A frequently asked question in panels on startups is whether it is possible to start a company by oneself. The answer is clearly yes and it has been done many times before. But there is a lot to be said for being able to work as a team. There are obvious benefits like being able to better cover the many disciplines required in a startup (for instance, we usually prefer founding teams that have at least one engineer on them). But there is also a more subtle benefit which I call creative difference. In a team you will not always agree on everything – some times or even many time there will be different opinions among the team members on how to do something. While resolving those differences may slow things down a bit and absorb some energy, it can also be a great source of creativity. Often the best ideas are the result of initial thoughts and ideas that were challenged by someone else. Startups with a single founder or a dominant member of the founding team frequently wind up with blind spots that prevent ideas from succeeding to their fullest extent. It is the lack of creative difference that prevents them from going from good to great.
