What are your key reasons to working alone instead of working with a partner/co-founder?
Many people here work alone and I thought of asking - what makes us not want to be joining forces with others?
Many people here work alone and I thought of asking - what makes us not want to be joining forces with others?
It's difficult to find someone with the same vision, passion and work ethic and chemistry who can bring equal but complimentary value to the table.
I'm also a control-freak.
Totally agree.
A partner would need to be just as driven, as smart or smarter, have a similar product vision, a similar strategic vision, and complementary skills. I have not found that person.
I tried partnering with people before and it always crashed and burned for common reasons, such as:
As a result of these experiences, I don't believe in the received wisdom against solo founders. You need a benevolent dictator who has the vision and is versatile enough to do most things that need to be done early in the life of the business.
Altenatively, you need the capital to hire a crack team who can be trusted to get on with things, with minimal supervision.
What I don't understand is why a person who has infinite incentives is not doing the work required? If the business succeeds - they will earn much more than if they work as employees somewhere.
They don't necessarily see that as a very strong incentive. Diminishing marginal utility and all that. And people are only partly rational economic actors.
Even so, depending on your value as an employee, doing a startup might reduce the expected value of your earnings compared to having a job, given the high probability of failure, the modest size of most exits, and the inevitable lean years at the start. If you have access to the US labour market and you are a skilled executive or software developer, for example, it could be totally rational to pass up most startup opportunities for the certainty of employment.
We are talking on two different topics. I wasn't talking about what's more rational - being an employee or starting a startup.
I was making the point that when you have made up your mind and started a startup - you have all the incentives in the world to make it work. More than that, if you know that you're a co-founder in that startup, that someone else is counting on you to do your part. Meaning that if you don't do your part - you're very likely to not see anything from that venture.
We're not. They think it will be easier than it is before they commit to it. Then they realise it's really hard, then they drop out. Given more information, the expected return on investment dropped below their personal threshold.
It shows a lack of integrity if other people are counting on you, but it is not irrational.
Partnering is difficult, especially if you both aren't full-time on the project. One partner thinks its okay to spend 4-5 hours/week on the project, the other is busting their ass every night.
For me, its that I have a hard time trusting I could find someone with the same level of dedication (no more, no less) so that things will feel "fair"
Right. Totally agree with the difficult part. How would you define fair? you eluded to 'time spent' but don't you want to measure impact? (which is difficult/impossible to measure at times)
Maybe it's about momentum or energy? like if you're on a call/f2f/zoom with your co-founder and you're talking about something that can really impact the business - than you just do it? makes sense?
Yeah time != impact, but impact is nearly impossible to measure. It's more just that if we aren't at least both full-time, its really hard for both parties to feel they are contributing equally. I would much rather just hire when the time is right
Seeing as I'm early on in this process, for me it's firstly so that I am forced to learn all the things I don't want to do all the time (business side). Then, it comes to control & keeping the entire pie to myself.
Right but don't you feel sometimes you're shooting yourself in the foot by not working with someone that compliments your weaknesses/strengths?
There's pros and cons to every approach for sure. Like with every choice however there is usually a way to remedy or change it later, so you can still have it both ways and try it out. Of course if you're already established it's a different story, but I'm looking at it from the super early "mostly side projects" indie hacker side.
Hi there! it is an interesting topic. Now I am alone and i like to be solo but sometimes i think it is good when someone help you or discussion about project. It is difficult to me find a person who really enjoy with project. Maybe i should change my mindset. are you sociable person? and my question how find partners on the internet?
Haven't found a good match.
Are you looking for one? I'm thinking of setting up a Zoom call with ~5 people depending on interest
Joining forces with the wrong person is a major cause of startup failure. Finding the right person also requires a lot of time and energy. If possible, it's better to leave the door open and focus on making progress. Anyone with the right kind of energy should be drawn into a project that resonates with them. If one has to motivate a co-founder, they are looking at an employee they can't afford to pay. One thing I often wonder is why successful co-founders go separate ways... Even Bezos divorced his wife.
I guess the cost of entering a partnership is too big? on the surface, I can't really see another reason why not.
I don't buy the waste of time claim because you can't really know if you aren't wasting more time w/ yourself.
Re the energy claim, well, you also learn how to work with people and accept others' ideas, which are often better than yours.
Indeed, we lose and gain something with every choice we make...
Picking a cofounder is a big deal. I've seen a lot of people rush into that relationship only to have it crash and burn. Having a cofounder does make a lot of things easier than working solo, but you need to take time to find the right one. Some people get lucky and find a great match quick. For some people it could take years. Why wait years to start a project?
Good point about the why wait.
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I think that it's easy to instinctively agree with you.
But if I'm being honest with myself - I have bad ideas as well. We all do. Don't you think that that may lead you to an overall worse outcome?
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