I've cofounded 4 different startups. All were good ideas that bled cash or time and flopped, largely due to infighting or founder differences. One cofounder of one of the companies got really nasty about trying to leave with the rights to the company and we other two cofounders just let him have it. He sold the rights and it's now a successful venture-backed startup with soaring profits (two cofounders). Good for that team.
Since then, I've managed my own single-founder startup. We're profitable, growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range.
I have a lot of other companies I want to start after. I will bring on talented people in executive roles who can complement me and make up for my own weaknesses, but I won't cofound again. I'd rather keep the smart, business-oriented people I know in masterminds where we can compare ideas and bounce thoughts off each other, than wade into business situations where our differences turn us into enemies and destroy the company.
The general wisdom on picking cofounders is pick a behind-the-scenes guy if you're a visionary, or make sure you're comfortable as the behind-the-scenes guy if you're partnering with a visionary. The problem I find (and one I've seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to start startups are visionaries.
> The problem I find (and one I've seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to start startups are visionaries.
It's simpler than that. Most people just prefer slacking off to working their butts off.
However it's the narcissists and sociopaths that will call their slacking off being "visionary" while the good guys either just leave or start working their butts off as everybody else. Obviously you want to pick your cofounder(s) among the latter kind.
Working your butt off has zero to do with having a executable vision that creates value.
Clearly shit needs to get done, but there's only so many hours in the a life of a startup and being able to see what needs to be done ultimately is more important than just getting stuff done.
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"I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."
Oh, I agree that a startup needs an executable vision. However if someone provides just the vision but doesn't put as much work in as everybody else that's an advisory role, not a co-founder role, and should be reflected in the equity distribution.
The thing is that vision is just so much easier than actually doing the grinding grunt work.
> "Vision without execution is hallucination" - Thomas Edison
I like this one better:
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau
Both quotes are getting at pretty much the same point, I think, but the Thoreau quote is kinder, and more encouraging.
Disagree. I've literally run a startup where I took an opportunity I saw, pitched it to a cofounder, got a single client, cofounder did all the work. After year, cofounder was tried of doing work, so I told them how to turn the service into a product and rapidly got five clients; after that, the cofounder didn't have to do anymore work either.
I'm not lazy, happy to do hard work, but if I see an exploitable situation I will not create work just to feel good about things.
Do exactly what needs to be done, nothing less, nothing more.
Footnote: Not a fan of Edison, he in fact was lazy, refused to change, and spent a good deal of his life literally pounding rock to no end.
I didn't exploit the cofounder, I presented them with an opportunity, they were fully aware of the situation. In fact, they were excited about the project, enjoyed the work, and often bragged about it to our friends.
Beyond that, after I told him how to turn the service into a product, I turn something that without me would have had no value after they stopped into something that produced value for years without any major effort from either of us.
EDIT: Truly curious as to the reasoning behind the downvotes and would welcome a comment expressing someone's thoughts on why this comment has received 3+ downvotes.
I believe the reason you're getting downvoted is because of the casual way you reel off how easy it is to found a successful company that you can do it casually, sort of disinterestedly tossing it out of your one limp hand to your co-founding pleb who eagerly grasps at the crumbs of your genius.
In other words, you come off as an arrogant know-it-all.
"I've literally run a startup where I took an opportunity I saw, pitched it to a cofounder, got a single client, cofounder did all the work."
Pretty sure that's why. Also the part where "I told him how to turn the service into a product" is equated with actually doing that work.
Not saying that your contributions weren't important - I wasn't there. Maybe without you getting a client there would've been no business, and maybe your cofounder is super happy with how things turned out, too. But it does read a bit like exploitation, and it definitely raises the question of what things might have looked like if you'd bothered to work as hard as it seems like your cofounder did.
Edit: Also, I think this probably touches a nerve with HN people, many of whom dream of founding their own company and are probably scared of exactly this sort of thing happening to them, but without the happy(?) ending.
You are getting downvoted because you look like someone full of themselves.
You admit you did nothing...
and that your cofounder did everything...
but you refuse to attribute the success of the startup to your cofounder and instead attribute the success to yourself.
You have the audacity to claim that the startup would have been worthless without you, but ignore the fact it wouldn't even exist without your cofounder.
As someone working on getting rid of a cofounder like yourself, where I did all the work and they sat on the sidelines until they saw a product and then decided to reach out to get his share, this shows that you aren't as invested even though you are a cofounder. There's a reason why the "co" is there, because both people are working on founding not one person waiting for the other to do all the work so they can just throw an idea into the bucket every now and then so that they can get a piece of the end result.
I get what you're saying, and i think the whole "you gotta work your butt off to be successful" thing is a lingering noting from workoholic culture. "How many hours you put in?" is the corporate version of "how much can you lift?" And I believe it's not exactly right; working smarter is better than just working harder. But both do entail work.
Then again, isn't there some quote about inspiration and perspiration ;)
Perhaps if he'd managed to skip undergraduate studies straight to graduate school as adviced he'd be wrestling with hard enough problems not to think about writing programs for the upcoming PCs of the era
"Someone else already knows the trade secret for the problem I'm trying to solve, but they won't tell me the solution, because I don't have lots of money. Even if they did tell me, I probably wouldn't understand it, because I lack the perspective of experience." -amorphid
"I have no idea in which direction I need to go, so I'm gonna have to work my butt off to find the right path." -amorphid
"I worked really hard, and found a solution!" -amorphid
The thing you missing is leadership. People won't bust there ass off over and above what they are paid for a lazy person that looks to exploit them. But, if you can work your ass off and have a vision people want to follow with a whole lot of luck you might create something special.
I agree with you. And I also have a tendency, based on a few personal experiences, to associate self-proclaimed visionaries, with narcissistic personality disorder. And it is also my experience that, besides being very active in taking credits for other people ideas, design and work, they are typically lazy and a hindrance.
However, somehow, they're alway seems to be able to find people who will do the job for them, from bench work to CEO work, so they can call themselves successful.
Agree. I didn't mean that the role is not there. It is more about people walking around and saying "I am the architect". I've heard that once. He wasn't joking.
There's nothing wrong with someone saying 'I'm the architect' - if that's what they really are. That said, it might be a power thing.
Now - there's more wrong in saying 'I'm an architect' - because architect really is not a profession, really. I suppose you could kind of get away with saying that if you have a lot of experience, and have been in the role of architect for some time, but it's a difficult thing to say and strains credibility if you were to put it on a resume.
I don't know about the word "visionary" or using it as some sort of self-descriptive label, but I do think it's important for the founders investing their time and effort into a startup to have a vision for what they're really trying to achieve and to dream big. That's obviously not sufficient for success, but I suspect that to some extent it is necessary, given the commitment that tends to be needed from founders and perhaps early employees and how difficult it can be to ride out the rough patches without some sort of goal you believe will be worth it in the end.
> Most people just prefer slacking off to working their butts off.
Representing the individual desire to work for "most people" isn't your job or your right any more than it's my right to say your internal view of the world is totally fucked up if you think that way.
It's all well and fine to mention there are sociopaths in the industry, but colluding them with narcissists is unreasonable. Narcissism is simply the ability to externalize one's internal viewpoints in a way that tend to spread that same viewpoint to other's internal views, often at times without empathy for those who it infects. If that benefits the company, whose function is to make everyone there more money, then narcissism may a required trait of the company's leader. If someone can't accept that for themselves, then they should leave the company or never join to begin with.
The whole sociopath matter is another thing entirely. Sociopaths can be untrustworthy, which makes dealing with them problematic.
Somebody worked their asses off to give us an immutable infrastructure on top of which our reality runs. I think rationalizing people being lazy (and speaking for their laziness) is a poor way of approaching things, unless we all just want to be lazy. If that's the case, carry on! :)
Taking a "big salary" is just a symptom of not being careful with how we implement consciousness on the Internet. Taking a moment to appreciate what one has in this moment is far more important than what one may have tomorrow.
Interesting data point. However, we're happily chugging along with 6 co-founders, bootstrapped to currently 30 mln us$ valuation and we've only just begun.
Then again, your point about "visionaries" (with which you probably mean high-ego people needing a lot of approval) rings true to me. We're all pretty low-key hard-working people with a lot of self-reflection and humility - also it helps it's not the usual failing friends, family or uni buddies combo but we're really more of a casting band with a team mixed and matched from industry professionals by our main founder.
In this very setup, it's actually very enjoyable with a lot of pros: Scaling is much faster and easier with invested veterans at the helm, all important departments are headed by founders, also having same-level people in the same company helps enormously with the more difficult decisions and just professional exchange, growing as leaders and 1-1 mentoring. If - and only if - the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication, this is an amazing way to work and learn.
As someone who actively works researching personality psychology, I can fully attest to this.
There actually seems to be somewhat of a Dunning-Kruger like effect when it comes to people evaluation skills. Generally, those who appear the most confident about their people judgements, also seem to be those who are wildly speculative and inaccurate about what other people are thinking.
'Not knowing what someone else is thinking' - is completely different from 'knowing human nature'.
For example, people tend to be a little lazy, or tend towards 'doing less'. If one could get 100K for sitting on one's butt - most people would take the offer. Some people would rather work, or do something more creative.
This is different from being able to 'read' people.
Yes, but unfortunately people tend to make a lot of critical decisions based around what they interpret other people's motives to be; leaving out that bit of human behavior from the equation can be a big deal.
One ceo may may look at a worker exhibiting stereotypical output of a "lazy" person and decide this person must not care about their work and thus should be fired. Meanwhile another may see this as a symptom of burnout from caring about their work too much and decide the worker should get some time off to relax. Regardless of who's interpretation is correct, it is a decision than can have a big impact on a person.
The behavioural economics approach is definitely worth keeping in mind regardless of people-reading ability, but we should be weary of interpreting such things as being too 'directly applicable' in anything other than very generalized circumstances. Unfortunately, I've seen my fair share of cases like the example I stated above, so it is worth remembering that there is no such thing as "the average person". Not to say there aren't definite patterns of behavior of course, but that's a whole other conversation.
Yeah, I am weary of the slobby fat guy with bad manners being perceived as 'lazy' - those guys can be just as much the opposite of that as any other.
I agree with most of what you say, but I disagree that there isn't such a thing as the 'average person', or rather, we are animals, somewhat predictable, not that unique.
> we are animals, somewhat predictable, not that unique.
Oh I agree completely, didn't mean to give the impression I advocate the "special snowflake" view of the world either. My apologies! My entire field of research is practically based around our predictability ;)
What I meant to say rather, was that while there are definite behavioural patterns, they tend to cluster into discrete groupings, rather than being broad and generally applicable traits that can be used on everyone across the board in aggregate (i.e. a singular "average person"). There are certainly many 'trivial' human traits we all share in common of course, but I've found those to be less helpful in personal decision making situations than more specific correlated traits. But then again, I might be a bit bias given that's my area of expertise :)
You admit you have a main founder. Does this main founder have sorta ultimate authority? Or does he hold the singular original vision from which everyone else's vision/mission/purpose comes from?
What's the equity split like among the 6 of you?
What created that base of trust you describe? Was it everyone agreeing to follow the "main founders" vision, and him being respectful and not ego driven (so that the vision became shared?)
> Was it everyone agreeing to follow the "main founders" vision, and him being respectful and not ego driven (so that the vision became shared?)
Pretty much exactly that plus providing the seed round. In practice, this also definitely had a lot to do with things working out well to have a center piece that's stable, predictable and a little detached, quite the opposite of a show-off. Buying into a main vision and then transferring it into a vision for tech, marketing, sales, product and operations was much easier that way.
Equity split was 50:others by the way.
Now you might argue this isn't a "real" as in "more equal" cofounder dynamic, but giving away 50% of your company before even starting and then treating those people as equals made a lot of difference, including an enormous buy-in at all key builders of the company. After having experienced how well it played out, I'd do it the same way.
What's the salary dispersion among the founders? It sounds like you've solved one of the main issues that prevents good people from leaving their stable jobs to found startups, which is providing actually meaningful equity to a base of qualified and capable people instead of hoarding it between 1-2 founders and investors, leaving only fractions of a percent for the earliest employees.
I'm curious if you also cleared the other huge hurdle: giving up 70% of individual earning power for what is essentially a lottery ticket.
Personally, I think the buck has to stop somewhere, and it's more important to be united in a vision than to be right, or to be struggling for what's right. At the same time, it doesn't work when the person with whome the buck stops is authoritarian. I respect someone who is wrong who at least has a reason for being wrong based on their perspective of the situation. But I can't abide someone who is wrong and who forces the startup to do the wrong thing because they have the authority of position. I find those people are not going to be predictable in the mistakes they make, and more importantly the will not recover from them.
I asked the questions because I think you might be onto something, a way to split things up and have genuine founders without the "everyone gets 1/n of the equity" equality that leads to strife.
Him putting in the seed round and other contributions necessary to give him the weight that makes it a valuable deal for everyone also seems to be a key element in your situation.
> If - and only if - the base of trust is there and continuously honed through communication, this is an amazing way to work and learn.
This is the key, and something narcissist don't do. It's against their nature. They thrive at hugging communication and controlling the flow of information.
I have been self employed for 17 years as a 1-man consulting shop, and enjoy working alone.
I have just started a product activity (making things and selling them to end-users) and can do the work by myself (I design, and then the actual making is done by factories) -- but for the first time I miss someone to talk to, someone with which to explore business ideas and options.
Maybe a co-founder wouldn't help much because they would have a vested interest in the discussion, though.
Thank you; I had never heard the term mastermind in that context before. Is it a well-known concept? The second result when googling "startup mastermind" is the post you mention, and the first one is... a reddit thread pointing to that same post.
But the idea is exactly what I would need, so thanks!!
Glad to help. I've been in one for about a year or so, and can't recommend it enough.
Not sure how known the concept is, but I think it is fairly well known, especially if you run a bootstrapped startup. And if you're listening to the podcast Startups For the Rest Of Us (recommended!), I'd say it's probably close to 100 percent. One way of finding people for your mastermind is to visit the MicroConf conference, run by the same people as the podcast. (It's a lot easier getting a ticket for the European conference than the US one.)
I have found that spending time with clients (users in the trenches especially) is enough conversational stimulation I need. I know I'm encouraging the idea of seeing trees instead of the big picture forest ... but as a lone workhorse resource, you want to avoid non-actionable ideas like the plague.
>We're profitable, growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range
If you positvely have a feature pipeline that is going to increase the value of your company ten times in less than two years, why isn't that the valuation now?
Because no one is certain it's going to reach that valuation. The expected value (chance times possible value) is presumably what makes up the current valuation.
> I've cofounded 4 different startups. ... Since then, I've managed my own single-founder startup."
My suspicion is without the previous cofounded failed startups, unlikely you would have the success later in the game because then you know what you are doing and making up the other half by experience. Can't imagine the success rate of a first-time solofounder who makes to the other side. It's not impossible, but probably very difficult.
> Since then, I've managed my own single-founder startup. We're profitable, growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range.
Did you raise any capital on that one? Or was it bootstrapped + growing?
We've taken no capital. After the experience of losing control of the cofounded businesses, the last thing I wanted was to bring in investors who'd be staring over my shoulder or telling me what to do.
I'd be open to taking capital on a future project, simply because I'm experienced enough now to know what our upside is and what percentage and how much control I'd be comfortable parting with, and for how much. On this present project, I haven't even bothered to explore it, because we have our trajectory over the next 1.5 years mapped out and everything we want to do we can pay for with profits already, so there's not a lot of incentive to take months off from driving the business forward to go shopping around for investors instead.
> pick a behind-the-scenes guy if you're a visionary, or make sure you're comfortable as the behind-the-scenes guy if you're partnering with a visionary
What's your take on the situation where you are both? (Where somebody is visionary, "knows business" and codes as well.)
Depends on what your end goal is and what you're starting with. If the goal is to get big and you have funds (or funding), you can be a single founder and just look for a couple of talented people, or perhaps one right-hand man, to take over the roles you're weakest in or that slow you down the most.
If your goal is to get big and you don't have funds or can't attract funding, you'll probably do best to look for a cofounder who's comfortable in the behind-the-scenes roll. If you don't have money but there're two of you, and you complementary and on the same page, you'll grow a lot faster than if you don't have money but there's one of you. The situation I ran into was not having money, and having cofounders who were not on the same page with me - that kills companies.
If you don't have money but just want a lifestyle business, then it's fine to be a single founder. You'll grow slower, but have freedom, and if all it's about for you is freedom then that'll be fine.
It can still be nice to have one, one guys schleps are another persons hobby. Like I'm good at analysis, but bad at dealing with third-parties. The guy I'm working with is good at dealing with third-parties but is a bit slower at dissecting problems. No worries. There's a number of different other pairings of this kind too, some areas where we have overlap, some stuff one of us needs to figure out, some both of us need to learn. And I think that's pretty cool.
Agreed 100%. I could have started my company alone; but then I would've been stuck doing payroll, HR, mediating employee conflict and all that nonsense. My partner is a people person, and I'm not. It works out really well and my staff are happy to not have to deal with me directly (I can be a bit brash).
Not OP, but I'd say consider if you really are all those things. Very few people are, even Zuckerberg isn't, he was a competent coder not a great one but a visionary for sure.
Ultimately no one can have it all, learn to focus on the strengths, though if truly all of those are your strengths break forward and absolutely kill it.
There's simply not enough time to do all those things yourself. Find someone "good enough" in one of those areas and have them take over main responsibility.
I wouldn't think so. What they gain in wisdom they lose in baggage.
It's like the success rates of 2nd marriages are worse than 1st marriages. You would think that people would get smarter with their 2nd, but it's not the case.
5 years. Lots of stumbling around in the dark and making dumb errors before I got serious about ramping the business up and making it a legitimate contender in its niche last year. The first 3.5 years were mostly learning the market + learning how to succeed (and how not to) in business.
> "I will bring on talented people in executive roles who can complement me and make up for my own weaknesses, but I won't cofound again. I'd rather keep the smart, business-oriented people I know in masterminds where we can compare ideas and bounce thoughts off each other, than wade into business situations where our differences turn us into enemies and destroy the company."
Absolutely. I cannot agree with this more.
I don't think the issue is about visionaries vs behind-the-scenes guys. The problem is people making decisions outside their domain expertise. If you have a cofounder (eg a recent example from a company I've worked with) with no software experience his instincts are not going to serve the company well. I've seen this happen constantly, including recently with a guy who is humble, very nice, perfectly well intentioned, but has the wrong instincts and has undermined delivery of a product, probably adding 3 weeks to the development time.
The people with the expertise should have authority in those domains. If your CEO/solo founder is an engineer, then the marketing and sales guys should have authority over their areas-- and be held accountable to metrics, not micro-managed. And vice versa.
When you have three co-foundres you have three visions, even if they aren't visionary, and three people empowered to operate according to their vision, and it's a lot easier to just not fight over every little thing... until it blows up or you aren't executing well because you're executing at cross purposes.
With a single founder you have a single authority and a single vision. And thus you can be consistent in your execution.
Since then, I've managed my own single-founder startup. We're profitable, growing, and valued at about $2.2 million. We're implementing a lot more over the course of this year and next, and I will look to exit in early 2018, once our valuation is closer to the $10 million or $20 million range.
I have a lot of other companies I want to start after. I will bring on talented people in executive roles who can complement me and make up for my own weaknesses, but I won't cofound again. I'd rather keep the smart, business-oriented people I know in masterminds where we can compare ideas and bounce thoughts off each other, than wade into business situations where our differences turn us into enemies and destroy the company.
The general wisdom on picking cofounders is pick a behind-the-scenes guy if you're a visionary, or make sure you're comfortable as the behind-the-scenes guy if you're partnering with a visionary. The problem I find (and one I've seen in a lot of cofounder groups) is that most of the people who want to start startups are visionaries.