It wouldn't be a startup without a bit of adversity.

I'd go for it and find a way to continue unless you have serious reasons (debt/family/whatever) to start putting money in the bank ASAP.

Big companies will still be there if you fail, why live with the regret?

>Big companies will still be there if you fail, why live with the regret?>>

Totally agree!

> But I can't run it without the other founder, there's too much work.

Is it really too much work? Have you tried to do all the work yourself? I bet you'll figure out a way to get it done with or without the other founder (if you're passionate enough). Maybe it's a matter of cutting out features, but maybe those features weren't so important to begin with. Constraints drive innovation.

I say go for it. Worst case scenario - it doesn't work, you call it quits, you snag the valley job.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm graduating in December (enterprise systems engineering), and I'm in a similar situation. I tossed around the idea of working on my own projects vs getting a "real" job. To make my choice easier, I applied to and interviewed at exactly zero companies. I decided to take 6-9 months to see what I can do. I told myself it's now or never. To make things more interesting, I will certainly be broke by January, I have no investors, and I barely have an MVP. Also, I just started learning how to program within the past few months, and I am a single founder. Talk about constraints! =]

One thing that might come up that's worth thinking about is IP. Giving that it is your senior project, you've had 4 other people working on it, and a co-founder who is leaving - who owns what share and are they going to give it to you for you to work on are good questions to ask.

Further, you say that it's too much work for you and your co-founder is leaving. Which means by turning down the job you are committing yourself to too much work that you acknowledge is unsustainable for you.

All the technology is build by two of us. One other is doing design and the rest are just helping with sales, albeit quite a bit.

The selection bias, I suspect, means that people here will tend to say you should go for it even if they actually think it sounds like it wouldn't work out for you. (I'm not making a value judgement there).

If the co-founder has left then the project is over.

That doesn't mean you can't restart it though.

How will you afford to eat and pay for accommodation? Would your new employer consider holding the job for you? Is the co-founder going to be easy to replace? Could you take the position part time and work on the startup alongside?

(I'm not asking for answers, just trying to help jog the thought process along).

I don't have to start working until May, and I saved enough money interning last summer that I can work on the project full-time until then.

I guess the biggest concern is replacing the cofounder; he's an incredible programmer. That being said, most of the current "featuers" are implemented -- the thing is pretty much completely built. It'll be tough to continue adding stuff, but right now we can take 10x the customers we have.

Thanks for the prods, these are tough decisions.

I'd say go with the startup, even if you fail you wont regret it, but if you go for a job and then let the project die, you might end up regretting that.

If the other founder is taking a job thats fair enough, support his decision but see if he can commit some time to it on his off-hours. Either that or try to find a third cofounder and see if you can reduce the other guys equity and let him become a silent partner or something.

Either way, go for the project, i'm more most others on HN will say the same, we're biased in that way.

In my opinion, I think you should go for it. The way I'd look at it is like this: you will most likely always have a chance to work for some reputable valley company. However, you may never have the chance at your own start up again. This goes along the same lines as what davidw posted, but if I were in your boat and did not take the job, then I know later on down the road, I would be wondering "what if?" I wouldn't want to have to live with that.

The "what if" is weighing heavily on me already. In 5 or 10 years I'm going to be kicking myself.

Maybe this could be the solution to finding cofounders, please make an opinion :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1919173

Since you have a few hundred customers already, your project is obviously not in stealth mode. I think most here could give you better feedback if you posted a link to it.

Fair enough. The site is http://getpunchd.com; new landing page coming tomorrow.

looks like a great app!! If you have a little savings and your job offer isn't too stellar, I'd say run with it. Assuming it contains a useful set of features now, focus on marketing what it already does and worry about replacing your co-founder as a secondary problem. Unless of course your co-founder was the one you were counting on to do the heavy lifting on marketing and early adopter customer support.

Nope, he's strictly a builder. I'm the talker. My degree is computer science, but he's a way better programmer than me.

Thanks for your advice!

Can't the other 4 people pick up the work that your cofounder was doing? They seem to be enthusiastic about it.

Unfortunately they're all design or sales oriented, rather than engineering.

Which of the two can you replace? Which of the two would you regret walking away from?