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"Backblaze CEO Gleb Budman embodies the entrepreneurial spirit. He started his first business at age 15\u00A0and ran it until he went off to college at UC Berkeley.\r\n\r\nWhen Gleb was in business school at Berkeley he founded NetRelevance \u2013 his professors liked his business plan so much that they used it in the Haas School of Business as a teaching tool. Two more entrepreneurial ventures later, Gleb cofounded online backup provider Backblaze to help consumers affordably, automatically, and safely back up their data.\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat are the pros and cons of starting a business alone versus with cofounders? How many founders are too many?\r\nThe required number of cofounders for success is:\r\n\u201CZero\u201D \u2013 You don\u2019t need a cofounder. You are the founder, the visionary, the uber-entrepreneur. Why would you want to have someone second-guessing you? Hire everyone you need as an employee.\r\n\u201COne\u201D \u2013 You have to have a cofounder. VCs don\u2019t fund sole founders and, if you are alone, you\u2019ve either got too much ego or you can\u2019t convince someone to join you.\r\n\u201CTwo\u201D \u2013 You have to have three founders. Decisions need to be made fast in startups and you have to ensure you can have a tie-breaker.\r\nI\u2019ve heard all of these and you probably have too. Each of these is periodically spouted as the required answer. You can\u2019t be successful unless you are the single visionary, or unless you have a cofounder, or unless there are three of you.\r\n\r\nYou know what is definitely the wrong number of cofounders? Five.\r\n\r\n\u201CToo many.\u201D\r\n\u201CImpossible to manage.\u201D\r\n\u201CToo dilutive.\u201D\r\nFive is definitely the wrong answer. At least, that\u2019s what I\u2019ve heard.\r\n\r\nYet five is also the number of cofounders of Backblaze. We started our online backup company with five in 2008, and all five are still running the company today.\r\n\r\nBy sheer coincidence, it is also the number of cofounders of Excite, which is where the Backblaze cofounders met. Excite became the fourth most popular website in the late 90\u2019s, so maybe five is a great number. \u00A0Of course, Excite also went bankrupt in 2001, so maybe five is a terrible number?\r\nAfter being part of a team of five that co-founded a fairly successful company and still have the original team together after half a decade, here\u2019s what I learned about having cofounders.\r\n\r\nPros\r\n1. Shoulder \u2013 not to cry on, but to lean on.\r\nWhen things have to happen, your co-founders are the ones who will step up.\r\nSince we bootstrapped Backblaze, early on we would have months when the company did not have enough cash from sales to buy the additional servers it needed. The cofounders would take out their credit cards to bridge the temporary gap.\r\n2. Break \u2013 you need one at some point.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s easier to take that vacation when you know someone will be at the office that will care the way you do and share your goals.\r\nA couple years in, I got married and left on my honeymoon for two weeks to Kenya \u2013 where I had no email or phone connectivity much of the time. I could enjoy my honeymoon knowing the company was in good hands with the other co-founders, and an even better team.\r\n3. Variety \u2013 I believe what I believe.\r\n\r\nSometimes I\u2019m wrong. My cofounders, who share my core goals, will still say \u201CYou\u2019re wrong.\u201D And sometimes, they\u2019re right.\r\nAfter launching our Windows online backup service five years ago, our CTO pitched that we should focus on launching our Mac version next. At that time, Mac computers made up a mere 6 percent of the market and I argued we needed to focus on other areas. He convinced me to ship the Mac version and it has since become over 60 percent of our customer base.\r\nAs CEO of a company, a strong - yet sometimes stubborn - vision is a requirement. But having cofounders who can give perspective can help you see a different side of the market.\r\n\r\n4. Skills \u2013 I do product, business, marketing.\r\n\r\nThree of my cofounders are engineering masterminds (with various skillsets.) The last is a designer. Each of these skill sets was key in building the company.\r\nIt\u2019s obvious that a company building an online backup service and its own cloud storage platform requires strong engineering talent. It may be obvious that \u201Cbuild it and they will come\u201D doesn\u2019t work, thus requiring marketing. But having a design cofounder was critical in getting the large volume of work on the website, product, marketing material, done; iterating quickly; and keeping a consistent aesthetic to the brand.\r\n5. Commitment \u2013 startups are a wild ride of ups and downs.\r\n\r\nCofounders stick through the tough times and help each other cushion the ride.\r\nTo start Backblaze, all five of us committed to a year without salary. That was effectively the seed round. When it became a year-and-a-half, the five co-founders all took the hit to keep the company going. Now imagine doing that alone and still have a company to call your own!\r\n\r\nCons\r\n1. Decisions \u2013 as a founder you want to make a decision and go.\r\n\r\nWith cofounders, you need to get people on-board. And sometimes you need to get on-board with their ideas, which is a lot harder than it sounds.\r\nWhether it was the \u201Csupport Mac\u201D decision, or determining if we should raise funding, accept an acquisition offer, or a myriad other questions, strong personalities with different opinions means unilateral decisions don\u2019t happen. Or if they do, sometimes they happen too late thanks to all the back and forth.\r\n2. Dilution \u2013 bringing on a co-founder likely means you\u2019re splitting your share in half.\r\n\r\nStarting with three people total? Your company needs to be worth three times more for your equity to be worth the same.\r\nWe split our stock one-fifth each. Backblaze has to be worth five times more than if any of us had founded the company itself for our equity to be worth the same.\r\n\r\nSo, what's the magic cofounder number?\r\nUltimately, I think cofounders are invaluable. If you can\u2019t get your co-founders on board with a decision, perhaps you don\u2019t have enough data, logic, or conviction. And the likelihood of your company succeeding increases an order of magnitude by having a team of people who are as committed to its success as you are.\r\nHowever, it will not be whether you have one, two, or three cofounders that will drive your company\u2019s fate. It\u2019s who those cofounders are and how you work together.\r\nSo on your way to becoming the next Microsoft, Google, or Apple, make sure you find your Paul Allen, Sergey Brin, or Steve Wozniak.\r\nImage Credit:\u00A0Yeko Photo Studio/Shutterstock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/10/10/how-many-cofounders-does-your-startup-need/>