And I don't think there's anything wrong with using it to meet like minded people who you might collaborate with one day.
But let's not ignore the fact that single founders can be successful too, and one of the biggest causes of startup failure is co-founder disputes, according to YC's own data. The real question is, will it help more than it hurts? The good news is we may know in a few years with this experiment YC is running.
Agreed that the biggest cause of failure is issues between founders.
One could say then that you should only start a company when you have a cofounder, and one that is good. But in reality there's no way of knowing who will be good.
The best proxy is choosing someone you have worked with before. A coworker for instance.
Simply choosing a founder because you hang out with them is not a good idea.
Try moonlighting with your founder dating buddy before making the leap.
>Entrepreneurs Are Better Off Going It Alone, Study Says Startups founded by a single person are more likely to survive and succeed than those founded by a team (wsj article on paper by Jason Greenberg)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/entrepreneurs-are-better-off-go...
It's unclear they are remarkably more rare than other types. The data appears to show that single founders are the second most successful arrangement after pairs.
I would like it to be true that solo founders have just as much chance of success. I have been unable to find a cofounder for years, and I am not biased against solo companies. People are unpredictable, and even wildly successful companies have some disheartening back stories. I've learned that from books like Idea Man (Microsoft) and Masters of Doom (id Software) where founding members got screwed by morally challenged cofounders. In the case of id, Tom Hall received nothing from id in the end, and forfeited all of his equity when he was fired. Because they decided he wasn't needed anymore, despite him being there from the beginning through the tough times.
But it stands to reason that you are better off if you can find someone who is honest and is going to work hard with you, simply because two heads are better than one. When used together at least. Emphasis on honest, I would rank trust and ethics over experience and intelligence.
If you can't find that person, and you are determined, then may as well go ahead and go it alone. You only live once. Just realize the odds are stacked even higher against you. You are only lying to yourself if you refuse to accept that truth.
And you can be a cofounder of a successful company, but still fail miserably and have it all taken away by a bad cofounder.
Exactly, that missing information is what makes the data bad. Negative examples are needed to make any meaningful comparison between single vs team. You're missing an entire distribution showing success vs failure. You gave a perfect example of selection bias.
You would make a terrible statistician, or maybe you're highly skilled in the art of How to Lie with Statistics.
Imperfect data is a fact of life. Provided you understand what it represents ("Of startups that succeed, a large proportion have single founders") there is nothing wrong with using this.
It's much better than what you have offered: no data and insults to anyone who disagrees with you. You may want to consider this when thinking about why you have been unable to find a co-founder.
Exactly. You have expressed the argument perfectly.
There seems to be little link between the number of founders and success.
The rest of your post seems to have a simple counter argument: hire people.
An employee is never going to be as personally invested as a cofounder. But the upside is you can terminate them if your working relationship goes awry.
Nope. It is a great idea.
"According to a 2012 study by Statistic Brain, the global divorce rate for arranged marriages was 6 percent — a significantly low number. Compared to the 55 percent of marriages in the world that are unarranged, this low statistic shows the success rate of arranged marriages"
Also, the super low divorce rate should make you suspicious -- it would be more believable if it was slightly lower (like 30% or whatever), but 6%? There's clearly something else going on, and if you look closely you'll realize why.
Aside from that, there's no issue using a dating app to find that special someone you should marry. Same goes for founder dating. You have to start somewhere.
In any case you should try working with your potential cofounder first. A friend isn't necessarily a good cofounder.