Silicon Valley Micro ISV Meetup

This is a support group for single founder software companies. Share ideas and discuss about challenges facing single founders.

According to Paul Graham, the #1 mistake that kills a startup is Single Founder http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.h...

Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person? Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more. It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.

What's wrong with having one founder? To start with, it's a vote of no confidence. It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him. That's pretty alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.

But even if the founder's friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage. Starting a startup is too hard for one person. Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.

The last one might be the most important. The low points in a startup are so low that few could bear them alone. When you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a way that seems to violate conservation laws. Each thinks "I can't let my friends down." This is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and it's missing when there's just one founder.

So, the objectives for our group would be:

Peers to brainstorm
Talk you out of stupid decisions
To cheer you up when things go wrong

I recently attended Microconf 2011. MicroConf is a two-day conference focused on self-funded and single founder software companies. http://www.microconf.com/ organized by Rob Walling the author of Start Small, Stay Small http://www.startupbook.net/ I learned a lot and I would like to share what I learned with others.

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Hosted by: Bala Paranj (Organizer)

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Misha Leybovich joined
Wednesday at 9:53 PM
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Bryan Lee joined
February 14 at 4:29 PM

"Hi, I'm attempting something something that is possibly crazy - trying to release a handful of projects over the next several months."
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CQ Chen joined
January 16 at 1:54 AM
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Paul joined
December 12, 2011 at 2:17 PM
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Vijay joined
November 23, 2011 at 12:11 PM

"Hi, I'm a first time entrepreneur who's just started QuantumBlaze, Inc. to build IP using technologies like BI & CRM. Before that, I spent over a decade leading a consulting practice. Thanks, Vijay www.quantumblaze.com"
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Chien-Chung Chang joined
November 3, 2011 at 6:04 PM

"all the way from an Apple ][ to an iPad 2 (1984~), author of AP2222PC (1994), x-HyperTalker (1989), x-Forther (1990~1994), internet surfer (1991~), x-C++ template metaprogrammer (~2000), CUDA and Objective-C (2010~)."
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Lydia joined
September 5, 2011 at 3:14 PM
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Julio joined
July 13, 2011 at 1:18 PM
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Macro Chao joined
July 5, 2011 at 5:33 PM
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Gautam Sampathkumar joined
June 29, 2011 at 11:14 PM