How many founders is too much?
While it's common for startups to be built by solo founders or 2-3 cofounders, I find anything exceeding 4 to cause confusion amongst the founding team.
It also becomes increasingly difficult to synchronize everyone towards a common goal
Would like to know your thoughts! :)
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Yeah it sounds strange with that many. Also, can you imagine being early employee and everyone else is a founder/your boss.
That's the worst thing that could happen to an employee
I think it is also dependent on the idea of the product/startup. However, it is likely to be more conflicts when the number is more than 3.
That makes sense, Emre. The startup in the above-mentioned case seemed to operate in the healthcare space with a software offering.
When the number exceeds 3, the founders need to have a lot of patience & deep understanding to operate well 😅
Well in that case that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I would be terrified to launch a product that can literally kill people. :D
I wonder if VCs and angels would be skeptical of investing in companies with 4+ cofounders
As far as I know yes, they are. I was asked, "how many founders are there in your company for future investments". I said "two" and then asked them why they asked about it? They said if there are many individual founders in the company it could be hard to reach an agreement because sometimes one co-founder can stop the agreement for small personal requests.
That makes a lot of sense
It depends. If you can all work on your startup full-time, then two is a good number. Otherwise 1.
People sometimes underestimate being solo founders. Fair point, Steve.
I don’t mind having co-founders, but it’s counterproductive if we can’t all work together at the same time because we have other commitments. Those other commitments are often unique to the co-founders and it makes each co-founder wonder how committed the other one is.
it depends,when you all have the same vision and idea i think there will no problem
But I wonder if communication between the founders might pose problems
is five really way too much
From the replies in the post, I'm coming to realize that 5+ founders in a software startup might be too much but the same might be different for hardware startups
Like everything in life, it much depends on the context. You can be a founder and don't have a saying in the company 😉. Depends on how you define the roles, the responsibilities, and make sure everyone is aligned. I've known companies where it was 2 and it was too much. And others that it was 4/5 and it worked great.
In one of the last episodes of "My First Million" podcast, they share a framework to see the alignment between founders. Having that defined feels more important than the actual number.
That's a nice way to put, Nuno. True that dynamics between the founders may sometimes matter more than the number.
But wouldn't managing the dynamics become harder with the increase in the number of founders as communication will need more effort?
For me, that is the same pattern as in building engineering teams. As the number of members increases, communication becomes more challenging. 5 people working together usually is more complex than 2 people working together.
What I usually feel is the problem is the power dynamics. In a team of 5, it won't be nice if everyone wants to be the CEO. But if one is the CEO, another the CTO, CMO, or COO, and they respect each other responsibilities, there's a bigger chance to work out.
Yeah I agree on this too :)
Oh, 5-6 is just too much. Up to 4 founders, shouldn't be an issue if every founder has it's own job and responsibilities. I worked on a startup with 4 founders, and everything was ran smoothly between the foudner.
Interesting, Daniel. So how were the responsibilities split between the 4 founders?
A collective farming startup in the countryside with 10 founders dedicated to the environment protection would properly work.
An innovative bitcoin farming startup with 10 founders dedicated to web3 and revenue would properly not.
😜
That's a nice analogy 😂
Ok, real talk... I once started a company with SIX OTHER PEOPLE. Yeah, there were seven co-founders total. Within six months, three of us quit (myself included). The remaining four stuck at it but the company continued to go nowhere.
There were way too many cooks in the kitchen. Nobody knew what their roles were, which meant most weren't pulling their weight. There was generally just way too much talk, and never enough action. And worst of all, there was this weird culty dynamic forming. It was by far my worst entrepreneurial attempt. And now I know better!
The sweet spot is two, IMO. Three tops. And please, never ever seven. 😱
Sorry you had to go through that. What was the main reason the 3 chose to quit at the time ?
Makes sense why the process became complex
To completely oversimplify it, we weren't on the same page. It's hard for that many people to maintain the same goals and ethics.
Oh got it. But in the beginning, what got you the conviction to go ahead with the 6 cofounders as I presume you might have had second thoughts ?
Lots of reasons. It was a group of 6 people who were doing something that seemed cool and they invited me. The whole idea was that we were going to create a new, democratized way of working with no hierarchy, so it seemed like maybe it wouldn't be too many after all. One of the founders was a good friend. But mostly, I was naive and new to being an entrepreneur.
I would think that bureaucracy grows exponentially the more founders you have.
I find communication problems to be prevalent along with it too.
Yup. And before you know it, it takes 3 days to change a button from blue to red.
Those are nightmares for the dev teams working under them 😅
It depends on the founders.
I've worked with 2 people who were amazing to work with, and then worked with a bunch of people (as a team-of-two) who were pain in the a**.
So it really depends on the person / people involved.
Makes a lot of sense. How was your experience working with founders greater than 3 ?
"Anymore than one" - Any solopreneur.
haha jk. I feel like more than 3 and there are too many opinions vs actions.
This is a guess though.
Haha Dan 😄
But being a solopreneur has its own perks too like quickly deciding & executing
I've worked in companies with 1, 2, 3 and 4 cofounders. I found that each had their strengths and weaknesses as setups. I can't imagine 5-6 founders, maybe it could work but they'd need to be unbelievable well matched. Personally I found work for companies founded by 2-3 people to be most enjoyable, but honestly I'd say that's a coincidence more than anything.
Agree with you on this, Chris.
Still surprises me when I see a startup having 5+ cofounders. It takes a lot of management & communication to keep everyone aligned
Sweet spot is 3 imo, because it's easier to form a majority for decisions, there's never gonna be a half split on votes.
But the more important thing in my opinion is the skill set each founder has. From those 6, at least 2 share the same area of expertise, and that's gonna cause friction, because there can be only one final decision maker.
In my experience more than one founder it is too much XD.
However, in my interview with Michelle she told me that she has 5 co-founders and it is working great. So in the end as long as you have the right people the more the mayor :)
Listening to this podcast right now, Tiago. Interesting to note how they've split responsibilities between the cofounders.
Typedream is a fine company of course :)