Do You Really Need a Cofounder?

Do I really need a co-founder? It's a nuanced issue. I'm gonna give you a non-nuanced answer to start, and the answer is yes, you need a co-founder. And if you happen to think, well, I don't really need a co-founder, then you really need a co-founder. You are precisely the person that needs a co-founder. The absence of a co-founder leads to a couple of issues. One is you're sending the signal to the world, it's like, okay, you couldn't convince one other person on the planet To kind of join you on this quest. And problem number 2 is startups are a very, very lonely business. Anyone that's done that knows, right? You have the proverbial roller coaster, really, really highs, very, very low lows, often in the same day. And there's just a crap ton of stuff to do. It's nice to have like a partner or partners kind of in the journey. Your odds do go up, and this has been demonstrated. In terms of finding a co-founder, the ideal one, and this is tricky because often you find co-founders out of convenience because you were classmates, you were siblings, you kind of know them. It's like, oh, they're pretty smart. They're not schmucky. I know they're not a serial murderer. I'll start a company with them, right? That's awesome. What you really want is you want someone that you have a common view on the world, a common set of values, that you think about things in a similar way, but you have different skill sets. So you're not good at the same things. You don't have like 100% or 90% overlap. Someone where you have shared vision, shared values, but complementary skills.