The Single Founder

I published a popular article named “The Single Founder Myth” a few years back. In this article, I contended that contrary to popular opinion, it was not impossible to go it alone with a software startup and be successful. To clarify up front, what I mean by “going it alone” is that you build up the company without handing over equity to someone else, be it either investors or other co-founders.

In this article, I gave several reasons why companies have multiple founders and countered the necessity of each for a single founder company. I came to a sudden realization the other day why most technology companies have two founders.

It’s because one of them is a builder, and the other is a salesman.

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I remember the day very clearly, although it was not apparent to me at the time. It was the day that the Micro-ISV movement died.

A Brief History

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the history of the Micro-ISV, I’ll provide it for you here. Eric Sink is widely credited with the creation of the term “MicroISV”. As far back as May 8, 2003,  Eric was talking about what he referred to as “Small ISV’s“. The concept is rather simple in nature. An “ISV” is an independent software vendor, a phrase which is derived primarily from the Microsoft ecosystem and refers to software companies that are not Microsoft. As for the “Small” part, they’re small companies with anywhere from 3-100 employees. It’s a pretty simple definition, but definitive as well.

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