SHOULD YOU GO SOLO OR PARTNER?

If we look around, we will notice that most successful startups have more than one founder. I believe the reason for this trend is because of the inherent advantages to startup with a partner.

While there is nothing right or wrong about starting up alone or with a founder, I’ll briefly touch upon this topic while walking through the different stages of the entrepreneurial journey.

Ideation Stage

It is important that founders are able to attract talent who believes in his/ her vision and getting a co-founder is a good point to start off with. Everyone has blind spots and having a partner helps fill in the gaps. Also, it is easier to sharpen the idea and become more productive when you bring multiple perspectives to the table. Entrepreneurship is a tough and lonely journey. The low points of a startup are sometimes too hard to bear and you need a founder to talk to andcheer you up when things go wrong.

Execution Stage

It would be helpful that your partner has complementary skills and take on different responsibilities. In the initial days when ideas are getting converted to actions, an extra pair of hands will definitely increase the pace of your execution and iterative process. Running key decisions with other co-founders might slow the process which in case of a single founder could have been done independently. While having conflicting opinions is healthy, but if the founding team runs into this scenario way too often it is a matter of concern.

Exit Stage

There could be expectations mismatch between founders during exit. Having 100 percent of the returns definitely looks more attractive than a 50-50 split. But 50 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing. The contribution of co-founder(s) in making the company valuable is immense.

Before closing would like to mention that while having a partner definitely helps, picking a wrong one or having too many founders might hurt your startup dearly. In such a scenario one might look back and think that going solo would have been better.

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