Having someone else also means you’re accountable to them, which puts a bit more urgency on getting things done, in addition to being a sounding-board for your ideas.

Whether you need cofounders/advisers/contractors depends a lot on whether your idea is, "widget I can get made in bulk in China sell on Amazon", "mechanism that needs a lot of R&D to make it work" or "perfect solution to niche problem" and what the gaps in your own skillset and network are.

On a Co-Founder:

1) Like raising kids as a single parent, it's possible but it's far better with a partner. Same thing goes for being a Solo Founder vs having a Co-Founder. The magic number, in my opinion, is 2 total Co-Founders for a startup.

2) The right cofounder will complement your expertise. It's basically "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

3) Make a list of everyone in your friend group, those you've worked with in the past 3 years and maybe even a few you went to college with. Mark those who are formidable, reach out to all the ones you marked and just have a conversation with each of them to see where it takes you. But have those conversations with the intent that any one of them could potentially be a Co-Founder.

On getting started:

1) There's literally no hard and fast rule. But I think it's a good idea to keep your day job, and spend evening and weekends working on pulse checking your product with potential customers/users. Prioritize heavily on getting in front of customers. Patents don't matter much.

2) See how far you can take this as a business on your own while looking for a Co-Founder. Do both in parallel.

3) Limit yourself to a fixed time period, maybe a month, to lift this off the ground. And tell yourself, if you haven't seen any progress in a month after trying hard then maybe it's not worth it. Traction matters most, try and get some in any form within that month. For example, I know of people who are building electric motorbikes who got initial interest just by taking a detailed 3D printed model to potential distribution partners.

Good luck! :)

PS: Counterintuitively, I think having a supportive family gives you more purpose to build something enduring and meaningful.

As of now, I still believe finding a cofounder and it makes things easier especially when you have a job and a family which takes most of your time. You just need to be practical and see red flags which will tell you it won't work out.

I think best is to try without compromising important details of your project, when you feel you can trust, then go 100%.

If it's a choice between being too slow, losing the market timing and the provisional patent protections or finding a co-founder, then find a cofounder. Is it more work to find the cofounder vs develop it yourself? You can try posting a linkedIn job ad for a cofounder, someone found me that way, and yes it was upfront about the salary situation but there are people out there who might be in the right circumstances to take you up on what you can bring to the table.