Get a cofounder. If your startup succeeds, you could spend 5 years or more working on it. It's rounding error to spend 6 months making a concerted effort to find a cofounder first. And while it can be hard to find a cofounder, it's not as hard as starting a successful startup.

pg:

Do you make a distinction between "solo founder who is and intends to remain solo" and "solo founder who just hasn't happened to meet the right co-founder(s) yet?"

Just curious, as I see those as being pretty distinct cases. With Fogbeam Labs, I was a "solo founder" for a year or so, before our second founder came onboard, and then it was about 8 months after that when our 3 founder joined up. I imagine other people find themselves in that place where they are open to (even seeking) a co-founder, but just haven't met the right person yet.

In any case, my thought, FWIW, is that a founder should keep working on advancing their vision, whether or not they have located (a) co-founder(s) yet. I wouldn't "stop the world" to do nothing but look for a co-founder.

The unfortunate fact is that there is not much difference between the two cases. Most people who are looking for a cofounder when they start YC are still looking for one 6 months later. Alarmingly often that's because they recruited one in the interim who's already gone.

hehe, has gone in 6 months after going through YC? those solo founders must be really priceless then:)

Co-founder dynamics are extremely important and extremely fragile.

You are choosing someone to go on long term journey, where you will no longer only be building something cool, but you'll be building a company, be responsible for hiring and, God forbid, firing people. You will be responsible for your employee's lives, and their families, you will be responsible for your investors time and effort to make all your promises come true.

All of this becomes extremely harder after you've been traveling alone for a long time (which can often be a few months, as startups are that intense). Sharing all this responsibilities with someone who has not been there from day one is challenging for both parties: can you trust them to be with you in the long run, do you agree in fundamental things, how do you deal with different company stakes and vesting periods? And, if you ever pivot (as many successful startups have[1]), how will all of these pressures come to live?

And it gets worse after you get investment (in the form of YC money, angel money, and progressively more) as your choice of co-founder will likely reflect on you, from your investor's idea. And it always add risk to the table, no matter how you put it.

All of this while still working and growing your startup.

Don't take this lightly. It may be harder to find a proper co-founder under these circumstances than founding a successful startup. But being able to have people you trust beside you building a company can be an invaluable thing.

[1] http://www.fastcompany.com/1836238/how-eric-ries-coined-pivo...

Thanks for the reply. Based on your response and the responses of others, I think that I will in all likelihood apply with the intention of searching for someone to work with (perhaps local to SF) if my application progresses. If it does not, it will allow me to focus my search on my local area. Thanks again :-)

For me has been extremely hard to find a cofounder. Hey there people from Dallas TX, do you want to create something awesome and needs a developer!? Please contact me.

If you're not set on being in the same location, check out my entry in the co-founder spreadsheet and see if we could match.

A founder is someone who founds the company along with you, it seems you are saying people should just find a random person and call them a co-founder? Why can't there just be one founder?

As someone who applied as a single founder (and got in), just apply anyway. However, ensure that you get across that you are indeed open to finding a co-founder.

Thanks Oliver, that's reassuring. May I ask what happened after you were accepted - did you find a co-founder then?

Yep, pretty much immediately after starting YC I met my co-founder (through an intro from PG).

For what it's worth, about 15% of last batch had only one founder: http://blog.statwing.com/a-statistical-portrait-of-a-y-combi...

That I did not know. I always thought that single founder companies were quite rare. Many thanks.

Even if you manage to get in without a co-founder, you'll probably still want a co-founder. I've talked to several YC alums without a co-founder looking to hire an employee who can serve as a co-founder.

I absolutely do however I want to find someone as enthusiastic as I am, not somebody who is just coming along for the ride because I convinced them it's a great idea. Where I am currently (location-wise), finding the former will be harder than the latter, I suspect, and if possible I would rather work with someone locally rather than remotely.

I totally agree with you, you don't want to take finding a co-founder lightly. Just meant it as a heads-up. Apply as a single-founder anyway :)

Hey kaolinite, where are you based? Are you still in school?

I'm from Liverpool, UK. I turned down a place at university to become a programmer as I was sick of formal education, preferring instead to teach myself. It's a choice I regret in some ways but the past few years since leaving college have been fun, working as a programmer.

There's a growing startup scene in the UK. You may have to travel as far as Edinburgh or London, but go to enough events and you should run into plenty of people with the same kinds of passions. Add to that looking in places where people share your subject passion, and I'm sure you'll find someone. It's all about hustling.

There certainly is and I have become move involved with it, especially in recent months. Still finding it tricky to locate someone however and most people I have met have been quite considerably older than me. You're right though - it may be time to start looking outside of my local area, however it would be nice to find someone who I could meet regularly to hack at ideas with.

Getting a startup off the ground is not a one man job. Sooner you get another pair of hands and a brain to help you out with this task the better. Why wait until accepted or not accepted? It's irrelevant, you just need at least one more person besides yourself

Drew Houston originally applied as a single founder (and then lined up a talented and committed co-founder) and turned into one of YC's two biggest successes so far, so take heart.

He filled out the online application as a single founder but he had found Arash by interviews, a few weeks later.

Was Arash central to choosing to invest? What I mean is do you think you would have passed if he hadn't found a co-founder by the interviews?

I'm pretty sure we'd have funded him anyway. Trevor had tried his prototype and said it was good. The big advantage of Arash (and of good cofounders in general) was not that he got Dropbox through YC interviews but that he helped make the company successful.