The thing is, a co-founder won't save you if you don't have self-discipline. It's probably one of the top sources of co-founder conflict, actually: one founder slacks off or loses focus, and the other(s) get upset, and the whole thing falls apart.
Self-discipline is a highly underrated quality. In my experience, most people can't work productively for an extended period of time on an open-ended project.
I think it's super important, but maybe should be considered a skill rather than a quality. It's definitely something that people don't get much practice on in school or most jobs. If you get some practice, you can improve self-discipline dramatically.
Agreed (I had terrible self-discipline when I was younger, but I have a fair amount now), but it's not a skill that can be dialed-up on demand. If you don't have it going into a startup, it's a serious liability. Learning self-discipline while also doing your first startup is probably impossibly hard.
Also, most people don't believe that it can be cultivated, which sort of begs the whole question: how do you cultivate self-discipline without the self-discipline to try to attain it? It seems that most people gain it by trying successively harder things over a long period of time.
Self-discipline is a highly underrated quality. In my experience, most people can't work productively for an extended period of time on an open-ended project.