinely visionary people understand their idea on a level and in a context that nobody else will ever... thus you have to lead.  &lt;p&gt;Next to Venture Capitalist (who force companies to misallocate funds or go after longshots and abandon sure things), co-founders are the biggest reason companies fail.   And actually its even worse- when you have co-founders VCs like to get involved and start manipulating things. &lt;p&gt;Every time I&apos;ve seen one founder pushed out or marginalized in favor of other founders by the VC firm, the company has not lasted 9 months after that. &lt;p&gt;For an example of the success of a single founder with founderr employees--look at Amazon.com.  Bezos is clearly the founder, and he got engineers in early, they got good stock, but they knew what they were.  The company would be much different if these employees had thought they were equal with the guy who had the vision.&lt;p&gt;So, those who are desperately seeking a co-founder.... stop... employees are much easier to find anyway.  And you can find ones who will take stock as compensation.  (Just don&apos;t be stingy-- I once was in talks with a company who was building out the founding team and offered me %1 stock plus a serious pay cut... I turned them down-- why take the real risk of a pay cut when there&apos;s no equity upside?)&lt;p&gt;Anyway... think about it-- and don&apos;t be held up waiting for that founder... start pressing forward without one and when you need to build your team, bring people on who are ready to follow you... and when their egos are not involved, things will go much better.&lt;p&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The fact that most plane crashes are due to engine failure doesn&apos;t mean planes shouldn&apos;t have engines.&lt;p&gt;All you have to do is look at the empirical evidence.  Successful single-founder startups are so rare that they&apos;re famous on that account.  &lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not saying that having a cofounder is so important that you should take someone lame, or someone you don&apos;t know well.  Maybe if you can&apos;t find a cofounder you&apos;re just screwed; I don&apos;t have enough data yet to say for sure.  But someone going into a startup as a single founder should be aware they&apos;re doing something that, for whatever reason, rarely works.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BitGeek</author><text>The plane analogy doesn&apos;t work because dual engine planes are more reliable than single engine planes... unlike founding teams, engine can&apos;t decide that they want to go in different directions and engines are not insecure, ego driven, or prone to misunderstanding each other.  Nor do engines have investors coming in sowing dissent between them.&lt;p&gt;If you look at the empirical evidence, you will see that most successful companies are started by an individual.  Now, of course, a successful company needs more than one person to be involved-- they need employees. And early employees can be very well rewarded and significant contributors to shaping the idea.&lt;p&gt;But leadership by consensus does not work, as anyone who has belonged to a high school club or organization knows. In a business environment, it is death- the founders never reach consensus and generally they constantly pull against each other, undermining each other and ultimately undermining the company.  &lt;p&gt;Leadership by consensus is quite literally the absence of leadership.&lt;p&gt;When there is a leader, and that leader is capable, the company succeeds.  &lt;p&gt;If you have a pair of people who work well together, then as you concede generally one of them will be the clear leader.  Dividing the work and having each lead sections of the company is fine- if you know the person who you can do that with.   But such people are generally quite rare.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the advice that you must find a founder in order to start a company is bad advice-- in most cases this will lead to the company failing.   There are, of course, examples of pairs of people who co-founded companies together and they are well known because they are the exception.   But the vast majority of successful american enterprises are started by an individual with an idea and the dedication to pursue that idea.  &lt;p&gt;Forming a company takes vision.  It takes dedication and it takes certainty that there is something there- and opportunity to add value that has not already been seen and seized by other entities.&lt;p&gt;This is why leaders who start companies are far more likely to success than friends who decide to &quot;do a startup&quot; and &quot;manage by consensus.&quot;&lt;p&gt;If you don&apos;t have a cofounder already- you shouldn&apos;t be looking for one.  Hire some employees.  &lt;p&gt;But you&apos;re far from screwed-- simply looking at the history of startups in America and you&apos;ll see that single men with vision are most often the ones who succeed.&lt;p&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Absolutely, DO NOT, get a co-founder!</title><text>
An oft lamented consern is the difficulty in finding a co-founder.  Next to this is the regular discussion of what kind of founder to get, how to know you&apos;ve got a good one... and all the possible problems that can happen when founders don&apos;t agree.&lt;p&gt;Well, I&apos;m am old man at almost 40 and I&apos;ve spent the last 18 years working for startups of less than 100 people, many of them successful, and almost all of them founded by more than one person-- and in almost all situations I knew at least one of the founders very well. &lt;p&gt;The number one thing that caused the unsuccessful companies to fail was fights between the co-founders.  And the successful ones-- were ones where the co-founders were very harmonious, because they had worked together for &lt;i&gt;years&lt;/i&gt; before founding the company (multiple instances of this.)  Of course, there were also instances where co-founders had worked before and they still fought all the time.&lt;p&gt;A co-founder is not what you need, unless you already have one, and you have as good a relationship with them as the best relationship you&apos;ve ever had with anyone in your life.  If you KNOW you&apos;re not going to have a problem, then great.&lt;p&gt;But for most of you-- those who don&apos;t know others who are as entreprenurial or don&apos;t already know someone - and have known for quite awhile that they would be a good co-founder-- you should not get a cofounder.&lt;p&gt;I know that PG says you need a co-founder, but while his intentions are good he&apos;s slightly off the mark.  Sure, its better to have more than one person in the company... and feel free to call your second thru fourth employees &quot;co-founders&quot; or give them &quot;founders stock&quot;... whatever.&lt;p&gt;But at the end of the day, if its your idea and you are the one who has decided to dedicate the next several years of your life to this project, then found the company and make everyone else who joins you an employee.&lt;p&gt;Employees can have good chunks of stock.  But you gotta have the authority question out of the way.  You have to be a good leader to run a company... and getting people in you don&apos;t know too well works much better when you both know they are employees (Even if they are called founders or whatever, how about &quot;founding team&quot; or &quot;founding employees&quot;.) &lt;p&gt;Its  better for you to have the ultimate say and make a few wrong decisions, than for you and your co-founders to be fighting.&lt;p&gt;Nobody will ever have as much passion for the idea than the originator, and genuinely visionary people understand their idea on a level and in a context that nobody else will ever... thus you have to lead.  &lt;p&gt;Next to Venture Capitalist (who force companies to misallocate funds or go after longshots and abandon sure things), co-founders are the biggest reason companies fail.   And actually its even worse- when you have co-founders VCs like to get involved and start manipulating things. &lt;p&gt;Every time I&apos;ve seen one founder pushed out or marginalized in favor of other founders by the VC firm, the company has not lasted 9 months after that. &lt;p&gt;For an example of the success of a single founder with founderr employees--look at Amazon.com.  Bezos is clearly the founder, and he got engineers in early, they got good stock, but they knew what they were.  The company would be much different if these employees had thought they were equal with the guy who had the vision.&lt;p&gt;So, those who are desperately seeking a co-founder.... stop... employees are much easier to find anyway.  And you can find ones who will take stock as compensation.  (Just don&apos;t be stingy-- I once was in talks with a company who was building out the founding team and offered me %1 stock plus a serious pay cut... I turned them down-- why take the real risk of a pay cut when there&apos;s no equity upside?)&lt;p&gt;Anyway... think about it-- and don&apos;t be held up waiting for that founder... start pressing forward without one and when you need to build your team, bring people on who are ready to follow you... and when their egos are not involved, things will go much better.&lt;p&gt;</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>pg</author><text>The fact that most plane crashes are due to engine failure doesn&apos;t mean planes shouldn&apos;t have engines.&lt;p&gt;All you have to do is look at the empirical evidence.  Successful single-founder startups are so rare that they&apos;re famous on that account.  &lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not saying that having a cofounder is so important that you should take someone lame, or someone you don&apos;t know well.  Maybe if you can&apos;t find a cofounder you&apos;re just screwed; I don&apos;t have enough data yet to say for sure.  But someone going into a startup as a single founder should be aware they&apos;re doing something that, for whatever reason, rarely works.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>neilk</author><text>The OP is saying that there should be a single person who has final authority. Is this incompatible with having multiple founders?&lt;p&gt;I can imagine a Kirk-Spock sort of startup, where one person excels at making decisions and doing the legwork, and another at providing information and skills.&lt;p&gt;I suppose, in practice, few people can trust someone else to make all the decisions, especially if it&apos;s their future on the line. What&apos;s your experience been?</text></comment>