founder, investorsI run a startup which has proved traction and is ready for a Series A funding. I do have a team of 20, but I am the only founder.
How do I justify being a single founder. Will this work against me?
Being a single founder can be problematic when you’re looking for seed money: it can mean that you’re not a team player, or that your idea is so bad that you couldn’t even convince your own friends to join you. Plus, actually starting a business is lots of work, and it’s nice to have someone cover your back.
So it shouldn’t be a problem if, as your other question implies, you’re profitable and you’ve assembled a good team around you. (No need to justify anything, money and good staff speak for themselves.)
The company I’m working for is in that very boat…single founder now looking for investors.
We’re taking the approach that we’re looking for partners vice investors. They’ll own part of the company but we’re also looking for them to provide insights into contacts, new opportunities, solutions to business problems, etc. We’re also preparing a partner prospectus that sells the idea that we’ve done a great job getting the company going but we could use some help funding and managing from here forward. So far it appears to be working.
How about elevating your current employees to co-founders level. Pick couple of them, and offer them less salary & more equity. If you get one or two employee agree to that then it’s win-win situation for you and employee. You get more dedicated & invested partners who are already part of business. And employee might feel appreciated and obviously, with series A funding coming up, that employee is going reap benefits.
It is extremely hard to find someone with all the competences needed to get a startup up and running. That’s why it is very hard to believe in a company with a single founder (investment-wise).
Means that either you don’t know what lies ahead and you think you have it all figured out, or it is going to cost a lot of money to pay in cash for all the competences you don’t have in your founding configuration.
Moreover, having someone close that drives the founder to account for progress and success/failure analysis is one of the most important part of founders being a team.
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