How many founders are enough for one company?
Business Marketing with Nika
60 replies
Sometimes, when there are many founders in companies, it has its pluses, but also minuses. Do you prefer more founders? If so, why? What problems do you have to deal with with more founders?
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Debajit Sarkar@dsarkar
It depends on the stage of development. If you are talking about an early-stage startup then it might need a co-founder for diverse perspectives and support.
Co founders should bring skills that the other founders lack, for instance technical expertise, marketing, or finance.
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One, trust me :-D I have twenty years of experience as a founder.
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@pdovhomilja How many years as a solo founder?
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@pdovhomilja wow, that's impressive! Just wondering, how did you deal with periods of burnout, if you had any? :) I am asking because to my experience (much less than 20y) co-founders usually support each other a lot
@nadiaaesty I burned out two times. The first time, it was because I achieved all my goals much sooner than I had expected. The second time, it was about two years ago, just because I made a big mistake. If you can, here is my short story: https://twitter.com/dovhomilja/s...
@pdovhomilja There is one saying: Business is best done in odd numbers and three is already too many. 😅
The ideal number of founders for a company often hinges on the balance between diverse skill sets and the ease of decision-making; too many can lead to a 'too many cooks' scenario, while too few might overload individuals with responsibilities. Personally, I prefer a smaller, agile founding team where alignment and rapid execution are more feasible, though this does come with the challenge of wearing multiple hats, especially in the early stages.
I think there’s no specific number.
Solopreneurs can be as successful as a founder team of 3 or 4. However, when it comes to investors, for example, they see it being a solopreneur as a risk - due to everything relies on one person and if anything happens.. :)
Also, more founders potentially mean each compliments each other, so more elements are covered whether its marketing, development, customer support etc.
1 is enough, 2 is great and 3 is excellent
Enough is Enough!
The 'right' number of founders for a company really hinges on the balance of skills, decision-making bandwidth, and the ability to share the startup's vision and workload, Nika. More founders can mean a richer skill set and more hands on deck, but it also raises the stakes in aligning visions and managing conflicts.
I'm a solo founder :)
@alessio_mavica True true. I have had about ten calls in the last 2 or 3 weeks with people I met on PH, Twitter or LinkedIn. 🙌😀 Sharing thoughts this way was amazing.
1 founder - which is the entire premise behind my latest newsletter!
There isn't a specific number of founders that is universally "enough" for a company. It ultimately depends on the nature of the business, its goals, and the skill sets needed to execute those goals effectively. Some successful businesses have a single founder, whilst others have several co-founders. It's more about having an appropriate combination of skills, vision, and teamwork to propel the business ahead.
The ideal number of founders for a company really hinges on the balance between diverse skill sets and the ease of decision-making; too many can lead to conflict, but the right mix can spur innovation. Personally, I prefer a smaller, cohesive team of founders where roles are clear and communication is streamlined, ensuring agility in business operations.
I feel the ideal number of founders should not exceed 2, too many complications and clash of opinions
@swayammi7 yeah, it depends on the personality of the founders. Only if one of them is dumb, so let's guess how it is gonna play out. 😃
That's a great question, Nika. It depends on many factors:
- What is your goal? How big you wanna grow ?
- What is your expertise and what other skills you need to get there ?
- Are you a bootstrapped founder or you are planning to raise money from VC ?
A bit of context. I am in the industry for over 16 years. I had leadership positions in 2 unicorns and 1 decacorn + 1 exit. Most recently C-level of Sequoia Capital portfolio.
So let's say, your goal is to go as big as possible. You want to build a unicorn. The classic path for this, as of today, is to raise VC money. Several times. VC don't like "solo" founders. Too much risk and it's too tough. You need extremely strong and cohesive founding team. If you are in tech and user facing products, it's usually 2-3 co-founders. Product, tech and marketing / sales.
The most successful startups I've seen are started by a small founding team ( 2 - 3 ), strongly aligned on the mission and vision. From day 1. It's gonna get really rough out there, but if you aligned on mission and vision, it's easier to make decisions going forward.
I also know many people who started small newsletters and micro SaaS solutions alone. 1 founder and total team of 2-5 people with 2-5M $ ARR.
So, as always. It depends :)
@busmark_w_nika Nika! Hi! Yes, I did. The biggest one was Sequoia Capital ( Apple, Instagram, WhatsApp, Aribnb, Zoom, Instacart, DoorDash, etc ). I am new to PH, but I am here to help! And make friends to learn from. Any question is always welcomed.
IMO 2 is best.
one for IT operations and other for biz operations
The number of founders needed for a company can vary, but having at least two or three is common for collaboration.
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Depends on the type of founders. Two idealists is impossible. An idealist and a pragmatist (Ref: Steve jobs And Steve Wozniak), that can work. But still hard. 😅 3 founders? They made a movie about that: "The three body problem". It's all chaos. I won't happen in a million years. 😂
@sentry_co Have never heard about the movie. Couldn't find it. Which one do you mean? :-D
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@busmark_w_nika 😂 Sorry my mistake. Typo. Three not tree. Here is the link: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt454... (it's also a book and an astro physic phenomenom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th... (basically reasoning about 2 objects is easy, 3 is impossible, too chaotic)
@sentry_co Thanks for the movie tip. It has a quite good rating, should watch it! 🙂 It looks like some postapocalyptic movie – Nika likes it! 😄
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@busmark_w_nika It comes out soon. It's very cool. Its one of the biggest cultural works coming out from China in recent time. Both the books and the movie.
it depends
Although you could start with one, you will need to hire or learn a lot which will slow down your progress in the early stages. The consensus seems to be 2-3 depending on the skills. More than 5 seems to be too many chefs, also the dilution would be crazy later.
We have 3, our skills cover most things, from design, dev, and marketing, it also helps a tie breaker as long as you agree you are not allowed to sit on the fence.
If you take a random sample from YC's companies (https://www.ycombinator.com/comp...) list you will probably find the average is 2-3.
Also the same with the top 30 by revenue. There are 7 solos, 12 with 2, 10 with 3, 0 with 4, (Doordash had 4), and 1 with 5.
The numbers from YC
Seven With 1: Coinbase, PagerDuty, Matterport, Momentus,
Flexport, Scale AI, Benchling
Twelve With 2: Dropbox, Amplitude, Gitlab, Stripe, OpenSea, Brex,
Deel, Rippling, Reddit, Checkr, Monzo Bank, and Whatnot
Ten With 3: Airbnb, Instacart, Doordash, Weave, Faire, Gusto,
Rappi, Zapier, Webflow, and MessageBird
Zero With 4:
One With 5: Ginkgo Bioworks
