Cofounder Daydream Has Entered Review

The product had one user. The user was also the founder.

At some point in the previous two weeks, a question had formed about whether the work could be done alone at scale. The question was reasonable. Scale would eventually require more than one person. The question was also premature by approximately fourteen months, based on the current user count.

Nevertheless. The daydream had begun.

This is the opening condition of the cofounder daydream: the product is real, the founder is working, and the imaginary future version of the operation has outpaced the actual current version in terms of organizational complexity. The daydream is not a plan. It is a rehearsal for a plan that will be needed later, conducted at a time when it produces no useful output.

The first consequence was motivational. Thinking about the future organization felt like working on the future organization. Several hours passed in this way. No users were added. No features were shipped. The future organization remained available for further consideration.

After the second cofounder daydream in the same week, the selection criteria had become more refined. Certain qualities were now required in the hypothetical partner. Skills that would complement the founder's. Availability that would not conflict. A communication style that was easy to describe in vague positive terms. The criteria were applied to several real people the founder knew, each of whom was found to be either too busy or not quite right in some way that was difficult to name.

Visible preparation counts as revenue-adjacent activity until the first customer forces a different standard.

The cofounder was needed at a scale the product had not yet confirmed it would reach. The daydream of needing a cofounder was a specific kind of optimism: it required believing the problem ahead would be too large to solve alone, which required believing the problem ahead was real, which required some evidence of current traction, which was not yet available.

The daydream was built on a foundation of optimism about a future that optimism was being used to avoid building.

By 2022, the cofounder mythology was well established. The two-founder story was the modal founding story. Building alone was permitted but slightly suspect. The daydream was therefore also a conformity signal, directed inward.

The product still has one user.

The criteria document is thorough.