Why You Should Strongly Consider Two & Only Two Cofounders for Your Business
It's a Stereotype in the Startup World but It's Well Founded
What’s up Launchers. We’re back at it with a new series I wanted to do about successful startup duos. There’s a lot of conventional wisdom that I would outright reject as bullshit.
But the stereotype of two founders with complementary personalities/skillsets is one that holds water. The advantages are numerous.
Picking a co-founder is a lot like picking a spouse. You need all the information you can get to make sure that your precious time and psychic energy is going to good use. You need to be able to trust your partner will be competent and fair.
I will be writing a series of brief posts detailing the different lenses through which you can look at the duality of that partnership. The goal is to make it so that you can make the best decision on who to partner with.
Before we get to the specifics about the archetype combinations that work well together, I wanted to put out this quick post regarding the Rule of Two and why it holds up.
Why Two & Not One or Three or Seven?
Let’s start with a critical thinking question: why is it two and not any other number? There are three key reasons:
#1 It’s a Schelling Point for Investors/Partners
The duo has become so commonplace that it is expected by many investors or partners. So much so that some accelerators will not accept you unless you have two co-founders.
Over time, the duo stereotype has proven to be so successful that many people you’d like to do business with will raise their eyebrows if there aren’t two founders.
For that reason alone, you should strongly consider founding with exactly two partners. Swim with the tide of this bias rather than against it.
#2 Why Not Just 1 Founder?
Firstly, having a co-founder often creates synergy that is going to improve your results by an order of magnitude (exponentially) and not just linearly. Life is just long enough to get good at one thing. Chances are your business will need to be good at more than one thing to succeed. Having a co-founder helps you increase these probabilities.
Beyond the purely practical, the problem with just one founder is the same problem with Josef Stalin. Even if you *can* succeed alone you could become a victim of your own success. You may well go off the deep end, succumbing to your own biases and take your business with you.
Why you no like Uncle Joe, BTL? It iz off to ze gulag with you.
As we’ve covered in past posts, running a small tech company is largely counterintuitive. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to be confronted with laziness or errors in your thinking. That is key to your growth.
Having a partner there to challenge your ideas is going to limit the risk of actual damage to the business and accelerate that growth process.
Side Note: Don’t Let No Co-Founder Be an Excuse Though!
If you have a burning desire to start something and can’t find a partner go for it. I will never condone paralysis by analysis.
You are better off starting now and finding a partner later. If left no other options, just start now.
But. You should always keep an open mind to partnering with a person/people that complement your skills and who are comfortable challenging your approach and ideas.
#3 Why Not 3 Founders or More?
If two is good then three is better, right? Wrong.
There’s exceptions to every rule but there’s issues with three founders that I’ve found out the hard way.
Essentially it comes down to: too many cooks in the kitchen. It is hard enough finding 1 high quality co-founder and making good decisions with him or her. Finding two is an order of magnitude more difficult.
If only all decisions were this benign…
With this differential in the leadership skills and competence of the partners, there is inevitably going to be conflict.
And when there’s conflict there’s inefficiency.
You’re all going to have a different perspective and it’s going to be hard to agree on a decision and get things done. I made this mistake once and I will never make it again.
If you must, make your one founder dictatorship. But never make it three.
Closing Out & What’s Next
I put this out as a precursor to a series I’m working on about the different startup founder combinations that work. Before I do that I had to lay this groundwork and explain to you the *why* behind the Rule of Two.
Next time I’ll be back to talk about how you can find a founder the complements your skillset.
Recommended Reading
Check out the full post here.
TLDR:
#1 - Rework by Jason Fried & DHH- Two Tech Startup GOATs & They’ll Teach You Their Minimalist, Practical Methods
#2 - Atomic Habits by James Clear - Learning the Ins and Outs of Human Behavior Formation Is an Incredibly Lucrative Talent
#3 - High Output Management by Andy Grove - Former Intel CEO Shows You How to Use Engineering Principles to Build a Strong Business
#4 - Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink -Â Former Navy Seal Officer Teaches You How to Build a Team of Doers with Initiative
#5 - Deep Work by Cal Newport - Georgetown Professor Shows You How Connectivity is Massively Overrated, Focus is Underrated and How You’re Currently Fucking Up Your Productivity
#6 - Actionable Gamification by Yu-Kai Chou - Game Development Expert Teaches You How You Can Play 4D Chess with Incentives & Accelerate Growth on a Massive Scale