The Football War was a war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969. While there were already existing tensions between the two countries, rioting during a 1970 FIFA World Cup qualifier held on June 1969 escalated it into a war in July.
But what has football or a war got to do with Co-Founders, you might ask? Well, conflicts can arise due to many things, wars have been fought for way more trivial and petty reasons, and when building a startup, conflict might be the last thing you want distracting you.
“But VCs don’t invest in sole founders,” you say
Yes, VCs and incubators are certainly biased toward sole founders, whether it makes sense or not. For Y-Combinator, only about 10 per cent of the startups they admit into their programme are run by solo founders.
But do you know that less than 0.8 per cent of startups received funding, Co-Founders or not? Also, a research study from Wharton, titled Solo Survivors: Solo Ventures vs Founding Teams, looked at 3,526 startup companies and found that while startups with multiple Co-Founders tend to raise more money, startups with single founders tend to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue.
“But I don’t understand this or that”
Something I frequently hear from friends. Running a company is a lifelong journey. When you have a company of 10, it is a whole new animal when it is 100 and again when it is 1,000.
From HR to legal, accounting to marketing, there is much that a founder needs to know, and even if they are already familiar with an area, there are always new things to learn and sometimes simply the need to see things from a new perspective.
The stress
Running a startup often is not just about the founder. A huge misstep may impact the bottom line and may mean laying off employees who took the risk to join you, believing in you. Yes, running a startup can be exciting with many upsides, but it also means a lot of responsibility.
We may also sometimes second guess our decisions, especially when there is a lot hinging on them, keeping us awake at night. At a 50 per cent higher divorce rate for entrepreneurs, sometimes the sacrifices also go way beyond.
Personally for me, even though my father claims that he is not retiring because he wishes to stay active, deep inside, I know it is because he is worried about our financial status when things are still not taking off for me.
I have sunk everything I got into building the business, feeling guilty each day as my personal choice impacts not just myself but also my family and girlfriend of many years, who shelved her dream of getting a house and settling down so that I can commit myself to this venture. So it’s easy to understand why some want to share the journey with a Co-Founder.
Well, just as that saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child.” But does that village have to be made up of Co-Founders?
I’m not saying don’t get a Co-Founder. All I’m saying is that Co-Founders that are good for you are hard to come by.
Get allies
Don’t let the lack of someone or some skill hold you up. We spend anything from 40-100 hours a week at work and much less with our loved ones. Besides possessing the right skill sets, your Co-Founder’s personal ethics, work habits, and mission for the company and in life will have a material effect on you and the company.
Also Read: The Indonesian startup ecosystem today is no longer recognisable – and that is a great thing
Despite the huge influence of a Co-Founder and the impact of choosing the wrong one, I still see many aspiring entrepreneurs holding themselves back until they find a Co-Founder. Not to forget, sometimes it is also easier to attract a Co-Founder when you have something going for you.
Frequently, I see someone with an idea looking for a tech person and a tech person looking for someone to help with business development. If you are concerned about coding, a CTO is unlikely to single-handedly code your website anyway. Chances are you will still need to hire developers with him or her, project managing it.
So instead of learning about coding, learn project management skills. As the founder of the company, you have to be always selling the company and its vision. So if you do not know this, then it is something you ought to learn; else, how will you even sell your vision to your Co-Founder?
In the last few months, I have offered some marketing advice to an accounting SaaS startup and sat down with an AI expert to fine-tune the messaging on his website. With that, I know when the time comes when I need their expertise, I can count on them. There are so many unknowns in running a startup, and having access to good advice and opinion is critical.
So instead of a Co-Founder, get allies. It is so much easier to first be a friend to someone than to ask someone to drop whatever he or she is doing and commit to running a startup with you.
And after all, you can only have so many Co-Founders, but you can have an unlimited amount of allies. And if you think there is something we can help each other with, please do not hesitate to reach out.
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