If you can’t get to ramen profitability with a team of 2 – 4 within six months to a year, something’s wrong.
That probably makes perfect sense for some random SaaS app or consumer facing app, but for an enterprise startup, I'll argue that it's off the mark. Just doing market research, a few rounds of customer development interviews, and building the product out to prototype phase could burn up the better part of a year, and enterprise sales cycles are often slloooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.........
Pick the initial team very carefully. Everyone should be pleasant to work with, have at least one skill relevant to the business they’re spectacular at, be extremely effective and pragmatic. Everyone should have product sense and a shared vision for the product and the company.
That's one of those things that is on every one of these lists, and for good reason. But, by the same token, you could spend the rest of your life looking for the "perfect" co-founding team, never build a god-damned thing, and die peacefully in your sleep, of old age, at 97. By the same token that "good is the enemy of great", one has to realize that "perfect is the enemy of good enough".
That said, I worked alone for quite some time before inviting anyone else to join up, because this does matter. But you can't wait indefinitely... in the real world, the environment around you is changing, and windows (of opportunity) come and go. You could easily miss one trying too hard to find the ideal co-founder(s).
imho being solo-founder > having a bad co-founder any day. Agree you can't wait indefinitely, but if you're onto something and you can't find someone great to help you grow it, the problem might be elsewhere. (Bad product/market, Hard personalty, etc)
I think there's some room between "bad" and "great", though. My point isn't to accept a "bad" co-founder, but rather to not let the quest for a "great" co-founder keep you from going with a "pretty good" co-founder for so long that you miss the opportunity anyway.
That said, this is all pretty subjective and hard to measure anyway. I mean, do you really know that a "great" co-founder is "great" from day one? Or that someone you think is just "good enough" actually is "great"? Of course, that fuzziness is part of why I say "just pick somebody and get started already" to some extent.
Fair enough. That's why sometimes the best cofounders are old colleagues at university or company (or hackatons!). They've already worked together and know they can get shit done quickly.
That's why sometimes the best cofounders are old colleagues at university or company (or hackatons!). They've already worked together and know they can get shit done quickly.
Good point. I know I went that route, recruiting a co-founder from among the group of people I had worked with at Lulu.com.
That probably makes perfect sense for some random SaaS app or consumer facing app, but for an enterprise startup, I'll argue that it's off the mark. Just doing market research, a few rounds of customer development interviews, and building the product out to prototype phase could burn up the better part of a year, and enterprise sales cycles are often slloooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.........
Pick the initial team very carefully. Everyone should be pleasant to work with, have at least one skill relevant to the business they’re spectacular at, be extremely effective and pragmatic. Everyone should have product sense and a shared vision for the product and the company.
That's one of those things that is on every one of these lists, and for good reason. But, by the same token, you could spend the rest of your life looking for the "perfect" co-founding team, never build a god-damned thing, and die peacefully in your sleep, of old age, at 97. By the same token that "good is the enemy of great", one has to realize that "perfect is the enemy of good enough".
That said, I worked alone for quite some time before inviting anyone else to join up, because this does matter. But you can't wait indefinitely... in the real world, the environment around you is changing, and windows (of opportunity) come and go. You could easily miss one trying too hard to find the ideal co-founder(s).