My sole successful venture has been solo all along (not including employees), and has outlasted the rises and falls of the other businesses (during the amateur entrepreneur "too many fingers in too many pies" phase). I don't think I'd do a partnership again. But maybe I just don't play well with others?

Anyway, can't speak for the OP, but when intelligent, ambitious friends around you see that you work your tail off and already have succeeded at building a profitable business from scratch, they suddenly get really excited about starting new businesses with you that often sound great. At least in my experience though, many of these people turn out to see themselves as "the visionary" who kinda sorta checks in from time to time and you as "the worker," which, if that isn't the role you're interested in, causes things to unravel rather fast.

The "fantasy" life of a startup founder is that they see things others don't (vision) and lead people who make those visions real (workers). Except you can't really lead someone with a vision if you don't know yourself how to make that vision real.

The challenges of startups are that you have to be able to "do it all" in order to know what "doing it" actually entails, then you can bring people in who can do a part of it (that you were previously doing) and know if they are doing it well or not. Folks who are visionary in their thinking but can't break that down into actionable steps toward that vision, and then break those steps into problem assignments, aren't really going to be an asset for your startup until you already have a product and a revenue stream.

Even then, there is nothing more irritating to folks than a clueless visionary. Someone who says something like "The underlying problem is energy dependence, so our goal should be to provide an unlimited energy source to break that dependence, let's get some smart people working on that!" Accurate vision, but ultimately clueless, they just slow people down who have to explain the 2nd law of thermodynamics to them (if they are patient enough).

AFAIK absolutely false. It is also a gross generalization about a diverse group of people with differing sociopolitical structures.

I would suggest reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" for an example of a famous and incredibly egalitarian American construct, or just read about Iroquois political structures via Googling, for two examples.

http://www.cokesbury.com/forms/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=939760...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois

Not related in any way to actual organizations of any actual tribes.

Most people know that there are more than one chef in the kitchen, yet we still figuratively say there are too many.

This is silly and trivial. Two reasons:

[1] The phrase is the analog of an idiom. It is shorthand for "hierarchy" and used as such. The parent is explaining its use.

[2] There are many tribal organizations. This cuts both ways. Provided there is a single one that was historically rank-hierachical, the data is not even a counterfactual.

[3] Provided [2] is ok, so is [1]. We know [2] is ok. Hence, the comment is logically ~gratuitous.

See, for example:

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/too+many+chiefs...

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I don't think the correct response when called out the use of a racist stereotype is to claim it's silly and trivial.

silent weeping

I failed at founding a startup under similar circumstances. This was back in school, on the verge of graduation, when the idea struck me and I decided to go for it. My timing was terrible, given that my would-be co-founders had full-time jobs lined up. Joining me, and turning down our various offers in pursuit of the startup, was a proposition somewhere between slightly insane and certifiably so.

And so I gave everyone a pass. I "hired" a bunch of them on a part-time basis -- knowing that they'd be leaving to start their day jobs in about two months, and, therefore, inadvertently giving myself two months to generate enough traction to convince them to stick around. God, I was so naive. But I'm glad I learned the lesson at a (relatively) young age.

I don't blame any of them for the failure of that short-lived startup. I blame myself. In retrospect, I realized that my own commitment to the startup had been no deeper than theirs. If it had been, I'd have hustled a lot harder to find committed co-founders.

I've had many fail where one or the other was missing.

The reality is as a startup founder, you're expected to bear the blunt of the risk as well as majority of the tasks, from getting coffees, to setting 'vision', to product design, and coding the mundane that others don't want to do.

To this day, I still firmly believe that (on my 1st startup, so additional mileage may change that) having a diverse skillset, or the uncompromising willingness to learn anything is key to success - guess that's what PG calls determination.

So going back to the OP's view that solo founding is possible - I totally agree. You may need to hire or get help where your tech / business skills are lacking. But if you have sufficient & diverse work experience, and some financial capital, it's totally feasible to go solo.

A big BUT is the emotional support that a team can offer. This is even more so when you have a solid co-founder. The trials of startups are hard and deeply emotional (I think all founders will naturally develop bi-polar disorder - one day you feel on top of the world with your world changing idea, the next you are filled with doubt), so any kind of support from people that understand what you're going through helps - this is unlikely to be your spouse if they've never been exposed to startups or even the financial burdens of brick-n-mortar business. You can substitute with meetups and surround yourself with startup founders, but someone who doesn't have skin in the game just isn't the same.

TL;DR So while I think it's possible to do it alone, there are added benefits to being able to share the responsibility & emotional rollercoaster of a startup I also recommend everyone read 'Founder's Dilemma', good data backed analysis of pros & cons of various startup decisions like solo vs. co-founding. Bootstrapping vs. funding, etc.

"Every successful enterprise requires three men - a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch." -- Peter McArthur.

(Hindsight is always 20/20, but everything we did wrong had to do with marketing and building and audience)

I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization.

Someone on your team missed a deadline which fubarr'd your project? Your fault for not checking in with them to make sure they delivering what you wanted.

Someone forget to put the trash out. Your fault for trusting them.

This is a bit dishonest, but empowering for the following reason: You cannot control other people. If you internalize the failure as your own, you can often make more strides to prevent the failure next time than by simply assigning blame.

Of course this theory must be tempered by the old Steven Winterburn quote: "Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."

So, "I think it's easy to blame other people for problems, but the path to self-improvement is internalization" doesn't sound pedantic. It sounds worse.

I was only trying to add my lens of commentary. It wasn't to say that the author wasn't already taking this under advisement, but only to add my additional perspective.

Sorry if my diction led you to believe otherwise :(.