Have a co-founder.

On stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt NYC, prolific Angel investor Ron Conway spoke on what makes Great entrepreneurs Great.  They interviewed almost 500 CEO’s from their portfolio companies and found some interesting nuggets of wisdom.  Here is a big one: having a co-founder greatly increases your exit.  Companies with exits (or the potential of an exit) in the $25m range, single founders made up only 16%.  Even more interesting, exits of $500m+ (or the potential of an exit) , single founders only made up 11% of the group.  A full 89% of the group were companies with 2 or more founders.  This does not surprise me.   Larry and Sergey (Google).  Steve and Steve (Apple).  Bill and Paul (Microsoft).  Jerry and David (Yahoo).  David and Bill (HP).

Founders – life looks better with a friend along for the ride.