“Yourself, plus two others. With only two, each person needs to be aware of all the details in case the other person needs to take a break / gets run over by a bus / whatever. With three, the load is spread a bit more easily.”
Boris Mann, thoughts on Passion and Frustration, October 5th, 2009
"Three lemurs eating" by Tambako the Jaguar. CC by-nd. Flickr Hosted.
From starting a company with Boris and Co’s Bootup Labs to being the area experts for your company, you want three of you.
3 is a magic number.
I’ve always just gone with having one backup, but reflecting on it now, I should have two backups in each area.
At first it seems like an incredible amount of redundancy, but someone’s own focuses and work doesn’t go away when they have to fill in for you. You need two backups, two people who can step in to carry your load — each carrying some of your load.
This extends beyond backing you up. This creates a mesh of collaboration,. Having different collaborators (back ups) in different areas leaves no weak links.
Disagreeing about something with your backup? With three there is always a moderator / negotiator / tie breaker.
I actually saw some statistics showing that companies started with 3 founders have better success.
Three is ideal, but there isn’t always time or money for ideal. Sometimes there is only time and money to get by.
If you sufficiently document what you do you can get by well enough with two.
Though you may end up paying doubly or more later.
Documentation is no good if no one is using it — you may be documenting the wrong thing.