Most of the recent high-tech companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google) have been founded by a pair of innovators. Further down the life-cycle, this pair usually reallocates control so that there is an apparent leader (Apple - Jobs; Microsoft - Gates; Google - we'll see); however, it is usually a pair that takes the organization through the initial stages of defining itself and its product.Although the rule of two's is prevalent in high-tech, it's not universal. There's an equally compelling list of companies and innovations where having one founder seems to be the norm (Dell; Ebay; Facebook; Napster). The comparison raises questions like:
- Are there inherent differences in these companies?
- Should we assume that having one leader makes companies more innovative or stronger than having two? Is it the opposite?
- What is the ideal number of founders? There're plenty examples of high-tech companies with 1 or 2 founders but where are the examples with 3.
In my opinion, the reason why you don't three founders often is because at the very core you need two key skill sets: one person to build it and one person to sell/evangelize it.
ReplyDeleteThen as the financial supports starts to roll in, getting new technical talent to take the product to the next level is easier than getting new talent to be the face of the organization. Even though Ballmer is the top dog at Microsoft, the average person still sees Gates as the face. Michael Dell just stepped back in to take over the reins. There was a reason that Jobs' neuroticism (however negatively correlated) was welcomed back to Apple. The founder who is the "face" - the person who can make others drink the kool-aid seems to be invaluable to the firm as they can see more than just the product, they are able to see how their product can morph, evolve and grow... to more than what it is today. Page and Brin are going to fade away, they definitely have enough cash to do so :)
As far as the single founder issue. Paul Graham, tech entrepreneur and startup expert, just wrote about the issue in his latest essay:
ReplyDelete6. No cofounder
Not having a cofounder is a real problem. A startup is too much for one person to bear. And though we differ from other investors on a lot of questions, we all agree on this. All investors, without exception, are more likely to fund you with a cofounder than without.
We've funded two single founders, but in both cases we suggested their first priority should be to find a cofounder. Both did. But we'd have preferred them to have cofounders before they applied. It's not super hard to get a cofounder for a project that's just been funded, and we'd rather have cofounders committed enough to sign up for something super hard.
If you don't have a cofounder, what should you do? Get one. It's more important than anything else. If there's no one where you live who wants to start a startup with you, move where there are people who do. If no one wants to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to work on.
If you're still in school, you're surrounded by potential cofounders. A few years out it gets harder to find them. Not only do you have a smaller pool to draw from, but most already have jobs, and perhaps even families to support. So if you had friends in college you used to scheme about startups with, stay in touch with them as well as you can. That may help keep the dream alive.
It's possible you could meet a cofounder through something like a user's group or a conference. But I wouldn't be too optimistic. You need to work with someone to know whether you want them as a cofounder.
The real lesson to draw from this is not how to find a cofounder, but that you should start startups when you're young and there are lots of them around.
The full text can be found here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html