Office Hours: “Do I actually need a co-founder?”
A student asked me a version of this in class. Here’s the answer I gave — the honest one.
The question, roughly as it came in: “Are co-founders necessary? Could I just found the company myself and hire people to fill the gaps, instead of starting with a co-founder and giving away equity?”
Quick Answer: No, a co-founder is not necessary. A good idea and the ability to execute on it — that’s necessary. But in my opinion, you want one anyway, and badly.
Here’s the tell. Some of you have reached out to me outside of class to talk through your ventures. I’m guessing you didn’t do that because I’ve built your exact company before — I haven’t. You did it because you wanted another viewpoint. Another set of experiences in the room. You wanted to not be the only brain on the problem. The entire consulting industry is built on this premise.
That instinct is the whole argument. None of us — not you, not me — has the capacity to think an entire strategic problem all the way through alone. I’m not talking about writing code by yourself; you can do that. I mean genuinely reasoning through a hard, multi-sided business problem with no one to push on it. Having a co-founder’s thinking alongside yours is like shipping a product and getting feedback from real customers rather than guessing. You’d never skip the customer feedback. Don’t skip it on the strategy either.
Let me be honest about what this actually feels like, because the brochure version is a lie. My co-founder at Acquis was, at times, the biggest pain in the ass I have ever met. And he was genuinely brilliant about things I’m not. I’m sure he’d say the exact same about me, in the same order. We did not agree on everything. What we did was sit down, fight it out, and work it out — every time. That’s the job. Different people, different opinions, willing to actually hash them through — because we had the same goal. That combination is worth more than the comfort of agreeing with yourself.
There’s a second payoff people miss. When you start hiring employees, a real co-founder relationship shows them a cohesive culture at the top — the way kids want to see Mom and Dad on the same page. (And for those of you without kids: I promise you, Mom and Dad do not actually agree on everything. They’ve just decided what to do in front of the children.) Your early hires are constantly reading you. Two founders who clearly respect each other through disagreements are a signal that money can’t buy.
Yes, taking on a co-founder means giving away equity. Do it. In my experience, your slice of a company, built by two complementary people, is worth more than your whole slice of the startup you tried to carry alone.
The right co-founder isn’t the person you most enjoy. It’s the person who makes the company smarter — even on the days you’d happily strangle them.