WHY DO YOU NEED A CO-FOUNDER

1. Starting a business is hard.

• When you have the idea for your new startup it’s easy to get excited but when you begin executing on your fancy new idea, you realize that there is a heck of a lot of work to be done.
• While struggling to keep your head above water isn’t terribly fun, doing it alone is much worse.

2. Distribute the stress. 

• As a result of the enormous amount of work that is required to launch a new enterprise, mountains of stress inevitably come.
• Something you know what you can’t do — or shouldn’t do is to take it home with you.
• As a solo entrepreneur you’re never going to feel more alone, so put yourself in a situation to share the stress with someone that you’re working with every day.

3. Nobody will understand your business like you do. 

• This is a point that cannot be stressed enough — the number of details and intricacies will be orders of magnitude greater than your wildest expectations — and the only person that will understand them like you, when you need help the most, is a co-founder.

4. Problem solving can’t be one-sided.  

• We know that problems are going to come up — no need to beat a dead horse. 
• The issue is that you’re going to need the perspective of another person that understands your business like you do, and that person can only be a co-founder.
• It’s equally as important that you have an opposing view.
• Hiring a co-founder that thinks like you do and shares the same opinion won’t be much better than having no co-founder at all.

5. Advisors are advisors, not partners. 

• It should be kept in mind that the job of advisors is to provide you with advice on an “as needed” basis, which is typically going to be for larger problems than those that appear multiple times throughout the day.

6. Split the early and out-of-pocket expenses. 

• Starting a business can be expensive — and fundraising early and without a product or prototype is really difficult.
• The opportunity to work with a co-founder will allow you to split the initial costs of getting a working product or prototype going, which will in turn allow you to raise funds at a better valuation.
• Are you concerned about giving up equity? Don’t be. Would you rather own 50 percent of something or 100 percent of nothing?

7. Mitigate risk for investors. 

• Investors prefer a team with at least two founders because if there is a single founder and he has a major problem in the highest levels of the new company, he’ll be relying on employees of the company for help — whom have a different mindset and priority base — as well as people outside the company that won’t understand the intricacies like the founder will