It's choosing between pest and cholera.<p><i>In early stages:</i> With a cofounder you get started, carry on, have fun and soon an MVP. Without you quit days after having a first prototype (due to heavy procrastination, doubts, distractions).<p><i>In later stages:</i> With a cofounder decision-making becomes a nightmare—every other discussion ends in dramas and in grueling deadlocks. Without a cofounder life is a breeze and you can close deals in 48h (i.e. buying a photo sharing app for 1 billion).<p>(edited first line: removed chicken and egg)
If you're wondering why Google+ is suddenly in Estonian(?), it's because the submitter included ?hl=et on their link (remove it to get your normal language - this setting follows you around the site).
I started off working on my startup as a single founder and found it enjoyable, especially the coding part. What I underestimated was the emotional challenge and that's where having a cofounder helps tremendously. I was fortunate enough to find a cofounder and while the level of stress is still high, its much easier to deal with having somebody in the trenches with you. As far as the later stages of a startup, very few startups even get to that point so I wouldn't worry so much.
Not having a co-founder is worse. A short discussion with someone who understands what you are talking about can make ideas much clearer in your mind than days of thinking alone.
I've worked for a lot of startups and observed two primary causes of startup death: 1. VCs forced bad decisions on the startup. 2. Founders fought, resulting in bad decisions.<p>I think co-founders are an improvement over single-founder, but I think there should be a primary founder, the leader, with whom the buck stops, and with whom all of the co-founders are willing to defer if they don't reach consensus. There should be a chief and indians and even if everyone starts at the same time, the relationship should be discussed and understood in advance.<p>Much of the drama I've seen is inherent to the "Everyone is equal" perception.<p>If you're willing to be a cofounder in this environment- where you're NOT the leader and NOT equal to the leader- then from the beginning you've agreed to subordinate your ego to some extent to the founder, and so this should remove the ego driven need to defend yourself on things that really aren't that relevant which seems to be the cause of a lot of the drama.<p>I think PG echoed very similar sentiments in a recent interview with TC where he said he looked for teams where there was a clear leader. This fits my experience.