What I Learned in My First Year Year as a Solo Founder

Thanks for sharing! I have spent a lot of time as a solo founder and I’ve spent time as a co-founder. I thought it might be helpful to contrast my experiences.

As a solo founder I found that the highs were muted and the lows were amplified. This likely won’t be true for everyone but this was very true for me.

As a solo founder I often felt like I had no idea if I was working on the right thing because there are so many things that need to be done. Being able to divide and conquer is a great feeling.

I’ve read that statistically your chances of succeeding are higher as a co-founder. This idea can really get in your head if your having a rough week.

As a co-founder you might sometimes feel like you are carrying all of the weight and others are benefiting more from your hard work. Don’t worry, the next time you get sick they will carry on for you. It goes both ways. Not everyone will put out the same effort every day but hopefully it averages out.

Personally I’m a very social person even though I sometimes feel like an introvert. Just because you can live life alone doesn’t mean it is the best choice for everyone. Now that I’m married and have a daughter I can’t imagine how lonely I would be if I had to go back to experiencing life alone. Similarly, working with people who you care about to some degree can be a great reward and motivator.

Everyone is different and solo founders can be successful. For me, having experienced both, I will find a friend to join me on my journies from now on.

I've been a solo founder for some time. By far the toughest thing for me has been the cognitive load.

I don't mean raw time. I generally have enough time to get done what I need to get done. I'm talking about the sheer number of different things I have to think about and pay attention to. It's more about mental clutter and management of it than time management, at least for my own case.

Burnout can be an issue too and can come from cognitive load and also not having as many peers to give support and energy. It's easy to get down and lose motivation.

Overall I'd say: multiple founders with good chemistry > solo founder > multiple founders with bad chemistry or conflict. I always put being a solo founder on a list of weaknesses, but the thing is that everyone and every team/venture has a list of weaknesses and part of succeeding is recognizing yours and trying to work around them.

Strategies I've found include maintaining time/energy boundaries (e.g. not working weekends unless something is on fire), delegating where possible, managing scope creep (I've had problems with this one!), and looking at it as a marathon rather than a sprint and thinking in terms of endurance. Getting exercise, eating healthy, and trying to get enough sleep help too as with anything requiring one to be fit.

This resonated well with me - thank you for the article! I jumped into the fray late last year full time and it's been the most exciting (and nerve-racking) few months of my life. As the author says, I feel like I am learning new things, growing personally (and making mistakes) at 10x the speed! (and I live in Jersey City too)

I would say the hardest part for me is balancing time between building and outreach. It's always concerning to build stuff mindlessly without having a tight user loop, but in the beginning it's really hard to wear multiple hats and figure out how to do both. I wish I had a great co-founder who could handle the outreach and audience part, but that's probably like wishing for a genie.

If anyone invests in crypto or stocks at all, feel free to check them out [0][1] - I am always looking for feedback (I haven't publicly "launched" yet but am close).

Fun fact: everything here is in Python, both frontend and backend.

[0]: https://coinquanta.com

[1]: https://stockquanta.com (only landing page)

I've been working on a project with a couple people that I don't get a lot of value from as co-founders right now because they aren't designers or engineers. They are trying to help us define the set of requirements given their relationships in the industry, but they have not really done product work before. I keep telling myself how valuable they will be once we launch because they will bring customers. Echoed by the author here:

"When you start a project, you always think that finishing and launching your project is the hardest part. However, after the launch you realize that the most difficult part is just ahead."

Any recommendations for how to handle this kind of co-founder situation?

I'm thinking about working with them to define equity incentives on both sides, but I'm short on other ideas for how to make things feel well balanced in the short term given our unbalanced skill sets.

After running a thing by myself for nearly ten years, I would say the most important factor is anxiety management. People experience anxiety very differently, so it's hard to give advice, but without some way of dealing with and reducing this stress it is not possible to run a solo business for a sustained period of time.

Some examples of what can make you anxious working solo:

* A "lumpy" income stream that is hard to model or predict

* The feeling of being on call 24/7

* Having to make a large capital outlay or hire an expensive professional like a lawyer

* Seeing a well-funded competitor appear and start hiring

Anxiety is an odd meta-problem in that if you worry about it, you just make it worse, but some strategy for long-term coping is necessary.