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A comment on Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.).

Re:Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.) by webwright on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @11:33AM (#948535)
We have three founders and it's been pretty solid. It's very hard to have a decision impasse with 3 people. We all defer to each other's area of expertise and in the (many) areas where were are all stupid (but still have the make a decision), we defer to the majority (or occasionally, it's a "loudocracy"... :-) ).

Another downside that I don't think was mentioned is that your "ramen profitable" number goes up by about 50%.

Even with that, I think the 50% bump in (free and maniacal) manpower plus the extra perspective is totally worth it.

I always say that it's better to optimize your CHANCE of success rather than the magnitude of it, should it happen. Hard to argue that a good (free!) co-founder wouldn't do that.

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Re:Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.) by takrupp on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @04:18PM (#949145)
We also rock the 3-partner model - No problems yet. Easy to mediate decisions. We each have our core focus and can make game time decisions ad hoc, but if strategy is involved or a big decision needs to be made, the third person usually has very valuable insight, especially when two partners are butting heads.
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Re:Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.) by spencerfry on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @11:46AM (#948553)
Good point about ramen profitability going up with a third partner. On the flip side, you could say that your company is even further along when you do in fact reach ramen profitability then.
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Re:Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.) by maxklein on Wednesday November 18, 2009 @12:57PM (#948690)
Absolutely. With 3 founders, you don't stop when you're making enough for 2 people to be comfortable with. You have to earn enough for at least 3 people, and when you are at that level, it's much easier to grow.
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