My best engineer said no to me for three years

I asked Dev to cofound with me in 2019. No. Again in 2020. No. In 2021, with a term sheet in hand: still no. Each time he said the same thing: "You don't need a cofounder. You need to believe you can do the first year alone."

He joined in year four — as employee eight, exactly when a person like him was what the company actually needed. He'd been advising me for free the whole time.

The people who refuse to be your crutch are sometimes the ones carrying you.