New Way to Fund Solo-Founders?
6 comments
Yes, you’re absolutely right. I’ve faced the same thing — there are no real investors out there, not in the sense of those who take risks and make their living from it.
I registered on OpenVC and completed their form — the system gave me 27 out of 100 points.
That’s how investors evaluate projects: not by studying the idea, but based on standard template parameters.
This is just one example, but others work the same way — “how many people are on the team,” “what’s your education,” and so on.
They don’t care about pre-seed at all — only ready-made projects that already bring in money. I may not be an expert in investing, but honestly, why would I need an investor when everything already works and makes a profit?
What you said about unicorns is also true. I believe my project has huge potential — for now, it’s just my opinion, but I’ve already spent about €1200–1500 on the prototype and around 1000 hours on the mathematical model, presentations, videos, and website. I know some will laugh at that number — I used to think it would take €30,000 through an investor just to build early-stage prototype. I was wrong.
But at some point, I realized: I don’t need an investor. I can handle this myself. AI helped a lot too — it sped up many processes.
They don’t care about pre-seed at all — only ready-made projects that already bring in money. I may not be an expert in investing, but honestly, why would I need an investor when everything already works and makes a profit?
What you said about unicorns is also true. I believe my project has huge potential — for now, it’s just my opinion, but I’ve already spent about €1200–1500 on the prototype and around 1000 hours on the mathematical model, presentations, videos, and website. I know some will laugh at that number — I used to think it would take €30,000 through an investor just to build early-stage prototype. I was wrong.
But at some point, I realized: I don’t need an investor. I can handle this myself. AI helped a lot too — it sped up many processes.
Hey OpenVC founder here! Thanks for trying the Fundability test :)
The test is not out of 100 points. The idea is to place you against other companies raising at the same time. If you have no revenue and everyone else has revenue, you will rank lower because at the end of the day, it's a competition.
As a general rule, investors invest if (a) you have track record or (b) you have traction i.e. users and/or revenue. If you have neither, look at grants, accelerators, and family and friends instead. And your own money, ofc.
I know it's counter-intuitive for many. Aren't VCs supposed to take risks and put the first check in?
That's not how VCs think. They will see 5,000 decks a year and invest in 5, so they just pick the strongest projects at a given point in time.
Not denying your efforts and potential, but there's just another project that looks better on paper: more proven team, more traction. It's all relative.
On that topic, check out these 2 graphs that apply to your case: https://x.com/StephNass/status/1859447351187787826
For a longer read with some maths, this post by Jonah Probell is eye opening: https://www.openvc.app/blog/seed-stage-is-about-picking-winn...
The test is not out of 100 points. The idea is to place you against other companies raising at the same time. If you have no revenue and everyone else has revenue, you will rank lower because at the end of the day, it's a competition.
As a general rule, investors invest if (a) you have track record or (b) you have traction i.e. users and/or revenue. If you have neither, look at grants, accelerators, and family and friends instead. And your own money, ofc.
I know it's counter-intuitive for many. Aren't VCs supposed to take risks and put the first check in?
That's not how VCs think. They will see 5,000 decks a year and invest in 5, so they just pick the strongest projects at a given point in time.
Not denying your efforts and potential, but there's just another project that looks better on paper: more proven team, more traction. It's all relative.
On that topic, check out these 2 graphs that apply to your case: https://x.com/StephNass/status/1859447351187787826
For a longer read with some maths, this post by Jonah Probell is eye opening: https://www.openvc.app/blog/seed-stage-is-about-picking-winn...
Alright, I understand you — you're evaluating not the project, but the person, because what matters to an investor is not even the project, but the partner.
But what does your test have to do with evaluating a person?
A machine assembled in 2010 in the central part of the US — is it good or bad? Should I have bought it?
How will you understand from that test the level of intelligence, motivation, willpower, creativity of thinking, or depth of market understanding?
It’s just a way to filter out those whose project is already generating income — especially those for whom this is not their first profitable project. This test shows nothing more.
What about the large number of failures of (a) and (b)? I've worked with so many startups and recently all I can think of is what garbage are these investors investing in, and how is this garbage that's going to die within a year making me so much money (as an employee).
Yes, you're right — just put "AI" in the name and millions of dollars start flowing in.
The main thing is hype. You go to investors, to grown-up rational people — and there's neither the first nor the second.
> why would I need an investor when everything already works and makes a profit?
To scale up and make 1000x profit.
Nobody cares about your brilliant idea or even nice looking prototype until you have proven you can make money with it.
Just too risky for investors in current economy.
And education, team etc while may look irrelevant are actually more correlated with future success than details of startup idea etc.
To scale up and make 1000x profit.
Nobody cares about your brilliant idea or even nice looking prototype until you have proven you can make money with it.
Just too risky for investors in current economy.
And education, team etc while may look irrelevant are actually more correlated with future success than details of startup idea etc.
Investors aren’t interested in ideas, aren’t interested in people, they don’t want to take risks — the person you described is not an investor.
I can put my money in a bank — it’s the same thing.
They don’t want to take risks because the times are unstable?
1) but was it any different in stable times? 2) I’ve looked at projects that got funding — almost any AI project with a dumb idea raises millions, but that’s not risk — that’s a safe and stable project. 3) for real investors, the emergence of a huge number of new technologies multiplied by global economic shifts is a great opportunity — new markets appear and old ones are being redistributed. It doesn’t get any better than this.
1) but was it any different in stable times? 2) I’ve looked at projects that got funding — almost any AI project with a dumb idea raises millions, but that’s not risk — that’s a safe and stable project. 3) for real investors, the emergence of a huge number of new technologies multiplied by global economic shifts is a great opportunity — new markets appear and old ones are being redistributed. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Generally speaking, yes, real investors are heartless wolves. Whenever banks have better deal - they go to bank.
Investing in a bunch of smart ambitious dudes is already an extremely risky endeavor.
But its a spectrum, not black and white.
When money is cheap (aka “good” times) more investors are ready for more risky investments. When money is expensive - less.
Investing in a bunch of smart ambitious dudes is already an extremely risky endeavor.
But its a spectrum, not black and white.
When money is cheap (aka “good” times) more investors are ready for more risky investments. When money is expensive - less.
Aren't there a lot of these? TinySeed is one, for example, Calm is another.
https://www.saas.wtf/p/saas-anti-vcs
https://www.saas.wtf/p/saas-anti-vcs
I argue that building a software is just a small part of the story. Not the most important one.
The most important one is a customer acquisition.
There is an ocean of cool but dead software products and a sea of mediocre successfull ones with the right business model and sales/marketing strategy/budgets.
If you stay solo while in the large and profitable market - you're either stay very small, get flushed away by a competitor with big money or become the competitor with big money.
The most important one is a customer acquisition.
There is an ocean of cool but dead software products and a sea of mediocre successfull ones with the right business model and sales/marketing strategy/budgets.
If you stay solo while in the large and profitable market - you're either stay very small, get flushed away by a competitor with big money or become the competitor with big money.
1000% agree, distribution strategy and ideally a unique way to drive adoption built into the product or service creates the most value and thus optionality for founders.
I've personally tried many bootstrapped companies with little success but a couple that did get escape velocity (one hit 9 figure revenues by year 8), the common denominator was a well-thought out, embedded customer acquisition tightly integrated into the core product. Very hard to couple given how excited we tend to get building a solution to a problem we see. But super critical, really good insight here.
I've personally tried many bootstrapped companies with little success but a couple that did get escape velocity (one hit 9 figure revenues by year 8), the common denominator was a well-thought out, embedded customer acquisition tightly integrated into the core product. Very hard to couple given how excited we tend to get building a solution to a problem we see. But super critical, really good insight here.
Sure, no questions that sales and stuff are crucial. And solo-founder is not just dev - he must be everything. But the idea is - now there's way more chances to succeed.
That’s my pont. Chances are better for sure, but not “way more”. Because no LLM will replace a great marketing idea or budgets.
Here is the Twitter thread with a video explanation of how it works:
https://x.com/slava_nw/status/1917599867679170968
Was the UI meant to be purposefully as shitty and frustrating as possible so you can only get candidates who really hate themselves and will listen to whatever?
This is one of the most forward-thinking posts I’ve seen on HN in a while — and it captures something I’ve been seeing firsthand.
As a YC founder now building a syndicate (Scalable Ventures), we’re intentionally building around this exact shift: high-agency, post-accelerator, solo or lean-team founders using AI to skip the old playbook. The traditional "pre-seed → seed → Series A" model doesn't apply the same way anymore — and you're absolutely right, many of these founders will choose profitability and independence over chasing unicorn status.
Our thesis is: fund the founder, not the form factor. We’re starting to explore creative models like revenue-sharing, early founder grants, and performance-based follow-ons — especially for bootstrapped, cashflow-positive companies that don’t want to raise in the traditional sense.
https://www.scalablevc.com/HackerNews
Would love to connect and explore ideas.
As a YC founder now building a syndicate (Scalable Ventures), we’re intentionally building around this exact shift: high-agency, post-accelerator, solo or lean-team founders using AI to skip the old playbook. The traditional "pre-seed → seed → Series A" model doesn't apply the same way anymore — and you're absolutely right, many of these founders will choose profitability and independence over chasing unicorn status.
Our thesis is: fund the founder, not the form factor. We’re starting to explore creative models like revenue-sharing, early founder grants, and performance-based follow-ons — especially for bootstrapped, cashflow-positive companies that don’t want to raise in the traditional sense.
https://www.scalablevc.com/HackerNews
Would love to connect and explore ideas.
Hi, thx! Would love to connect, feel free to DM me on x.com/slava_nw or [email protected]
Let me explain. In ‘Agency Eating the World’ - a brilliant article by Gian Segato - he shows how AI supercharges high-agency founders, and that Agency > Intelligence. I want to use this as a starting point to show how the shift in ‘startup founders’ is about to flip the VC industry.
If a founder doesn’t need a team for several months to test an idea, but instead can do it all themselves in a few weeks, then why bother crafting a pre-seed deck?
Then, if they succeed, there are two options: 1. Raise seed 2. Continue to go solo
I bet a lot of them will choose option two. Because - and I’ll be honest - fundraising sucks (as a process). Second, not all of these new startups need VC money. And those who do go for (and are eligible for) seed will skyrocket their valuations - seed will start to look more like a Series A.
So what do we have here? Thousands of hyper-profitable businesses are about to be born. Most of them don’t need your (VC) money. Guys like John Rush and Marc Lou are showing it’s possible right now. And yes, somewhere among them, there’s bound to be a Holy-Grail, One-Person Unicorn.
That’s the change. That’s the death of pre-seed as we know it. Now I want to ask some questions - and suggest some, though fewer, answers.
First: can early-stage VCs still be a part of it? My take is - yes, if you go even earlier in that ‘early’ part. Fund not startups, but people.
Yes, great founders push through struggles, come out stronger, and all that stuff that makes for a great biopic. But in reality - 99 other potentially great founders broke just a step before the win. We just don’t know their stories. It’s the cruel math of life. And in a lot of cases, their problems could have been solved with money they didn’t have. Not business problems - basic, life problems. A loved one’s illness. A draining day job. Another missed rent payment becomes the last straw.
What if we backed high-agency founders with a monthly check for a year so they could go all-in?
Instead of chasing unicorns, investors could build an "Angel Index" of extremely profitable, solo-run businesses.
That’s the idea behind my startup - SomeGuys.VC - a Kickstarter for High-Agency Solo-Founders. But I’m not here to pitch it. The thing is - we don’t have all the answers yet. For example, even we keep talking in terms of equity. But the startups I’m describing might never be for sale -> no ‘liquidity event’. They’re going to be cash machines, dividend-generating businesses.
Do we even have the right mechanisms for that? SAFE doesn’t seem to fit here. I’m thinking about revenue-share agreements between early investors and founders. But what should they look like? Should they be lifetime? What’s a fair share? How do you legally enforce it? Or simply a founder buyback clause - with a multiplier built in.
I really believe that these questions matter. VC, at its best, is a force for good. And now it could have an even bigger impact, helping way more people than before. It just wasn’t possible before AI - such funding wasn’t enough. But now it is.
And it’s not just tech. Imagine a recent film school grad dropping an AI-generated movie with new, unique heroes, launching a new franchise. Teachers are inventing new ways to educate. A PhD student is coming up with a revolutionary approach in their field after weeks of using the latest LLM. And things we can’t imagine yet.
This idea seems to be couchsurfing through the minds of bright people lately. I.e. Garry Tan and YC recently launched a program for students, offering 20k so they can dedicate their summer to building something they’re passionate about. We suggest taking it one step further.
AI is going to change everything. VC is no exception. We'd love to hear your thoughts on that.