Record applications to SFP with three weeks to kickoff, Travis Kalanick's first interviews in years, and Eugenia Kuyda launches Wabi. Let's get into it!
Inside the Solo Founders Program
“It's like having five other co-founders with you.”
That's how Chai Choudhary (SFP S25) describes the Solo Founders Program. It's three months in San Francisco building alongside other solo founders, with weekly 1:1s with Julian and $100K in funding.
If you want to see what that actually looks like, we just released a roundtable with four founders from our first cohort, one year after they met. It's the best picture of the program we've ever put out.
Sixteen days ago we hit a new record for applications to the September cohort. We've grown 38% since then, and historically about half of all applications arrive in the last couple of weeks before kickoff (September 10). Get yours in soon.
The Capacity to Take Pain
“I was running a $70 billion company the way somebody who thought he was going to starve next week would run it.”
Travis Kalanick is back, this time as a solo founder. His new company Atoms just raised $1.7B led by a16z, and after years of silence he's giving interviews again. Start with his two hours with David Senra.
The episode gets its title from one exchange: excellence is the capacity to take pain. Kalanick's picture for it is a world-class marathoner at mile 21. “Is that dude smiling? Of course not. If he were just not feeling pain, there's somebody else who will.”
Just as good is how he picked the next company. He calls it finding your business soulmate: the right idea depends on who you are, so you test the fit the way you'd test a relationship. “You go out on a date with the idea. Was it a good date? How did you and the idea get along?” Be in touch with who you are, he says, because “when the right idea comes your way, you just know.”
Solo Launch: Wabi
“I stopped using 90% of the apps on my phone. Most apps I use now live inside one app, cost me zero and are fully tailored to me.”
Solo founder Eugenia Kuyda is building Wabi: you describe an app, it builds it.
Here's some of what Eugenia has built for herself:
A Wordle that keeps score between her and her mom in New York
A princess selfie app for her daughters
A weightlifting tracker that generates her next workout as she logs
We sat down with Eugenia on the podcast a few months back, where she talked about why vision always comes down to one person: “At the end of the day, someone needs to call the shots.” Watch it here, or read the breakdown.
That's all for this issue. Thanks for reading.
Solo, together.
Kieran
