Instead of immediately hiring after validating his idea, the founder of Sure worked alone for a year. He used this time to secure the company's first critical insurance partner, ensuring the business was on stable footing before asking anyone else to leave their job and join the venture.
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Co-founding a business is often harder than a marriage, yet receives far less diligence. The probability of two individuals maintaining perfect alignment on effort, finances, and vision over many years is incredibly low, making solo ventures statistically safer.
Resist hiring quickly after finding traction. Instead, 'hire painfully slowly' and assemble an initial 'MVP Crew' — a small, self-sufficient team with all skills needed to build, market, and sell the product end-to-end. This establishes a core DNA of speed and execution before scaling.
Despite having raised $1M, the Juicebox founders remained a two-person team. The reason wasn't just to stay lean; it was a belief that their early, "risky, unproven" company couldn't yet attract the A-player talent they aspired to hire. This self-awareness protected them from making suboptimal early hires.
Before hiring for a critical function like growth marketing, Gamma's CEO spent 6-12 months doing the job himself. This immersion taught him what "great" looks like, preventing a bad hire and ensuring he could properly lead the function he was delegating.
Faced with complex U.S. regulations, Sure's founder went to South Africa. He leveraged its single-regulator system and his personal roots to land his first insurance partner. This validation then served as crucial social proof to sign the same company's U.S. division, de-risking a much larger market entry.