Fuzen Apps

This has to be one of the most common questions for anyone starting a new business.

In a typical startup success story, you often see 2-3 founders who were the best buddies from school / college.

But when I asked my best buddies for starting up, they were far from interested :(

So what do I do?

Should I even look for a partner that I don't trust very well?
Should I explore founder dating platforms?
How do I split the equity?
OR do I really even really need a partner? Can I just try to build it by myself?

These questions are so complex and highly contextual, that any answer could be good answer.

So instead of looking for the right answer, let me just share my experience.

1. My friends wont work with me (or they don't have the required skill set to work on early stage startup).

So I could look for some one with the right skill set, but hiring someone just on the basis of their skill is a recipe for future conflicts.

Conclusion - If I cannot find someone, with whom I have happily worked before I'd steer clear of this option.

2. Co-founder dating

I don't have anything bad to say about this. I fact I think this is a very practical solution, if you are not in a hurry.

In my case, I was already working on a product. So I had a choice - do I spend my time on looking for a partner or do I focus on building a product?

I chose the later.

Conclusion - Because it would take a significant amount of time to find a highly capable co-founder, with you have a comfortable working relationship and some trust, it may work if you are not in a hurry.

3. Can I just build it by myself?

This is contextual. The answer depends on how complex the product is, what your skill set is and what your timeline is.

If you are building a complex product by yourself, then it's quite likely going to be very slow. You should be ok to commit for a long period of time, without seeing any results?

If you can do that, there some benefits in working this way.

A. 100% control over the product you are building and the pace at which you are going
B. Minimal risks of running into founder conflicts
C. No time lost in co-founder dating.

There are indeed some drawbacks as well -

A. Some investors incubators will not even look at your startup if you are a solo founder. They are pretty much sold on the typical startup story having 3 best buddies as founders.
B. You can only go a certain distance this way, after a while you will need to look for people (partners or employees) to scale up further.
C. It can be mentally tiring, because you don't have anyone to share your burden !

But for me this has worked quite well so far. I wouldn't do it any other way if I had a chance.

Did I miss anything? How do you tackle this question about finding cofounders early on?

Let me know.