I think I understand the point the article is trying to make, but at the end, it says "Hiring should be done to expand what can be done."
Indeed, but the thing is, a large majority of solo founders, after some time (shorter or longer), just can't do all the things on their own - managing, developing, marketing, designing, etc.
This is why even though I've founded BotMeNot I don't work on it alone. Especially when having other projects you're working on, things just get out of hand pretty quickly.
I'd argue that it's better to outsource a lot of those things OR find a key-person to hire once there's enough work to do.
Need a lot of designs? Hire an unlimited design firm.
Have a lot of things that need to be coded? Bring on an engineer or find an agency you work well with.
Well-capitalized teams rush to insource everything and quickly bloat. They become money bonfires that need more and more fuel just to survive. As indies the goal is to get to default-alive ASAP and so we need to be much more careful about our expansion.
But running lean has intrinsic benefits beyond just cost-savings, it also cuts out a lot of communication overhead that makes getting things done difficult in larger organizations.
Jeff Bezos (worth $88.2B), Amazon
Henry Ford
ServiceNow, $18B market cap
eBay, Pierre Omidyar, really large market cap **
Craigslist, Craig Newmark, $600M ARR (Craig’s a billionaire now) **
FireEye, $2.7B current market cap
Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, $2.5B market cap **
Sara Blakely (worth $1.7B), Spanx
Tumblr ($1B acquisition)
Amir Salihefendic, Todoist (2M users)
Aaron Peckham, Urban Dictionary (3M + users daily)
Drew Houston, DropBox * later asked to find a cofounder
Markus Frind, Plenty of Fish $575M exit
Aaron Patzer, Mint, $170M exit
Back when I was building my community of founders, I tried to target people interested in:
a) Founding/growing in general, SaaS (i.e. people on IndieHackers)
b) Startups (i.e. people on Ycombinator).
There was a pretty big difference between these 2 types of people:
People interested in becoming a founder were mostly bootstrapped and had a genuine interest in how to get started/grow. They were top-notch people
What surprised me is people interested in founding a "startup" obsessed over getting funding. Getting traction? Customers? Product-market fit? None of that mattered. In general, I found those people were interested in getting $$$ and thought that was going to solve all their problems.
From this observation I'd totally expect for solo and bootstrapped founders to outperform venture-backed founders and teams. I've even heard that VCs have started to proactively look for bootstrapped founder and offer them funding. I think this trend has contributed towards this...VCs are seeing that the top-notch people are first trying to start on their own vs. looking for funding straight away.
As someone who fits the first category perfectly, I don't agree with your "None of that mattered." in the second category. I think you're referring to building a product vs building a business.
Products are nice to experiment on, iterate and add value, but most of the time fail due to having an impressive tech that doesn't solve any problem.
The reason people are obsessed with funding and getting customers and traction is to validate there will be a business quickly rather than spending a long time building and hoping to find the PMF.
Yeah, it can be a huge advantage if you do it right. Highly, highly recommend reading Company of One by Paul Jarvis if you're considering going the solo-founder track.
It's always astounded me how companies can grow to the size of thousands of people and still operate. I mean, let's face it, theres not enough work for thousands of people to do. Or let me put this way, theres not enough meaningful work for thousands to do. Once products reach a certain level of maturity, they sell themselves. And once a product has enough users, it barely changes, and why change something that works? All this to say, a few people - even just one - who can do a lot are always worth more than dozens of people with specific responsibilities.
I think I understand the point the article is trying to make, but at the end, it says "Hiring should be done to expand what can be done."
Indeed, but the thing is, a large majority of solo founders, after some time (shorter or longer), just can't do all the things on their own - managing, developing, marketing, designing, etc.
This is why even though I've founded BotMeNot I don't work on it alone. Especially when having other projects you're working on, things just get out of hand pretty quickly.
I'd argue that it's better to outsource a lot of those things OR find a key-person to hire once there's enough work to do.
Need a lot of designs? Hire an unlimited design firm.
Have a lot of things that need to be coded? Bring on an engineer or find an agency you work well with.
Well-capitalized teams rush to insource everything and quickly bloat. They become money bonfires that need more and more fuel just to survive. As indies the goal is to get to default-alive ASAP and so we need to be much more careful about our expansion.
But running lean has intrinsic benefits beyond just cost-savings, it also cuts out a lot of communication overhead that makes getting things done difficult in larger organizations.
Companies started by 1 guy:
Jeff Bezos (worth $88.2B), Amazon
Henry Ford
ServiceNow, $18B market cap
eBay, Pierre Omidyar, really large market cap **
Craigslist, Craig Newmark, $600M ARR (Craig’s a billionaire now) **
FireEye, $2.7B current market cap
Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, $2.5B market cap **
Sara Blakely (worth $1.7B), Spanx
Tumblr ($1B acquisition)
Amir Salihefendic, Todoist (2M users)
Aaron Peckham, Urban Dictionary (3M + users daily)
Drew Houston, DropBox * later asked to find a cofounder
Markus Frind, Plenty of Fish $575M exit
Aaron Patzer, Mint, $170M exit
Also
Not necessarily bootstrapped, but solo-founded!
"You need a co-founder" is a myth. You need motivated effective partners. You need to be efficient. And you need to move fast.
I believe the best perfomance can be achieved in small teams that fit together exceptionally well. Aspects I think about are:
Back when I was building my community of founders, I tried to target people interested in:
a) Founding/growing in general, SaaS (i.e. people on IndieHackers)
b) Startups (i.e. people on Ycombinator).
There was a pretty big difference between these 2 types of people:
People interested in becoming a founder were mostly bootstrapped and had a genuine interest in how to get started/grow. They were top-notch people
What surprised me is people interested in founding a "startup" obsessed over getting funding. Getting traction? Customers? Product-market fit? None of that mattered. In general, I found those people were interested in getting $$$ and thought that was going to solve all their problems.
From this observation I'd totally expect for solo and bootstrapped founders to outperform venture-backed founders and teams. I've even heard that VCs have started to proactively look for bootstrapped founder and offer them funding. I think this trend has contributed towards this...VCs are seeing that the top-notch people are first trying to start on their own vs. looking for funding straight away.
As someone who fits the first category perfectly, I don't agree with your "None of that mattered." in the second category. I think you're referring to building a product vs building a business.
Products are nice to experiment on, iterate and add value, but most of the time fail due to having an impressive tech that doesn't solve any problem.
The reason people are obsessed with funding and getting customers and traction is to validate there will be a business quickly rather than spending a long time building and hoping to find the PMF.
This is a great observation.
The best founders are focused on solving problems and building products.
Raising money is just one possible tool in their tool chest and they recognize that it is not a goal itself.
The difference between startup-LARPERS and founders is stark.
Yeah, it can be a huge advantage if you do it right. Highly, highly recommend reading Company of One by Paul Jarvis if you're considering going the solo-founder track.
It's always astounded me how companies can grow to the size of thousands of people and still operate. I mean, let's face it, theres not enough work for thousands of people to do. Or let me put this way, theres not enough meaningful work for thousands to do. Once products reach a certain level of maturity, they sell themselves. And once a product has enough users, it barely changes, and why change something that works? All this to say, a few people - even just one - who can do a lot are always worth more than dozens of people with specific responsibilities.
Definitely a problem of diminishing returns. As the complexity of a product grows it can take more and more people to get things done.
At the same time, large companies have opportunities for individuals to make impact at scale.
There are no cut and dry answers. Every company, product, and team is unique.
I think in general organizations tend towards bloat and therefore we should bias ourselves towards being more lean, more efficient, and hiring less.