When is risk taken out of the picture, though? A lot of successful startups have near-death experiences well into their trajectory. Paypal and YouTube famously did.
You wrote somewhere that getting to ramen profitability is like hitting a binary switch. For me that was the most accurate thing you've written about the psychology of starting a company. It was the pyschological point where my business stopped being speculative and became something I could see supporting myself.
I don't have experience with big startups like Paypal or Youtube, but I'd imagine that if multi-founder teams were really a statistically significant determinant of success, there would be more active investment in (revenue-earning) single-founder businesses. The fact that investors seem to shy away from them suggests otherwise though.
So I'm not intending to be critical of your own or YC's activities. I just don't think it makes sense to convince people they need a co-founder just for the sake of having one. And especially not if they've already got some traction and revenue.
I don't have experience with big startups like Paypal or Youtube, but I'd imagine that if multi-founder teams were really a statistically significant determinant of success, there would be more active investment in (revenue-earning) single-founder businesses. The fact that investors seem to shy away from them suggests otherwise though.
So I'm not intending to be critical of your own or YC's activities. I just don't think it makes sense to convince people they need a co-founder just for the sake of having one. And especially not if they've already got some traction and revenue.