Everyone says that starting a company on your own is ill-advised. Which makes sense.
After all, launching a startup is really freakin’ hard, and the stress is much more manageable when it can be distributed amongst a few people (as opposed to your sleep-deprived, Red Bull-addicted, “I only eat pizza now” self).
On top of that, many investors flat-out reject solo entrepreneurs simply because they don't have a bigger founding team with a shared vision.
Y Combinator’s Paul Graham says that starting a company on your own is the #1 mistake you can make and views it as a vote of no confidence (you couldn’t even talk one friend into coming on board?)
However, data suggests it might not be so bad
According to CrunchBase, hands down the most useful thing coming out of TechCrunch, there are 7,348 companies that have raised more than $10m and, as it turns out, almost half of them had just one founder.
One founder: 45.9%
Two founders: 31.9%
Three founders: 15%
Four founders: 5.3%
Five or more founders: 1.9%
The numbers look similar for successful exits, too
When looking at all the companies that secured an exit of some sort, the results are evenmore skewed towards solo founders.
One founder: 52.3%
Two founders: 30.1%
Three founders: 12.5%
Four founders: 3.7%
Five or more founders: 1.4%
But take this with a grain of salt...
The data proves that, among startups that have succeeded, solo founders are prevalent. But it completely ignore startups that fail.
And that's crucial information.
Because if there are, say, 20x more solo-founded companies that went bust than multi-founder companies, then that’d suggest linking up with someone else might be the best move after all.
Takeaway
Launching a startup on your own is far from a death wish, which might bring comfort to anyone currently flying Han Solo.
However, it’s still probably best to snag at least one co-founder and create a big business as a team.
Everybody needs a partner or partners in crime unafraid to balance philosophies and tell it like it is. Aka. the someone to say, “Dude, I love you. But that’s the single dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. Go take a nap.”