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- 🎙️ New Ep. Julian Weisser | 'The Flippening': Why Solo Founders Are Becoming the Default
🎙️ New Ep. Julian Weisser | 'The Flippening': Why Solo Founders Are Becoming the Default
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Hey There,
🎙️ SGP Ep. 29 | Julian Weisser is the Founder and CEO of Solo Founders, a three-month residency program in San Francisco where founders live and work together while maintaining full authorship of their companies. He's also the CEO of On Deck Founders (ODF), a program that over seven years and 26 cohorts has helped over 1,000 people start companies that have collectively raised more than $2 billion.
As an angel investor with more than 150 portfolio companies including Levels, Astroforge, and MagicSchool, he's seen patterns in what actually predicts startup success versus what investors claim they're looking for. He writes the Texts with Founders newsletter sharing bite-sized practical wisdom for entrepreneurs and publishes Multitudes, a newsletter exploring founder psychology and startup strategy.
In this episode, Weisser breaks down the denominator delusion: solo-founded companies were more likely to succeed than co-founded ones, but nobody talked about it because when you look at the total number of successful companies, co-founded businesses eclipse solo successes—while hiding how many unsuccessful co-founded companies exist in the denominator.
His core unlocks: two-thirds of startups die from co-founder disputes before reaching product-market fit or running out of money, being solo is far better than 99% of potential co-founders, and authorship (the desire to express yourself and put your vision into the world) matters more than contortionism (twisting your company to match what investors want to see).
The flippening already happened in ODF 26—over half chose solo. In this conversation, he breaks down why MagicSchool's Adil Khan (a former high school principal with no startup experience) succeeded solo, how "co-founders of convenience" kill companies before they reach potential, what makes the Solo Founders residency feel like having "five co-founders while building your own company," and why mimicking trends accrues value to memes instead of founders.
Key Topics:
The denominator delusion: why solo success rates are higher but invisible
Two-thirds fail from co-founder disputes, not product-market fit or funding
"Co-founders of convenience" kill companies before they reach potential
Solo Founders: "five co-founders while building your own company"
& much more
I hope you find this educational content valuable and can apply it in your business. Until next week - keep experimenting, keep scaling, keep building.
David J Phillips
Founder & CEO at Fondo