Why you should find a cofounder

Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak.

Mark Zuckerberg had Dustin Moskovitz.

Peter Thiel had Max Levchin.

I also have Robert Brunhage, a Swedish anime Fortnite player who is smart and good at coding.

Building a business by yourself is damn near impossible. Having a cofounder makes it more realistic.

My business went from struggling to get $100/m and me being ready to quit on my dream to being able to support me full time.

There are 3 key reasons I want to share why having a cofounder like Robert is an absolute game changer.

But first, how’d we get here?

I made my first commit to hungrimind on March 17, 2022.

Until then, I had been a Youtuber, but I wanted to build something longer-lasting than just YouTube videos. I wanted to create a place to host my content in a structured, updateable, and searchable way.

Yeah, it’s a blog, lol.

But over time, the ambitions grew; I wanted hungrimind to become more than just that. I started pouring all of my free time into this dream business.

There was so much to do all the time. I burned out a few times and had to take weeks off from working on it.

A year later, I was nowhere near where I wanted to be and was ready to quit on the dream. Until I started talking to Robert again.

Robert is also a creator. We became friends in 2019 when we were both uploading Flutter tutorials on YouTube. We went from helping each other make better videos to eventually trying to build a SaaS product together.

That SaaS product was a failure; we both got new jobs and did our own thing for a while. Until we started talking again a year ago.

He was looking for ideas for software to build, and I was looking for a lifeline for hungrimind.

Fast forward to today, and a year later, I am working on Hungrimind full-time.

Without Robert joining as a cofounder, there would be no Hungrimind.

While it’s possible to build a business without a cofounder, I want to share three reasons why you should try to find your own Robert.

Productivity

Let’s get the most obvious reason out of the way. It’s simple mathematics. You can get more done with two people than just one.

Ideally, if you have skills that complement each other, you can achieve greater things in different parts of a business.

Robert and I have a lot of overlap since we have built a creator business independently.

But Robert is slightly more technical since he’s worked as a Tech Lead for the past 3 years, and I’m slightly more product-oriented since I’ve worked in DevRel for the past 3 years.

Given our different skill sets, while still having a breadth of knowledge, we can make better decisions together.

There are infinite things you can choose to work on in a business that might seem “productive”. You can end up working 26 hours a day, but all that work might be going in the wrong or not in the “optimal” direction.

With two people, you can have a back-and-forth and be more aligned on what to work on.

With two people, you have better ideas and better systems.

I thought I had all the answers when I was working alone, but it clearly wasn’t working. Then Robert joined, and I had to verbalize and defend the ideas from his feedback.

This led to a better-looking site that converts, a better course that people enjoy more, and, most importantly, a clear direction for the future that we both believe in.

Support

Building a business is, obviously, very hard from a technical standpoint.

Want to learn Flutter?

We teach you all you need to confidently build apps at hungrimind.com/learn/flutter

To build a successful business, you have to

1. solve a problem people have
2. in a way they deem valuable
3. then get them to see your solution
4. and be convincing enough with your offer so they buy it.

It’s “simple”, as there are only four steps, but each is a massive challenge.

There will be ups and downs throughout the journey of completing each step. Which adds a very critical fifth step

1. Stay persistent and sane long enough to pull it off

This last one is the most challenging one without a cofounder. While a cofounder helps with all the technical steps, they are also there for emotional support.

Whenever you try really hard on a video, and it flops, they remind you about the bigger picture.

Whenever a rude email asks for a refund because you only support GitHub Authentication and “they hate GitHub”, they’re there to deal with it with you.

Also, am I crazy, or is hating GitHub as a developer crazy?

The right cofounder helps even out this roller coaster and makes it more manageable. Also, this support should go both ways, or else it’s not a cofounder but a therapist.

Fun

This last part might not be important for everybody trying to build a business, but it’s the most important for me.

Having a cofounder is just way more fun. Optimizing our business for fun is a guiding principle that will lead to success. It already has led to some success.

This past year has been the most fun I’ve had while building anything. And this fun came after long days at my full-time job.

This fun has led us to create a platform that I’m very proud of, a course that I’m super proud of, and a vision for the future that I’m way too excited for.

We will see if this guiding principle of optimizing for fun is successful in the long term, but for now, it has led me from being ready to quit on hungrimind to being able to support myself financially.

If you are looking to build a business, I highly recommend having a cofounder.

Cofounder Tips

Here are some quick-fire tips I found while researching this topic.

According to YC (the biggest startup incubator), the most common reason startups fail is that cofounders break up. Here are the most common reasons they break up.

1. They don’t respect each other, or they grew to not respect each other.
   1. This usually happens when one person thinks they can do the other person’s work better.
2. When both cofounders want to be CEO.
3. When their work ethics are not the same

The biggest advice to avoid breaking up is never to delay a hard conversation. The relationship between cofounders is the most important part of success and should be prioritized over everything. Many founders get stuck in the day-to-day business and delay hashing out disagreements. Don’t do that.

Our goal at hungrimind is to help people create their businesses. We currently teach technical skills through the Best Flutter Course on the Internet. Writing this article made me consider whether adding a community would be helpful. You could find your cofounder there. Let me know in the comments if this would be interesting.

Thank you for reading, Tadas