[tags]startups[/tags] A friend of mine directed me to Why to Not Not Start a Startup:
Not having a cofounder is a real problem. A startup is too much for one person to bear. And though we differ from other investors on a lot of questions, we all agree on this. All investors, without exception, are more likely to fund you with a cofounder than without.
This is probably the single largest road-block in the way of starting a start-up. One solution is to move to where there are more interested parties (e.g. Silicon Valley), but that’s not always an easy option (although I’m warming up to it, Minneapolis isn’t exactly heaven for several months out of the year).
Another option is to find someone online. Mike Subelsky created Founder Finder as an attempt at addressing this very issue.
Unfortunately, deep down inside I think that is a difficult proposition as well. I have a hard time finding good programmers, I’ve worked as a one-man island most of my life, and haven’t maintained good contact with my fellow CS major’s from UIUC.
Believe it or not, social networking is helping in some ways, because I’m able to reconnect with people I knew at one time or another who are very much start-up driven and really have the drive.
A better network of developers needs to exist, not just people we scrape out of monster.com and jobster… how’s that for a cheap idea?