“Going solo should be the rule, and going with a co-founder should be the exception.”
Flo Crivello is the solo founder of Lindy, an AI executive assistant that handles your inbox and your meetings.
He came on the Solo Founders Podcast with Julian, and a key part of the conversation traced back to something he wrote years before most people were willing to say it. In 2022, when nearly every founder was being told to get a co-founder, Flo argued the opposite in a piece called “Co-Founding Considered Harmful.” The standard advice had it backwards, he said: going solo should be the rule, and taking a co-founder should be the exception.
It wasn't a guess. It came from his own co-founder split, the kind of thing he notes founders aren't really free to talk about publicly, from watching friends go through the same breakups up close, and from the data that co-founder conflict is one of the most common ways startups die. The people who told him it resonated most were often the ones with great co-founders, who knew how rare that is.
He's not against having a partner. His bar is just very high: “If there's a doubt, there's no doubt.” In the episode, he gets specific about what clearing that bar actually takes.
Listen now on the Solo Founders Podcast:
Solo, together.
Kieran
