You could do it alone

There is a lot of interest in how far one person can go building a company. As the tools get better, more of the work becomes possible to do yourself. But I think about solo founding a little like the TV show Alone.

The show sends ten people into the wilderness to survive separately. They bring their clothing and ten selected items, then have to build shelter, find food, boil water, and endure the conditions until they are the last person there. Some have lasted more than a hundred days. Many seasons take place in cold environments, with winter approaching.

At first, you notice how the participants are very capable for the most part. They know how to build things, hunt, fish, and make use of what is around them. Then you start to see how difficult it is to hold everything together alone.

While you are looking for food, an animal gets into what you already stored. While you are collecting firewood, the fire in your shelter goes out. You can spend most of a day solving one problem and return to find another waiting for you. Sometimes the person has a very bad idea but decides to do it anyway.

It isn’t that any single task is impossible. It’s that all of them are yours, every day. There is nobody to keep something going while you attend to something else.

You also have only your own ideas. If your approach isn’t working, you have to come up with another one. There is no one with a different skill, experience, or way of seeing the situation to lean on or talk the problem through with. You get tired and bored, and still have to make every decision yourself.

The show recreates many of the difficulties of primitive living while removing one of the most important parts of how people survived: working together.

Startups are similar. There are the tasks, the mental ups and downs, the back and forth, the debate, and the different pulls that shape the company along the way. Working with other people is part of how you figure out what you are building, not just how you get it done.

Take fundraising. It pulls your attention away from building the company. One reason to have a single founder handle investor meetings and relationships is so the others can keep the company moving. While the CEO raises money, the other founders keep building. Someone is there to keep the fire going while you’re away.

Many companies have solo founders, but that can already be harder. A solo founder still has other people in the company to work through things with. When we talk about solo companies, where there is no one else at all, I see that as even harder and wonder why would that even make sense.

I understand the appeal of independence and the fact that this could be possible, but I also see it as a worse way to build.

A good partnership changes more than how much work each person has to do. Your partner has ideas that don’t come from your habits or assumptions. You can work through something together and reach a better answer than either of you had at the beginning.

Some days you bring more energy. Other days they do. You don’t have to generate all the conviction yourself, every day.

And when something good happens, there is someone to share it with. You can sit by a campfire and say, “We did that,” to a person who understands what it took. They were there for the whole journey.

Of course, finding that person is difficult. A bad partnership can be worse than working alone. It takes patience to find someone you trust, can disagree with, and want to keep growing alongside. You shouldn’t bring someone in just because you are afraid to start by yourself.

But I think a good partnership is worth looking for. The fact that you could manage without one doesn’t make it less valuable.

I like peace and quiet more than most people. I’m curious about how much I can build on my own. But I still want people to work with, learn from, and share the experience with.

Going a hundred days alone in the wilderness is impressive. I don’t think I would want to make it my life.