Too Much Money and Ego; If you want to kill a Start-up!

In his article, Paul Graham mentioned 18 mistakes that kill start-ups. Among them, two caught my attention. Number one, Single Founder! How many times you have seen a founder who can not convinced any other to join her/him or ego does not let her/him to share the glory with others. “Single founder syndrome” marginalizes start-up culture by reducing true power of founder! It is a one man show, she/he against others (VCs and other board members).

Raising too much money and spending a lot is another recipe for disaster!  Once you raise several million dollars of money, the clock is ticking. If VCs fund you, they’re not going to let you just put the money in the bank and keep operating as two guys living on ramen. They want that money to go to work. At the very least you’ll move into proper office space and hire more people. That will change the atmosphere, and not entirely for the better. Now most of your people will be employees rather than founders. They won’t be as committed; they’ll need to be told what to do; they’ll start to engage in office politics and you know the rest!