Chapter 2. The Cofounder Dilemma
It’s almost a foregone conclusion now: startups need cofounders. Paul Graham, founder of the elite startup accelerator Y Combinator, observed, “Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.”
It’s true; there are a lot of multifounder successes and just a few solo acts, like Jeff Bezos at Amazon. Personally, I’ve tried it both ways. At Ontela, I was joined by two terrific cofounders, Brian and Charles. At Sparkbuy, I incorporated the company and raised money as a one-man show, then brought on a top-notch CTO, Scott Haug, the day that the investment round closed. Robot Turtles, my Kickstarter experiment turned board game company, was a solo endeavor from start to finish. And my latest endeavor, Glowforge, has me paired up with two epic cofounders, Mark Gosselin and Tony Wright, each with multiple successful startups under their belt.
The cofounder decision isn’t an easy one. There are a lot of good reasons to have cofounders—and one big bad reason not to. Starting with the positive, then...
Cofounders Are Top Talent
You can usually get better talent, sooner, by playing the cofounder card.
In the case of my current company, Glowforge, I could have hired a CTO to help me build the first 3D laser printer. But someone like Mark Gosselin just isn’t available as an employee. His last ...
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