Hey, did you hear the good news? You don’t need a Co-Founder to build your company. There is a lot of talk in every startup community about Co-Founder being a requirement to get up and going. Bullshit. Oh, VC’s won’t invest in you if you’re doing it alone? You don’t need a VC to get started either.
If you take a look at all the giants of today, most had co-founders, true. But, so what? When they started, it was an entirely different world. Starting a company was not easy. The money you needed to start was a company in the 80’s or even 90’s, was a lot. Jeff Bezos started Amazon with a loan from his parents of $300,000. That’s a lot. Oh, and he was a single founder. But you don’t even need that kind of money. Pierre Omidyar started Ebay over labor day weekend in 1995 with out much money, as a single founder.
General Herbert Hart
What is our battlefield? We’re facing a different business world today than was faced even 5 years ago and definitely different than 10-15 years ago. We are WW2 generals and we need to build companies of today. The battlefield is the internet. That’s all we have to worry about. Companies used to have to worry about retail, marketing, sales, offices, infrastructure and a lot of other complicated things. We don’t have to worry about any of that. There is no retail. Marketing and sales can be done through tools (SEO, AdWords, etc). Offices are not required. Infrastructure can mostly be outsourced (the Cloud).
What about when I lose motivation? Or, what about when it’s not a success right out of the gate? I might give up. Go ahead and give up. That attitude doesn’t change if you have a Co-Founder. Oh, but my Co-Founder can talk me out of it…bullshit excuses. Get a girlfriend. Call your mom. Call your friends. Go visit some old professors and talk them. Motivation is not a resource that is replenished by only a business partner.
So, what are you waiting for? Oh, you can’t program. Then you need a Co-Founder!
Is a co-founder necessary to get started, or be successful? Absolutely not. Even if you want a co-founder, if you don’t know someone you want to have as a co-founder, by all means jump on in… you’re more likely to meet someone if you’re doing, hustling, and getting stuff done as you will by starting your startup.
That said, I think there is something beyond motivation as to why having a co-founder is so valuable and increases the chance of success. Starting a startup is hard. This means that there is always way more work to to be done, and no matter how amazingly well you do, or how good your motivation is, there will be days when you want to walk away.
Having a co-founder not only means you have someone there whose motivation is probably not down at the same time yours is, but it means there is someone else you’ll be letting down if you walk away. I think that second element actually ends up being even more important… If it is just you that you’ll be letting down, it is much easier to rationalize, find other things that seem like a better idea, and end up walking away when you’re having a hard time. When you’d also be letting your co-founder down, that sense of personal responsibility is a much higher barrier.
I Agree with you. I really do. It’s very very hard to do a startup (and any business). I’m not really saying it’s not hard and the more people around you the better.
I’m along the lines of, it’s going to be hard regardless. Hopefully, you’ve built enough of a support system around you by the time you do your startup that can help get you through those hard times.
Jobs and Woz weren’t partners for long, Gates and Allen separated after a few years. I think the most important thing about a cofounder is not failing alone. You want to go war with someone. It sucks to be a sniper.
If the Internet is the new war, I would suggest raping and pillaging webmasters.
Haha such a great suggestion.