There are so many examples of both 2-founder and 3-founder companies being successful, but I don't see why everyone keeps trying to generalize the argument to say that one is better than the other.
There doesn't seem to be a 'correct' number of founders (though clearly having 4+ or 1 has been known to be more difficult). You should choose your number of founders based on what you think will give you the highest probability of success given your situation, personality types, etc.
The title of the article should be, 'How Having 3 Founders Worked Really Well For Us'.
We're talking about methodology though. Something which is very meaningful in an engineering context but, and this is purely my opinion here, significantly less so in the business world.
There is, for example, a best way to build a bridge. I'm not so sure there is a best way to build a company.
If there is a single best way to build a bridge, then why do we have so many different types of bridges being built?
There are many different good ways to build bridges, with trade-offs between them, and knowing about them lets engineers to pick the best way to build a particular bridge.
I do believe that was what the parent said. There's no best bridge (or, say, best hash data structure), but there is a best procedure to create a given one.
Comments
There are so many examples of both 2-founder and 3-founder companies being successful, but I don't see why everyone keeps trying to generalize the argument to say that one is better than the other.
There doesn't seem to be a 'correct' number of founders (though clearly having 4+ or 1 has been known to be more difficult). You should choose your number of founders based on what you think will give you the highest probability of success given your situation, personality types, etc.
The title of the article should be, 'How Having 3 Founders Worked Really Well For Us'.
It is starting to get old seeing people extrapolate principles from anecdotes.
It's probably just our engineering instincts trying to find the patterns in things.
Normative startup advice seems to be about as useful as normative life advice-- not very.
Humans can rationalize anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2006/12/smart-people-can-ration...
You frame a problem in a context, or a time frame, or a motivation and you can argue whatever point you want.
All predictions about the future are by definition opinion.
We're talking about methodology though. Something which is very meaningful in an engineering context but, and this is purely my opinion here, significantly less so in the business world.
There is, for example, a best way to build a bridge. I'm not so sure there is a best way to build a company.
If there is a single best way to build a bridge, then why do we have so many different types of bridges being built?
There are many different good ways to build bridges, with trade-offs between them, and knowing about them lets engineers to pick the best way to build a particular bridge.
I do believe that was what the parent said. There's no best bridge (or, say, best hash data structure), but there is a best procedure to create a given one.
Good book on this: The Halo Effect
http://www.the-halo-effect.com/