Today I walk with Julian Weisser, founder of Solo Founders and co-founder of On Deck. Julian has run 27 ODF cohorts, helped more than 1,000 founders collectively raise over $2 billion, and spent eight years matching people with co-founders, and now he believes AI has made the co-founder optional. He gets into the $400,000 payout demand from a co-founder who did two months of work, and why he compares co-founders to car phones now that solo founders have the cell phone.
We get into:
- Calling his own teenage taste in jazz "musical masturbation," and the moment that actually taught him to love it
- The $400,000 payout a co-founder demanded for two months of work, and why there was no mechanism to force them out
- His run co-founding On Deck, where 27 cohorts helped over 1,000 founders raise $2B+, and why he thinks the co-founder problem is basically already solved
- The Hacker News post that got almost no response except one email from Dropbox's first employee
so much more!
Timestamps
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00:00) Trailer
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00:51) Julian Weisser, Founder, Solo Founders
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02:06) Calling his old jazz taste "musical masturbation"
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20:17) 27 cohorts, thousands of founders, more reps than any VC
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35:50) The $400K co-founder payout demand
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39:45) The Hacker News post that led to Dropbox's first employee
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44:45) Golden Gate Park was built from sand dunes
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54:50) Why co-founders have seasons, not forever contracts
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58:53) The "oddballs" who never wanted co-founders, including Loyal's Celine Halioua
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1:00:59) Co-founders are the car phone. Solo founders are the cell phone.
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1:06:47) Why owning less equity can mean more freedom
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1:16:18) His two-word life philosophy: keep going
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1:16:34) Outro
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