When I created my first business Founders Cafe, the biggest problem I ran into was how to get more inbounds.
I spammed everyday on Reddit, Linkedin DMs, Slack and more.
I would get a few people trickling in here and there. But nothing consistent.
When I started writing blog posts on Medium, LinkedIn, that's when I noticed the biggest influx of traffic.
Suddenly people started applying. YC founders paid $4k and referenced that one article as to why they joined.
One person started paying $1,000/mo without even talking to me.
It was insane.
I knew I needed a way to scale out this content. All I did was write about was my frameworks, my interviews with other VCs/Founders, and my experiences.
All of this was recorded on Zoom/Otter.
So I ended up building out a tool to turn these recordings into revenue generating content. That business scaled to 240k revenue over the next 24 months.
I want to help other founders scale out their content, so that they go from spammming / outbound to having a revenue generating content system.
I believe that we all have thought leadership inside our companies, but we just need some help massaging it out into the world.
If marketing and selling are of no interest to you, and you just want to do the technical part, I know a ton of YC/Stanford/TechStars sales solo founders who would be down to collab.
This one girl Sarah who raised $800k-1million and told me today that she's looking to hire her first engineer.
I think that solo founders can accomplish much more today than they could 5 years ago, and the belief that solo founders are inferior to cofounders is old-fashioned to me. i wish that people could wake up and get with the times.
Stats show that startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue.
52% startups that succesfully exited has 1 founder
I'm a solo founder. I dropped out of Stanford, made $180k through past projects, and whenever I worked with co-founders my projects have failed.
It's a common narrative that it's harder to be more successful as a solo founder. I don't agree because actually 66% of startups fail because of cofounder conflicts. Also startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue (52% startups with successful exits is solo founded). So if you are a solo founder, your risk of failing goes down significantly.
As for having someone to share your struggles, I joined this solo-ish founders community called https://founderscafe.io and they are bascially my co-founders without any of the drama.
I also hired out all the skillsets I lack.
Being a solo founder is fucking awesome as long as you have your needs met (emotional support + skill gaps)
I'm a solo founder. I dropped out of Stanford, made $180k through past projects, and whenever I worked with co-founders my projects have failed.
It's a common narrative that it's harder to be more successful as a solo founder. I don't agree because actually 66% of startups fail because of cofounder conflicts. Also startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue (52% startups with succesful exits is solo founded). So if you are a solo founder, your risk of failing goes down significantly.
As for having someone to share your struggles, I joined this solo-ish founders community called https://FoundersCafe.io and they are bascially my co-founders without any of the drama.
I also hired out all the skillsets I lack.
Being a solo founder is fucking awesome as long as you have your needs met (emotional support + skill gaps)
I'm a solo founder. I dropped out of Stanford, made $180k through past projects, and whenever I worked with co-founders my projects have failed.
It's a common narrative that it's harder to be more successful as a solo founder. I don't agree because actually 66% of startups fail because of cofounder conflicts. Also startups with single founders tended to last longer and eventually achieve higher revenue (52% startups with succesful exits is solo founded). So if you are a solo founder, your risk of failing goes down significantly.
As for having someone to share your struggles, I joined this solo-ish founders community called https://FoundersCafe.io and they are bascially my co-founders without any of the drama.
I also hired out all the skillsets I lack.
Being a solo founder is fucking awesome as long as you have your needs met (emotional support + skill gaps)
If marketing and selling are of no interest to you, and you just want to do the technical part, I know a ton of YC/Stanford/TechStars sales solo founders who would be down to collab.
This one girl Sarah who raised $800k-1million and told me today that she's looking to hire her first engineer.
I'm also SWE. I failed for the first 2 years. I took some time to fill in the gaps --business and product skills. Now I have $6k MRR. How serious are you about building a company and are you willing to fill in your gaps?
Have you thought about joining a founder community? I'm part of this one called https://founderscafe.io and it's a bunch of solo founders co-working together every day. There's also some YC alum like Rishi, Jon, Nemo, Nikhil, etc., who are really active here and have helped people with their startups & YC apps. So fucking worth!!
Dang that sounds really demotivating. No one likes being criticized - can feel hopeless/sad :(
Do you have people who can hype you up? I'm part of a founders community called https://founderscafe.io and whenever I hit a low, I have friends like Charles, Selena, Max, and Tom who sit on a call with me for as a long as it takes. I feel really cared for and better after talking it out.
I use Founders Cafe for this. Everyday, I co-work with founders from Stanford/Harvard/YC in person (in PALO ALTO!) and also virtually too (everyday they have cowork seshs)