• Blog
  • Archives
  • Bio
  • Awards
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Contact

Sole founder or co-founders?

Published: Thursday, 31 January 2013

I was starting up my new start-up and I was finding it hard to get my desired co-founder to commit.  So I thought back over my experiences of the past few years.

I think the biggest asset of having a co-founder, is that you have another human being who is out in the world having experiences, learning new things, taking in feedback and data, observing how people react to things, processing how the world works, and then contributing their thoughts to the table.

Another brain thinking about the start-up when they're in the shower, doing exercise or commuting on public transport.

What I've found is that the problem I'm thinking about at all those times isn't necessarily the same as the problem my co-founder is thinking about.

So we either solve problems twice as quickly together, or we solve two problems at the same time.  And that's priceless.

About Me

Marita ChengForbes named me a world's top 50 woman in tech & 30 Under 30. I founded Robogals and Aipoly and was Young Australian of the Year 2012. Currently working on robotics company Aubot. I'm the youngest Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and I give speeches around the world.

I tweet @maritacheng and I'm on Facebook.

Subscribe

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Random Articles

  • In the news: Entrepreneurship in Australian universities

    My business partner Mark Parncutt was quoted in this article in StartUp Smart about the state of entrepreneurship in Australian universities.  Happy...

  • Burnout

    I think that burnout happens when you set a goal, you work really, really hard to achieve the goal, and then the deadline comes and you haven’t...

  • Shell Eco-Marathon Asia

    I’m very excited to announce that I have been named the 2019 Shell Eco-Marathon Ambassador for Australia. The concept of the Shell Eco-Marathon stems...

  • Reasons

    Why, excuses, rationale, justifications, explanations, verbal diarrhoea, reasons, etc. In the end, the myriad and infinite possibility of reasons...

  • Hardy Group interview

    The Hardy Group invited me to speak with them about healthcare, robotics and leadership.  Here I am riffing about those topics!

  • Don't focus: search for something that sticks

    During my second to fourth years of university, I worked on Nudge, mew and Robogals.  I did various projects with all those initiatives over that...

  • A Tech Schools Update

    A building collapse warning system, a pancreatic cancer detection kit and a self-inflating shirt to stop young children drowning if they fall into a...

  • Nancy Fairfax Churchill Fellowship

    From January to March this year, I travelled to Germany, the UK, the USA and Jamaica to study "Strategies to get girls interested in science,...

  • Jevaroo’s neck

    Jevaroo’s neck is my favorite part of the robot. Jevaroo’s neck has a movement range of 25cm, allowing Jevaroo to reach for objects up to 170cm high...

  • No overnight success: Geoffrey Rush

    When I was touring schools with Geoffrey Rush and we were answering questions in front of hundreds of kids, lots of them said, "I really what to be...

Enter your email address to receive my latest blog posts: 

 

Scroll to Top