Three's Company (Why three co-founders is better than two.)

We have three founders and it's been pretty solid. It's very hard to have a decision impasse with 3 people. We all defer to each other's area of expertise and in the (many) areas where were are all stupid (but still have the make a decision), we defer to the majority (or occasionally, it's a "loudocracy"... :-) ).<p>Another downside that I don't think was mentioned is that your "ramen profitable" number goes up by about 50%.<p>Even with that, I think the 50% bump in (free and maniacal) manpower plus the extra perspective is totally worth it.<p>I always say that it's better to optimize your CHANCE of success rather than the magnitude of it, should it happen. Hard to argue that a good (free!) co-founder wouldn't do that.

There are so many examples of both 2-founder and 3-founder companies being successful, but I don't see why everyone keeps trying to generalize the argument to say that one is better than the other.<p>There doesn't seem to be a 'correct' number of founders (though clearly having 4+ or 1 has been known to be more difficult). You should choose your number of founders based on what you think will give you the highest probability of success given your situation, personality types, etc.<p>The title of the article should be, 'How Having 3 Founders Worked Really Well For Us'.

"If you and your single co-founder don't agree on something, there's no third party to mediate. You're left in a deadlock with nowhere to turn."<p>One of my previous bosses made me promise to never start a company with only two founders for exactly this reason. This was after a very painful startup experience that ended with lawyers talking to lawyers, one founder buying out the other, and a fair bit of acrimony. I don't know how common this is, but I think I'll stick to the promise.

This is a great article and I agree with it. However, I think a second point can be made that odd numbers are generally better with most collaborative groups(be it one or three founders in this case).

I can agree with this. My startup has two thirds of the triumvirate, and we end up having to spend money on front-end design stuff. They're top-notch and all, but I think I'd rather pay someone who's on the team and around all day.