For the first time ever, more than one in three new companies are being started solo. Five years ago that number was under 25%. This week the host becomes the guest: Julian Weisser — founder of Solo Founders, former co-founder of On Deck (where he ran 27 ODF cohorts and helped over 1,000 founders collectively raise $2B+) — sits down with David J. Phillips (CEO of Fondo, solo founder) for the full thesis behind Solo Founders. They cover the "denominator delusion" that keeps the co-founder default alive, the three types of solo founders (True Solo, Free Solo, Juiced Solo), why companies run out of hope long before they run out of money, and the bear and bull case for going it alone. Plus the news: the next Solo Founders cohort will include $100,000 per solo founder.

Topics covered:

• Denominator delusion — why "the most successful startups have co-founders" ignores the failure rate
• The co-founder of convenience trap
• 1 in 3 companies are now solo-founded (up from under 25% five years ago) — the Carta data
• $100K per solo founder — the new Solo Founders Program cohort news
• Why Solo Founders doesn't run a Demo Day — the factory model critique
• True Solo / Free Solo / Juiced Solo — Julian's new three-type taxonomy with named examples
• Why companies run out of hope long before they run out of money
• "The median company is a dead company" and "the average VC is a walking-dead VC"
• Bear case for solo founding — the co-founder-shaped hole and playing on hard mode
• Bull case for solo founding — one point of failure, one point of resilience, and "the company only dies if you do"
• Solo alone vs solo together — the Solo Founders Program thesis in one line
• Startups as art and the case against "contortionism"

Guest: Julian Weisser — Founder, Solo Founders. Host, Solo Founders Podcast. Formerly co-founder of On Deck.
Interviewer: David J. Phillips — Co-founder and CEO, Fondo. Solo founder.