He Dropped Out to Build a $9M AI Company — With No Co-Founder or Investors | Yasser Elsaid, Chatbase

Having a slightly like below average

co-founder is much much worse than being

solo. I wasn't like following the

footsteps of like go first you need a

pitch deck and then you talk to

investors and then try to find a

co-founder and then hopefully you raise

money and then you start building. I

just saw the opportunity and I started

building. Dictatorships make your

chances of success much higher. If you

have trust in the founder and you think

they're smart enough and they have input

on how to build the product and how to

get customers, then it should be a

dictatorship. You don't want them to be

slowed down. If you bootstrap to 100

million ARR AI business, anyone would

call that a success and like it's a

success for the founder and for the

team. But I don't think it would be

considered a success if you raised 100

million.

>> What's the case for solo founding?

>> The case for solo founding is that it's

very hard to lose. The biggest reason is

co-founder breakup cuz if you don't have

breakup, you can just like pivot or you

can just try to raise more money or

there's a lot of other options. I like

the fact that everything is my fault and

like being solo gives me that

satisfaction.

Chatbase has had this incredible

journey, $9 million in ARR in about

three years. There was this opportunity

that you saw and I'm really curious what

that opportunity was like, how you saw

it because that ultimately pursuing it

was the thing that kind of got you to

building this great business. So, we'll

just start there. When you saw the

opportunity, what did that look like?

>> Yeah, this was very early on. This was

even before Chad GPT was launched. I was

using the Da Vinci 03 models. So way

back in the day, back then it was um

there was no like API where you can uh

send the chat and like get back a

response. It was just you're talking to

the base model just the completion not

chat completion. Um and then I saw the

idea of this is a very powerful model

but it doesn't have custom data. It

doesn't have your data. And that in the

very first uh version of chatbase it was

just uploading a PDF and then talking to

it. So like my idea was uploading maybe

a textbook or just like a book or a

website or anything and then having a

chat with it. And of course now it seems

obvious that this like makes sense and

is a good idea and people would want

that. But I talked to a lot of people

back then and I don't know if it was

very obvious. I

I think some people didn't see the value

or maybe they saw the value but they

didn't see the models improving. Um they

just saw like what existed now and maybe

that was not super super helpful because

the models were not there yet. But yeah,

I had like I I thought there is a very

good chance the models were improved

because

um now there's all of these big

companies that are working towards the

same thing. So I think I I started

chatbase with uh one a very good idea

which is you know custom uh adding

custom data to like the base model and

then I bet on the models improving which

was not very popular back then um and I

think that's how um we just like kept

growing as the AI wave has been like

we've been riding it from since 3 years

ago. So that's really interesting. But

in order for you to even get there to to

realize, hey, we should make it so that

you can chat with a PDF for instance,

you needed to be exploring and playing

around with these things. So what was it

causing you to even play around with Da

Vinci in the first place? Like where

were you? Is I think that often times

when people are trying to come up with

ideas and things to work on, um,

sometimes they're trying to artificially

do it. And it feels like in many ways

you kind of came across this through the

process of exploring things and

tinkering with things. So maybe you can

give a little bit of a frame of

reference for people when they're trying

to understand how you approached it and

maybe that would be something that they

could apply to their lives as well.

Yeah, I think um

like honestly the only there's no

shortcut like the only thing you can do

is just to like try things and then

because you're trying things and because

you're talking to other people and

because you're in the you know like in

the group chats in the community, you're

seeing the new things that uh people are

releasing, you're getting inspired, then

you come up with a good idea or like at

least you see potential in some ideas.

So the way this happened for me was so I

was in my last semester uh in in

university in Canada and I was always so

I was doing internships but I was also

doing side projects um with the goal of

just like having something that can make

money. Um so this was I was like

inspired by you know people like Peter

levels for example. Um and

I was doing other projects. I had the

project called called rate my courses. I

had another project called uh SAPL but

because I was you know like tinkering

with things and um you know like trying

the APIs trying to do stuff that the

APIs can't do yet just like trying

things. I saw rag which was uh like I

saw it very very early on and I think

that was um you know the spark that

started uh chatbase and it wasn't even

called drag drag back then it was just

like I don't think there was a name it's

just like you add data you augment you

add data to a base model so that it can

know more things um so I saw some people

like like writing papers about that some

people were creating like CLI tools

about that but there was no product that

you can like open a website, add a

document and then chat with it. Um,

so yeah, I think for me it was obvious

that like this is something people would

need. Um, and I just stopped everything

I'm doing in university. I just like

stopped going to class. And um I had the

conviction that yeah like this is an

opportunity that doesn't come often and

like to be able to see that very early.

Uh and of course like I didn't know how

big it's going to be but I had some uh

conviction on like oh this might

actually be uh an opportunity and yeah I

just stopped doing anything else and I

started executing and then yeah I think

like a month and a half after um I was

coding by hand back then so it was still

slow. Um yeah, a month and a half after

like getting the idea, I released the

the first version of chatb.

>> You know, there's two things that I

would love for us to talk about, you

know, regarding that sort of early days

of of figuring this out. I think that

one is that people often think that they

need to have the right idea and they

kind of just try and go straight to

figuring out the right idea. It seemed

like there were a bunch of things that

you were trying and then ultimately you

found chatbase sort of through that

through that process of building those

other things and that ultimately caused

you to you know put those other things

to the side. So I'd be really curious

just your philosophy and sort of what

you learned around building those other

things that kind of got you to the

position where you'd actually discover

the chatbased opportunity. And then

maybe the other thing would be really

cool to talk about and I think would be

really useful for people to hear is how

you how you actually got that sense that

it was time to put the other things away

>> and including school but but

particularly the other projects and go

all in on this because I think that one

thing that sometimes people have is they

do that kind of try out a bunch of

things but they have a hard time kind of

abandoning them all and putting all of

the wood behind one arrow. So, so maybe

talk about sort of that first part

though and we can talk about sort of the

focusing and and doubling down. How how

do you think about sort of the process

of like tinkering with other ideas and

how it ultimately potentially drove you

towards discovering the opportunity for

chatbase?

>> Yeah. So, I think like the normal way to

go about things is that you, you know,

like you look at the market, you look at

competitors, you like research what

they're good at, you see the reviews,

you see what their customers are saying,

and then you from all of that research,

you come up with a business idea. But I

think in practice,

I don't think any business started out

like on day one with the idea that it

ended up being as it grew much bigger.

And I think it's the same even for

chatbase even after I saw that idea. Um

so I think for me what happened was I I

was working on on multiple things. I saw

one thing that it seemed to me like just

from first principal thinking like it

just seemed to me that this is very

powerful and by just

thinking about the effects of something

like this just like sitting down and

thinking it's just no no market research

no no talking to users nothing like that

and I think that's the only way in a

fastmoving industry like AI because you

don't have time to talk to users because

there is no users talk to like this is

like you are it's like a very it's a new

paradigm like there's no one to um

to like you know interrogate about

something like this because they they've

never used something like this. Um,

so I think a lot of things in AI will be

about like seeing what is possible now

and like what just became possible and

ju just like build something around it

and then while you're building you'll

find you know the universe pushing you

towards like a certain direction because

of many things because of like maybe

there's a limitation in one idea but you

find out another idea that works or

maybe you talk to some people and like

it seems like hey this is uh an approach

that you can do things. And I think

if I think about all the successful

tools that came out came up from uh from

like after the LLM era um I think a lot

of them started out that way. It was um

as soon as the technology is ready for

something you see someone build that

something very quickly like for example

openclaw or even cloud code and stuff

like that. uh because the model models

are now capable enough to you know do

longunning tasks to like run multiple

tools to have access to the CLI and um

not hallucinate

um because it's a new paradigm. It's

just it comes from from just first

principles thinking and not heavily like

talking to uh like doing a lot of market

research or talking to a bunch of users

because it's it's a new paradigm. One

thing I think you've talked with me

about in the past, like over dinner or

something, is like urgency and sort of

this sense that once you discovered this

opportunity, at least the the first

version of what chatbase would be, um,

you you felt like there was a real

urgency to get it out there and sort of

be the first. Um, and maybe that also

ties into that thing we I was talking

about earlier that I thought would be

interesting to hear, which is sort of

that decision to put everything else

aside. you know, you had other apps that

you were working on, maybe varying

degrees of success and promise with

those. You had school. So, how does

urgency tie into that decision and the

decision that you ultimately made to put

all the other things aside?

>> Yeah. So, I think for me the reason I

was urgent or like I had a lot of

urgency was not actually right. It was

the belief that like you can do ideas

that other people are doing like you

have to do like I don't know I think a

lot of people when you talk to them

about like a startup idea they say oh

but that exists.

>> Um and I had like the same like

misconception that oh I need to do this

now because if I wait I know like this

idea is good and someone else will do it

so I just need to to do it now. But I

think like the reasoning was maybe not

right. But the result was I needed

urgency and that of course was the right

thing to do. And um a big reason I would

say for the success of Chatbase was the

timing and like I think that helped us

um stay bootstrapped because as soon as

we launched we we had revenue. uh maybe

like like I I think I had the first

payment through Stripe 30 minutes after

I put out a pricing page. So

I think yeah I think if you're building

an AI especially now like now it's

extremely competitive like now it's very

obvious that um like this is the future

and you want to be part of it so

everyone is building. So I think now

it's even more uh important to have

urgency but at the same time to still

make sure that you you are opinionated

and not just you know like following the

trends of um like what's popular now and

then like jumping to the next thing

because I think it's very hard to run um

like a scalable business that way.

>> You know you've bootstrapped as a solo

founder to 9 million ARR uh over three

years. you have quite a following on X

because people are fascinated and they

want to follow in your footsteps. Um at

the same time when you started you

didn't have a lot of a following. You

didn't really have much of an audience

at all. You had no revenue to start. You

were I guess still in school. So what

was it actually like back then? How did

you decide to be solo? Like what was the

what was the backstory there? I think

what helped is that I wasn't in SF. So I

think I I think I didn't like think

about like what people do when they want

to start a company or like what the the

steps are.

I was just you know like I just saw the

idea and I started building it. I wasn't

thinking too much oh do I need to raise

do I need a co-founder? And maybe like

maybe like not everyone should do that

and that doesn't work with every

business of course but like to me just

the truth was I saw the idea and like I

started building. I I wasn't um

I wasn't like following the footsteps of

of like oh first you need a pitch deck

and then you talk to investors and then

you try to find a co-founder and then um

hopefully you raise money and then you

um and then you start building. I just

saw the opportunity and I started

building and what helped was as I said

like we have we had revenue very quickly

so and also we had like a lot of

customers quickly and I was alone so I

didn't have time to like go like find a

co-founder and raise money like it was

just all of my time was spent on just

building the product and then talking to

customers and maybe if I had more time

to like think about things I would have

um tried to find a co-founder or or more

or raise. But yeah, I think I just

didn't have the time to do so. And you

know, I had like some angry customers

calling me, you know, at 2 am. So like

that was my my like my whole day um just

building and improving the product and

talking to customers until it got to a

point where um like I can run this

profitably and hire people and it's been

that way since then. It feels like in

many ways solo founding, especially solo

founding with the bootstrapping

component. Um, which I guess over dinner

last night we described this as free

solo uh is is uh bootstropping solo. Um,

and then people like Ben, it's like true

solo if they're bend if they're building

without any teammates. And we'll talk

about team in in a in a few minutes

here. um when you're building this sort

of you know this this sort of free solo

uh approach um it does feel like it it

has a lot of uh that it owes to sort of

like the indie hacker kind of movement

um and I'm really curious do you think

that we're just moving in a world where

the indie hacker was always thought of

as a little bit like this is

bootstrapping kind of puts a ceiling on

things pretty significantly and indie

hacking is is quaint and it's about

making revenue, but it's not about

building big businesses. You have more

revenue than a lot of companies that are

venture-backed 3 years in. Um, so you're

you're doing phenomenally well. You're

better than a lot of venture-backed

companies. So, you're kind of changing

the narrative around like what a solo

bootstrapped company looks like. In the

past, people thought it was kind of like

this, you know, small business type

thing.

>> Um, how do you think about that? How do

you think about like what's actually

possible with a solo bootstrap business?

And maybe, you know, we've talked a

little bit about it, but I'd love to

hear kind of what that journey's been

like and did you realize in the early

days that it could actually be something

like this? I know you started it out

with just the premise of making a

business that makes some money. So, just

walk me through a little bit of that.

>> Yeah, I I agree. I think um when I was

like the indie hacking movement was

mainly around building like a lifestyle

business you know like some people call

it like a a micro sass or or something

like that and it's just the idea like

you want to make profit and then go live

in Bali. Um which I think like this is I

think it's extremely valid and I think

it's

I think it's it's more possible now with

with all the AI tools. I think if

someone has like enough agency and

enough urgency and drive, I think yeah,

like that's a very viable path and it

sounds fun. Um,

for for me, I I was considering like,

you know, like building chatbase as a

lifestyle business and some people were

doing also like multiple projects um and

and running all of them at the same

time. But I think um

I just saw this as like once in

a-lifetime opportunity for many reasons.

I like the timing, the how big the

market is, how competitive it is. And I

think maybe like it's it's also human

like by nature like I'm more competitive

like I couldn't get myself to okay say

okay this is enough let's just go you

know to the beach and uh enjoy the the

profit. Um, so I think a part of it is

like the person that is that is running

things and like what their goals are.

But for me, the goal was

always like I want to see this through.

I want to like I I think it's hard uh to

find an opportunity like this. And

I think people get something like this

maybe like maybe like three times in

their whole life, maybe less. And most

people don't take advantage. I feel like

I I did a good job early on by taking

advantage and

you know somehow I feel like I owe it to

myself to like at least see it through

like see see its potential. Um and also

it's fun like I enjoy doing it. I enjoy

seeing you know the graphs go up. I

enjoy talking to customers and like

seeing how this helped them. I I enjoy

the competitive aspect of it. Um, so

it's also fun and yeah, that's that's

mainly the reasoning on like why I

decided to

like go all in and maybe raise the

ceiling of what maybe like uh people

thought what is possible bootstrapping a

company especially solo.

>> It really feels like you have raised the

ceiling in terms of what people think is

possible and we have no idea just how

high that ceiling can go. Um, I'd be

super curious to hear about the

competitive aspect of this. Not

competitors, but like you being a

competitive person.

>> Is that something that you identified in

yourself really early on? What What were

some of the aspects of being competitive

that kind of resonated with you or or

made you sort of who you were when you

were growing up?

>> Yeah. Um,

so I was doing a lot of sports growing

up. I think maybe that's uh one aspect

that affected my personality. Um so I

did swimming, I did archery for a long

time and you know like going to

competitions and all of that. I think

especially when you're young and when

you with your friends, I think it shapes

your uh yeah, it shapes your personality

and I wouldn't say I'm competitive

because of I just want to like you know

prove other people wrong or you know

like I think a lot of founders a lot of

people say founders have you know like a

chip on their shoulder and um

the reason they do what they do is

because it comes from a place of like I

want going to prove everyone wrong. I

don't think I have that. But I think I

just I think it's it's it's fun to, as I

said, like to see things through and

like see the the biggest impact you can

make. And

um to me, I'm more like competing with

myself or like Yeah. Yeah. Honestly,

competing with myself. I want to like

see how much I can build this and like

like just be proud of what I've built.

Um,

and yeah, I think that's yeah, that's

the reasoning behind deciding to just go

all in and like um try to grow this as

much as possible, try to get as many

customers as possible, try to compete

with companies that raised a lot more

money than us. So,

>> infinitely more money than us. So, yeah,

>> the um swimming and archery, that's

interesting. Those are those are sports

that are both individualistic but also

teams, right? Archery is also a team,

swim team.

>> Um,

>> but and you're competing against other

people, but you're also competing with

yourself.

>> Yeah.

>> Can you share a little bit more about

how you think about those sports and

kind of the relationship between the

individual their teammates and the

people that they're playing against

because they feel like very different

than say, you know, soccer or football

or whatever.

>> Yeah. I think the beautiful thing about

uh individual sports is that you can

only blame yourself and I think

especially when you're young I think

that teaches you a lot about just life

and like how you you know go through

life and conduct yourself through life

and I think having that mindset of

everything is my fault I think that's

very helpful in sports but especially in

individual sports and that what it teach

that's what it teaches you but it's

extreme extremely helpful in business

also like it's the same um it has the

same importance if you're working with

more people I think especially if you're

the CEO yeah everything is your fault

because yeah like you're the person

responsible for anything that's

happening in the company so I think that

mindset even if you're working with

other people I think even if you have

co-founders I think everyone should um

take responsibility and I think um you

know like I I got that lesson from

sports and I think it helps with

businesses and especially it helps with

um solo funding a business. Um but now

like now I have a relatively big team

and like a lot of the um value that

chatbase is providing to customers is

coming from from the team and I'm very

proud to be able to have them um like

working with them especially given that

they started out you know like in my

like last semester in school like you

know like building uh in like a class

for example. So it it is very special

and but I want to make sure that I give

them you know the appreciation and

recognize they what they help built. I

think this is such an important aspect

of it, right, which is you're not this

is actually kind of an interesting thing

because oftent times people like, well,

you know, they're not solo, they have

team, of course, like most companies do

have teams and probably will have teams.

Maybe they'll be smaller teams in the

future because more leverage for each

individual with the tools that they

have,

>> but you know, there's this really

interesting dynamic of course where

you're solo, but you build a team. Yeah.

Um, and I think that there's a very

interesting dynamic of going from one

person to multiple people. If you have

co-founders, you already have done that,

right? Because if you have two other

co-founders, there's three of you. When

you add the first sort of non-founder to

the team, you're going from three to

four perhaps, right? Uh, but if you're

solo and you're adding the first

teammate, you're going from, you know,

one to two. So, it's it's this big

shift. I'm curious what that was like.

how you evaluated thinking about when to

add the first person. Um what kind of

role that that person had. Um obviously

this was also at a different time. So

you know technology was different. The

tools are different. So maybe if you

were to actually sort of think about the

way that you you did hiring if a company

were doing hiring today, they would do

different hiring than they would have

maybe, you know, 3 years ago. But I'm

really curious sort of what that was

like in the early days of considering

bringing on a person um to kind of go

from being truly solo to having a team.

I didn't have the choice like I think it

was extremely obvious that I need I need

to hire someone. It was just this

exponential growth you know on the in

the first two I think I hired the first

person like two and a half or three

months in uh after the first launch. Um,

and it was just impossible to keep up

with talking to customers, with building

their features, with everything. Um, I

think for me, I was lucky because the

first person I hired is a friend from

school. So like we already had that

relationship. And I think it's the same

for most startups. I think that would be

a good idea to like just hire someone

you know and already trust because as

like everyone says, the first few hires

like determine the culture of of the

company. Um,

so I think it for me like at at some

point there was no way I can continue

doing this solo and I knew that I wanted

to grow this as much as I can. And I

hired that first person. He was an

engineer, my friend from school and

maybe like a month after I hired the

second person and also a friend. And

then it just um

like I think maybe the mistake I made is

I hired too slowly even not not because

people say like you only hire when it's

painful.

>> Yeah.

>> Which I did that but like not on

purpose.

>> Um but I think I continue to do that and

I think maybe that's one aspect of

bootstrapping that you're kind of forced

to

be a little bit more careful than if you

would have raised. And I think I fell

into that. I wouldn't call it a mistake.

I think like I did what um made sense at

the time, but I think if maybe I knew a

bit more, I would have been more

aggressive and like maybe hire faster,

spend more money faster. But I think

that's what I'm saying about

bootstrapping. It's um

the when when people think of a

bootstrap company now, it's more like

they associated with like the indie

hacking, you know, lifestyle business,

which I it it is a big part of it, but

but now I think you will see uh

hopefully companies like Chadbased, but

I think other companies too will be solo

founded and maybe bootstrapped and they

will become huge. Um because I think now

the technology allows it and I think now

also more and more people want to start

companies and I think like the number of

founders is just going up. So I think

the number of solo founders will just go

up and bootstrapping is now a viable

option to build a generational company

and maybe the mistake that I made of

like maybe being too careful very early

on and um making sure that we're always

like very profitable above a certain

amount maybe some people will be more

aggressive and yeah I see that as uh

like a good strategy if the goal is to

build something generational. you know,

>> so we could I I want to talk a little

bit more about sort of the team and sort

of how you think about culture and

building in real life versus uh versus

remotely. Uh but before we get into

that, I think there's a really

interesting point that you made, which

is it's more possible than ever before

to build bootstrapped and to build to

something of really meaningful scale.

Not sort of like the that I don't mean

this in a derogatory way, um but you

know, some people sometimes do when they

say lifestyle business. Um there is

something really interesting about this

idea that you can make a lot of progress

with very little and you could

essentially be profitable. And then

there's a question of what do you do

with that? Do you continue to be

profitable and do you raise venture

capital? Um there was somebody in the

solo founders program who got to $2

million in ARR completely solo, no

teammates, and now he hired his first

teammate. He had raised a little bit of

money, but he didn't touch any of it.

you know, it just it it was just that it

was there and it didn't end up getting

used. So, in theory, he could have

bootstrapped it, right? Um, now, will he

raise more money? He's debating it. And

I think that's a really interesting

question that a lot of people have is

they have the success as you have or as

as he has. And you now it's a question

of well should they continue to just

grow sort of with profits uh especially

if they're really profitable if it's a

sort of more software oriented business

or at some point does it make sense to

consider taking money and you're doing

it from a place of leverage that maybe

you didn't have before. So I'm curious

sort of what your philosophy has been at

least to date. Uh because I'm sure there

have been you know quite a few times

when people have asked about you know

potentially investing that sort of

thing.

>> Like everything else it depends on I

think the main thing it depends on is

the founders's goal. Um,

I think there is a ton of advantages to

raising and I think the biggest one is

you get to be more aggressive because

you have this money and like you're

supposed to use it, you're supposed to

spend it and um maybe you do that some

mistakes along the way with with hiring

and stuff, but I think overall it um you

just get to move faster, which means you

capture more of the market. And in some

markets that's you know the name of the

game. it's like who's going to get more

customers faster. Um, and then also the

other advantage maybe for especially if

someone like young or maybe it's like

their first company or they don't have

um like a following or something. I

think the other advantage is some uh

social proof. You know, when you have

like the logo that this customer this uh

firm invested then it it helps a little

bit with getting customers and hiring.

But I would say the biggest advantage is

just being more aggressive because

I I know I was like this and I think

other maybe Bootstrap founders also had

the same problem. It's just it it's not

the same when you're spending your own

money like customer revenue. You you

want to make sure that it's ROI positive

all the time. You want to make sure that

you see the results very quickly, which

also like is a good mindset to have, but

in some cases, you want to like be more

aggressive and experiment and and um

maybe do some things that are maybe

sounds stupid, but they have like some

chance of success. But yeah, I think

that's the main reason to raise if you

already have profit. Um

but I would say on the other side like

why people would not trace um if they

have a growing business is one they

think maybe it's like they're delusional

but they think they can build a brand

that is strong enough that they don't

need to associate it or like to borrow

brand equity from a big firm. Um which I

feel like that's that's the goal for me.

like I want to be able to um

like maybe maybe it's stupid honestly

but I'm just saying um I have like the

confidence the self-confidence that I

can make this a strong brand that people

recognize that people want to use that

you know it's not like the alternative

to something it is just the best tool to

use and um I think I can do that um

without without raising so that's one

one thing And then the other thing is

about um

just maybe optionality and control. So

when you of course you have like maximum

optionality and control when you when

you're on your own. Um some people value

that. I value it to some extent. Um and

then I would say the the third reason is

the definition of success changes as

soon as you raise. So it depends also on

the person but if you bootstrap to 100

million ARR AI business I mean I think

anyone would call that a success and

like it's a success for the founder and

for the team. Um

but I don't think it would be like

considered a success if you raised 100

million. Um,

and

I think for me and like I think for

other businesses too,

it might be easier to get to what you

consider success if you don't raise

because just the ceiling is just changes

so much. And I think even if you have

the self-confidence, even if you know

you built an amazing product that

customers love, um, like I I don't think

anyone knows what's happening in AI now.

it's very unpredictable. So, um

there is an argument to be made that

it's just higher chances of success if

you bootstrap. there's something really

um remarkable about

Chatbas's growth and um clearly there

was the timing as you said um and there

were a bunch of sort of external factors

but there's also you and the team and

it's not like you just built one product

and that was what the product is today.

It's very different than what you

started with. Um, and I think that

that's perhaps something that's really

worth talking about because I think

people would really benefit from hearing

kind of you start with one thing and you

end up at a really different place,

maybe a place that you hadn't

necessarily predicted. So maybe you

could talk a little bit about that like

chatbase, what was it the very early

days and then maybe take us quickly

through to where we are today.

>> Yeah. No, I think you should like the

product should change over time. Like

that's the whole point of you know

building the product is it evolves as

the market evolves as your customers

needs evolve as your goals evolve. Like

this is I don't think it makes sense to

you know like plan the next year in

advance and just like ignore everything

that's happening around you. That

doesn't make sense especially in AI when

when everything is moving fast. Um like

you need to be flexible enough and

you need to also communicate that with

the team that we have like an idea of we

have a strong plan. we we know what we

want to build but you also have like the

flexibility and the um

like the team is is small enough and

fastm moving enough that you can like

change things as you know like the

technology changes or as the market

needs changes or like as a new like

competitor enters the market. So, you

have to have that quick moving ability.

And I think also that's easier when

you're bootstrapping, when you're on a

smaller team because you have control

and you you're just a dictator. Like you

can just decide what you want to do. And

I think like dictatorships are good when

you're trying to build a company. Um

because yeah, that's a tangent, but I I

I think

>> Say more about that though. I mean, like

I've heard it described as like

benevolent dictatorship.

>> Yeah. say more because I think that's

something that's relevant to solo

founding, right? Which is that sometimes

when you have co-founders, it could be

somewhat, you know, uh somewhat

difficult to necessarily get to the

really pointed decision that needs to be

made.

>> Yeah.

>> I I'm curious like talk more about the

benevolent dictatorship.

>> Yeah. I think

I think it's very important and I think

like of course I don't know the inner

workings of like the biggest companies

but I think you associate every big

company with one person and they're the

face of the company and they're the

decision maker and I think like

dictatorships

make your chances of success much higher

um because like there is two scenarios

one the founder is smart and the team

trusts them and um they have the agency

and they have the skill to build an

amazing company and in that case you

want them to be a dictator. You don't

want them to be slowed down but like by

convincing everyone with about their

like thought process and like making

sure that a consultant comes from

outside to validate you know their

thinking and all of that. So if you have

trust in the founder and you think

they're smart enough and they have input

on how to build the product and how to

get customers then it should be a

dictatorship. And then on the other side

like if the if the founder is not smart

enough and if they like their team

doesn't have like full trust in them

then this company is not going to work

anyway whether or not it's a

dictatorship. So the only way you like

have like a very big success is

being a right like dictator like your

your decisions are right and you don't

waste time convincing everyone about

what you want to do. Um so I think it's

just makes you move faster. It makes

pivoting like not pivoting but like

product decisions very fast and even

pivoting if it comes to that. So, um I

think it just that's like one of the

biggest advantages of of building like

being a solo founder. And I I think also

if you do have a co-founder, I think it

needs to be very clear who's going to be

dictator and what. Um and I think then

it can work. But if it's

if it's yeah, if it's like not not very

obvious who's doing what like like the

responsibilities are like uh there is a

gray area, then I think it becomes a

very big problem.

Maybe let's shift it back to what before

we went on this little rabbit hole,

which was a really good one. Um, sort of

how maybe that benevolent dictatorship

or whatever um caused you to go, you

know, from place to place to actually

get from first version of chat base to

where you are today because that I'm

guessing it's not exactly a straight

line. Yeah. Um, but what was the what

was the evolution there and what were

you learning along the way? Yeah, I

think um what's interesting in in

startups in general, but especially in

AI startups, is that the inputs change

every day and then you make a decision

based on what you know today, but then

you shouldn't have ego to say like like

let's say like a week after or a month

after and then some inputs changed and

then you the decision you made was a

mistake. then you need to like just go

in a different direction very easily and

like very quickly and 100% it's not

going to be a straight line. It wasn't a

straight line for us. It's I don't think

it's a straight line for anyone because

especially in AI everything is changing

so quickly. So your job as a founder I

think is for like decision- making is

two things. one, you need to make sure

you take in all the inputs that you have

today and like make sure you think from

first principles on what the best

decision is that I can make with

everything that I know now with all the

context that I know. But also not having

the ego to say no, we're going to

continue doing this after like things

change and making sure that um you and

everyone on the team are

you know, low ego enough to be able to

change your mind very quickly to respond

to like everything that's happening

around you. um that makes you know like

long very long-term planning hard but it

is hard and I think it's hard for all

the startups and it's even hard for the

AI labs and you know the people that are

creating this technology because like

the truth is no one knows what's going

to happen you know like two months from

now like what the products are going to

look like what the market is going to

look like what the customers will want

it's just very unpredictable u you can

have assumptions and like you can some

accuracy, but

yeah, you need to be low ego enough to

be able to change your mind very

quickly. And I think Jeff Bezos um had a

quote, I I forget exactly what it said,

but something like you need to be able

to make the decisions that it's very

easy to come back from.

>> And I think that's the case for like

especially AI startups. If you have a

decision that you can like walk back on,

you know, a week from now if things

change, you should do that instead of

doing something that it's very hard to

to walk back on. So yeah, for chatbase

it was a lot of like thinking, you know,

today like what should we do and then

changing it, you know, a week after and

then like thinking about something new a

week after and then oh actually it works

so we don't change it. we were going to

continue doing it. And over time, over

like yeah, the years it uh

chatbased became what it is today. And

we're still like going through that.

>> It feels like there's um this idea of

like one-way door decisions, two-way

door decisions. Um everybody like I

think the main the main challenge is

that everybody treats all decisions as a

one-way door decision. And what you're

saying is there's so many decisions that

are actually two-way door decisions that

are totally reversible, but because we

we kind of have this human nature of

kind of

>> clumping everything together, uh we we

treat the the two-way door decisions as

one way door and it makes it really

hard. Um that's probably the biggest

impediment on velocity, right? U. So I'm

curious, how do you kind of encourage

the team and create a culture for the

team to not feel like they're always

going through oneway doors, so therefore

they have to be extremely careful? Um,

maybe not have to always get your

permission for things, right? Because,

you know, you're you're not steering,

but you're directing, right? You're

telling you're saying, "Here's the

direction we want to go in." And then

ultimately, you know, you you need to

give them the ability and encourage them

to do their great work and make their

great decisions because you can't be the

person who makes all the decisions. So,

how how do you do that? Like what's the

culture like? How did you think about

building the culture? I'm sure that

there are things you've learned along

the way that um that were maybe like

missteps. Every company has those. I'm

just curious what what that's been like

for you because this is the first time

that you've ever really built a company,

right? It's kind of like you were you

were in college and then now now you're

running I think it's a 30 person company

$9 million bootstrapped solo founder. So

what walk walk me through like walk us

like the listeners through like what

that actually was like what you've

learned about building a culture that

supports these things that are

important.

>> Yeah, I think the biggest thing um for

me to learn or like that I learned and

that I made sure everyone on the team

knows is that changing your mind is

actually good. like you should change

your mind if if things change because

I think if you don't like make sure that

this is explicit if you just like let

things happen there is this um you know

like social pressure a little bit to

like not want to look like you changed

your mind or like to say oh actually

like this was a bad decision we should

do something else.

changing your mind like you should

change like actually not changing your

mind is a problem because

like inputs are changing very quickly

and sticking to something just because

you don't want to look bad is like such

a bad uh idea for for the smaller

decisions and then especially for the

bigger decisions. So I think in the

culture for us and I think for like a

lot of um what AI companies should do I

think honestly like any company is

encouraging like making sure that if

someone decides to change their mind um

there is like zero pressure on like oh

but you said this or oh but like we put

in all this work to do this or you know

like the sunk cost fallacy because

things things have changed. So yeah, and

I think like the way you build that

culture is by just like one doing that

yourself and then making sure you

communicate that with with the team like

very regularly. So like it's still in

you and everyone on the team that this

is how how we do things.

>> Now I think there's um I think there's

something really interesting and maybe

we could we can sort of transition over

to just like what it's actually like to

build a bootstrapped company that

scales. Um, I think a lot of people have

a general sense of maybe what it's like

to build, you know, these smaller like

soloreneur

indie hacker businesses that don't scale

because it's just, you know, one person.

But, you know, there are some really

interesting questions around how to

think about profitability versus

investing in, you know, different things

internally, how to think about hiring,

how to think about compensating people.

Um, I'm sure to some extent the people

that you attract to the company, you

attract different types of people

because you're a different type of

company. So maybe you could share a

little bit more about sort of the sort

of the practical sort of things that

you've learned when it comes to like

finances and sort of attracting and and

retaining talent at at sort of a a

scaled bootstrapped company.

>> Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. I

think so like rule number one if you're

not rich like you're not financing this

yourself is you have to be profitable

like there is it's not optional like you

have to be profitable from day one um

how profitable is is the question and

that that's what what I was mentioning

in like risk tolerance or being a

aggressive I think like of course when

this is like your first company and

you're just starting out you you the

it's very unclear like what this will

grow into. Um you tend to be more you

know conservative and like just want to

make sure that this is like the unit

economics make a lot of sense like

that's the number one metric you're

you're tracking but then as

like you gain some mode around the

company and like you you have some

confidence and like the steps that you

need to take are clear in order to grow.

Um then once you have that conviction

then you can be more aggressive. I would

say you can even start to lose some

money from like all the money that all

the profit that you have been building.

And that's what we're like that's where

we are now. Basically, we

are investing

I would say like we we may be even like

spending more money than a lot of like

VC back companies because we have been

profitable for a long time and

now there's we have a lot of conviction

on what we're building and

to to me it's a matter of execution. So,

it's I know it's not going to be easy,

but it the steps are clear like we need

to do this and this and this and it's

going to grow. Um, and I think that's a

very good position to be in. And once

you have that, then you should like just

go all in like because if you do believe

it, then like there is no it it doesn't

make sense to not do that. Like it's not

logical. I think that the it's like a

spectrum on like how aggressive you want

to be and

that the it just depends on like how

much conviction you have on if I do this

then we will grow. Um if I put like this

amount of money in this one thing it

will grow then you just put it because

it makes sense. And this this also

depends on like the the person building

like how much risk they want to take.

But um but to me like in the market

we're in and like for the goals that we

have there is no other way around like

spending money. So this is what we're

doing.

>> And when it comes to the people that you

track to work at this company, you know,

there are some companies that are

obviously out there that are trying to

raise a lot of money. They're doing it

and they're getting these really large

paper valuations that continue to go up

up up, right? Um, and those valuations

are usually not tied extremely directly

to revenue, right? They might be uh

directionally tied to revenue or or

success metrics or progress, but you

know, it's it's a different game than

like joining a company that's

profitable, that's growing really well,

um, that has like, you know, already at

your stage venture scale metrics for a

nonVCbacked business. What is it like

when it comes to recruiting people? Like

what are people looking for when they

join your company versus maybe joining

one of these companies that's maybe more

splashy but maybe you know isn't

necessarily doesn't have like the actual

like

>> business foundation that you do. I'm

curious like what what kind of people

are excited about that? What gets them

excited? And then also how you think

about actually incentivizing people. Is

it just the same thing as like venture

scale like venturebacked? It's not

venture scale because you're both

venture scale venturebacked startups or

is there something else that you do

around dividends or how do you think

about these things? I I don't know

anything about this world. So, I'm

really curious about it.

>> Yeah, that's that's very interesting. I

think 100% you you attract maybe

different types of people. Um I think

it's

more difficult a little bit because it's

hard to communicate the value. But I

think like this is the truth. I think it

makes a lot more sense to join a company

that is bootstrapped and has a lot of

like business uh like value in the real

world like revenue and customers. It

makes a ton more sense because

if you are joining a company that like

has just raised and you know they have

like the

um you know like the news article about

like the the raising and stuff like that

then it's like splashy um I don't know

if this is the best move to be honest

because that means like you're either

late like you might be late there's a

chance that you're late if the company

doesn't live up to the very high

valuation that that they have which like

Of course, some companies do and some

companies don't, but it's a risk you're

taking.

>> Um, and you need the company to not only

grow into that valuation, but grow past

it because like you're taking risk by

taking options. You're not taking like

just straight out equity. You're taking

options and then the options are going

to be based on the the valuation uh that

they just raised at. So

I feel like it's extremely more risky

than to join a company that is

bootstrapped and then like your options

mean something because the valuation is

not based on you know like revenue like

five years from now uh as as a lot of

like companies that are VC backed uh

their valuation is but I think like I'm

trying to put myself like you know in

like the the the shoes of a candidate. I

think the good thing about joining like

the splashy like the company that just

raised I think it looks better on your

resume. That's

>> social signal.

>> Yeah, social signal just looks better on

your resume.

>> But I think from

>> I think it's just more risky because

like

>> you you're betting that this company is

going to grow not to that valuation but

even more. Um and it's like you can make

that bet, but it's it's still a risk

you're taking. Um, but I think for for

some com there there's huge companies

that are bootstrapped and they I think

AHFS is bootstrapped and they do

dividends and like they're growing super

like I think they're over 100 million in

ARR and they I think every year they

give out like like 50% of their I'm

making this up but I just remembered

reading this.

>> Uh, but a lot of their profit just goes

straight to the to the employees. So I

think that's um

like you can do stuff like that when

you're bootstrapped and like you can do

stuff like that when when you do raise.

Um

but yeah, for us like I think what's

attractive when when I'm like talking to

a candidate is one like

this is like we don't have like the

paper valuation so you don't have like

the the problem with the options and

then two you get to take on like much

more responsibility just because like

this is a smaller team and you just like

tend to move up extremely quickly u

because by the fact like But this this

is being a small team and also like

bigger companies are more like hiring

executives from like outside like other

companies not from like people growing

from the inside. Um but like a a

bootstrap company wouldn't be able to do

that because they can't afford that. And

then the third thing is that

when you own like all of the uh equity,

then you can be a lot more generous with

with the equity that you give out to

employees because

like you own all of it. So you can just

decide to give your best employees a lot

more equity and that equity also has

value today. So, and I think a lot of

people like when when they think more

about it from first principles, they

they come to the same conclusion which

oh like this might actually be a better

approach and like this is like maybe

unintuitively like a lot less risk. Um,

and yeah, by doing that, I think I was

able to attract like extremely good

candidates who had offers from like

those like ventureback companies that

would seem from the outside um as like a

like a VC backed brand. But I think

yeah, once you think about things from

first principles, maybe you can like

sway your opinion towards this

direction. You know, there's there's

also something interesting is like once

you scale to a certain amount of

revenue, it's possible that you could

actually just sell like employee shares

t, you know, uh, founder shares to

investors as well if you ever wanted to

do it instead of just raising sort of

straight up like raising uh, preferred

shares or something like that. But I

think I thought was, you know, I've

never done this before, but I thought it

might be interesting even though um, you

know, we we've covered a lot of ground.

Maybe we should actually just really

quickly, if it's cool with you, talk

through a few of the um a few of the

things you've written about in the past.

Um I you had this playbook that you

published on X that we could link to uh

about bootstrapping and AI agent

business. Um and I thought there were

some really interesting things here that

maybe we could do like a lightning round

on. Um you said if you're in B2B just

due to the B2B stuff, what does that

actually mean? Yeah, I think especially

for bootstrap founders, you tend to try

to like force your B2B business to run

like a B2C, you know, app

>> and that's because customer acquisition

is just cheaper in B2C. So like because

you're you're bootstrapped maybe you

don't want to spend a lot of money in

acquiring customers and you're trying to

build like this extremely productled

like no one is going to talk to me

>> self-s serve

>> self-s serve uh app and it just doesn't

like it can work but you still have like

if you actually want to build something

big quickly

um I think the approach can be like

product like self-s serve and then um

attach like a salesled on top of it

because

at some point you're going to have like

bigger customers and you're going to be

talking to like a middle manager at like

a public company and that person like

especially if your product is good and

like it's there's like a lot of features

and like it's it can do many things that

person will not spend like a week you

know like on your dashboard trying to

make it work even like even if your

product is extremely intuitive and very

easy to use is just very hard to

convince people to spend time in like

setting things up and a lot of people

like value like talking to humans and

like getting on sales calls and like

understanding the product and making

sure that this is like there is humans

behind this. This is very valuable. Um

and yeah, I think

that's that's the only way you can you

can continue to grow past past a certain

point. And and just really quickly like

when you when you added sort of the the

more salesoriented approach where you

were actually talking to prospective

customers versus it being self-s serve

at what stage was the company like how

much money did you have? How many

customers did you have because you were

originally fully self-s serve I believe.

So when did you when did you add that

layer?

>> Maybe like a few maybe like six seven

months ago when we were like

>> Oh wow. So ve very recently in the

scheme of things.

>> Yeah. Because like before like we grew a

lot quickly like in the last also a

year. So before then like we didn't have

like it's just hard to hire sales people

because they're expensive and getting on

calls with customers and like going

through like long sales process sales

process is expensive and you can't just

do that when you're bootstrapped and you

don't have revenue. But after a certain

point we we had the revenue and like we

had the conviction that this will work.

So we started invested more into

building a sales team, building like the

salesled approach, you know, doing like

the B2B stuff, doing the outbound,

talking to customers and all of that.

>> So there were two there were two points

here. The first one or this is number

two is content is non-negotiable. And

then number three, which I think is very

connected, is warm outbound is the

lowest hanging fruit. Um maybe talk

about both of those at the same time

because warm outbound is probably a

concept that most people haven't even

thought of. They think of cold outbound

typically. So maybe say how content

being non-negotiable fits into like this

warm outbound being sort of the the

biggest opportunity for a lot of people.

>> Yeah. So

I think you can do two things like as I

said there's two approaches. One is like

the self-s served productled. You just

like you're just basically doing

marketing and like you're just hoping

people go through the onboarding flow.

You're treating it as like a B2C

company. And then on the other end of

the spectrum it's salesled. you just you

just have like a landing page with a

book a demo and then you just have like

sales people try to connect with

executives at big companies but I think

what's very interesting and I think

actually a lot of companies that are

huge that I look up to are doing that is

out of both they have the marketing the

media arm as just like to get people

familiar with the brand to have more

brand awareness but they don't just

leave it to them to like go on the

product and sign up. They pull them like

they actually pull them by sending the

emails, going on calls with them and

making sure that they go through the

whole pipeline. So I think that's the

idea of warm outbound. The good thing

about content and and marketing is that

it makes everything else you do easier.

Like it makes paid ads easier because

people know your brand and like they're

more likely to watch your content

because they have seen you before.

They're more likely to click on it

because you have like social proof. So

like organic content just makes

everything else easier. It makes

outbound easier because people have seen

you before. Maybe they someone like told

them about you because of of the

content. It's just very powerful. It

makes all the levers uh much stronger.

And then sales works because it's been

working for like you know like the

beginning of time. It's just talking to

people and can like explaining the

product and like making sure that this

solves their problem. And I think

combining both you end up with like very

strong companies like Stripe for example

where it has like a very strong self-s

serve and like product and and marketing

and uh PLG uh growth but at the same

time of course they can support

extremely large businesses and like they

have the white glove onboarding and like

all the forward deployed engineers you

need because it I think those are like

the best companies and that's the way I

want to build chatbase is um attaching

a sales approach on top of a strong

content and product like growth.

>> So, okay. So, really quick lightning

round stuff here. Cold outbound, like

what's the thing that you learned about

cold outbound that was like the hardest

lesson but the most important.

>> Yeah, cold outbound. I think

it works extremely well if you have a

very big uh TAM

So like for for a company like us

customer like just a customerf facing

agent so like customer support customer

uh sales and and all of that customerf

facing interactions of course this is a

huge market and

that means like if cold outbound works

for anyone it will work for us because

like our just time is is huge and we

know the product works because it's

working with other people that are using

it um through the self-s serve flow

Um, so I think it then it becomes a

numbers game. Then it becomes how much

you're doing and how much you're willing

to spend. And it's just like a formula

at the end of the day like cact to LTV.

And this is the part of it where you're

thinking about it like maybe a B2C

company. Um, but but I think that's I

think that's like the approach of a lot

of companies that are starting out now.

And I think even bigger companies are

seeing this is combining both like what

people have been doing in B2C and what

people have been doing in B2B and

combining both for a very strong

sales supported organization with um

very strong PLG motion.

>> So this is a really interesting one. Be

friends with your biggest customers. Um

a lot of Solo founders I know have

incredibly close relationships with the

people that they serve. um they're

usually on like a texting basis with

their early customers. What was the

thing that you learned from that or or

what's something that what's something

that has been sort of surprising?

>> Yeah. Um I think for us it was extremely

important and extremely easy too. Like I

think maybe it's very like maybe not

intuitive to someone like new to

business to be friends with with

customers, especially when you're like

like us, we have 10,000 customers. So

like how are you going to be friends

with them? But I think for us it was

very helpful because

those biggest customers we we realize we

have a lot in common with them because a

lot of them are like executives or

founders or you know like big project

managers at a big company and a lot of

the problems we're facing they have

faced too and they have insights for us

we have insights for them and it's just

like very easy to find common ground and

like find things to talk about. Um, and

then it's very helpful because

you need your customers to be like brand

ambassadors. So you need your customers

to like have like you're growing from

word of mouth is like huge for us

because um we have like a lot of

customers in a lot of different

industries. And when you have like one

customer in one industry but they

actually love the product, they can't

stop talking about it. And then you get

more people from that industry. And you

only get that or like it helps when you

actually know them like actually know

them on a name to name basis. Like you

have their their phone number, you call

them. And we I think we we started doing

this maybe later than I wanted to, but I

now realize that this is

an extremely like undervalued I would

say growth lever that people are not

focusing on. So the last two here were

very closely tied together which is

pricing is the fastest lever and margins

don't matter early on. Could you say

something about those two and maybe how

they relate to each other?

>> Yeah, I think pricing is interesting

because

there's no science behind it. Like it's,

you know, like I consumed all the

content, you know, the startup content

about pricing. I talked to a lot of

founders. Like the most common way

people do things is experimenting. like

you just come up with a number, you put

it on on the site or like you try it

with a in a sales call and then see the

reaction. That's like the the the only

way people price and like doing more of

that is how you find the perfect price.

Um so I think a lot of people do not

realize that maybe they're pricing too

low and even maybe they're pricing too

high and they're losing out on on

customers. And by saying pricing is is

the is the fastest lever is because you

can just change it. you can just decide

to change it and immediately you will

see like feedback from from the market

and you can say the same thing about

like any of the other um like efforts

you're you're doing but pricing has that

advantage. So it doesn't make sense to

not do that. it. You should be changing

pricing a lot to find where the perfect

price is when you're delivering where

customers want to use you even if you're

expensive because you're delivering like

a lot more value to them. And

from what I've learned, like the only

way to find that is by experimenting.

>> And then that second part about margins

not mattering early on quite as much.

Yeah, I think this is more of a thing

that I would say to bootstrapping or or

solo founders especially because

um

like the definition of a good business

is like a business that does profit and

it's like when you first like see the VC

world is like unintuitive like how these

many companies are not profitable. Um,

so some people are like, "Oh, I'm

against VC. I'm going to bootstrap for

for some I'm not against VC. Like I love

I think my second company I'll probably

raise uh I think it u it depends on like

what I'm doing, but I'm saying like some

people are very religious about these

things and they decide um

like I'm just against everything. So I'm

against like profitability or sorry I'm

against like not being profitable even

if it means I can grow faster. And my

point here is it's much much easier to

cut cost than to get more customers and

get more revenue. So I would say like in

the beginning if if the goal is to like

just build a big brand and a big company

and something generational,

of course you should sacrifice the $10

in cost if it means you're going to get

$10 in revenue because you can like

cutting cost is much easier than uh

getting more revenue. And

the revenue also like signals other

things other than the you know like the

dollar amount. It signals like a new

customer that's going to talk about you.

It signals more brand awareness. It

signals more money you can invest once

you cut costs. So the money from revenue

is much much more powerful than whatever

you're spending in terms of cost. And I

think yeah a lot of bootstrap founders

don't think about things that way. And I

certainly didn't. And I think it made me

a lot more slower in the beginning, but

now it's much easier to be more

aggressive because I know that

>> that's really I mean that's super

counterintuitive and uh that's exactly

the type of thing that people listen

for. So I'm sure a lot of people will

benefit from hearing that. And again,

thank you for being on this. I I think

we want to close this out with sort of

the two customary questions that we

typically ask. The first one is um is

sort of the bare case for being a solo

founder. The reasons that maybe people

shouldn't be. Uh because I think that

obviously we think that solo founding is

great. We think that it's an incredible

opportunity um and that some of the best

companies will be built. In fact, it

will probably be the default way that

companies are built uh in the future.

But at the same time, it's not all

sunshine and and roses or whatever,

right? There's got to be some some

downsides to it. So what's the sort of

the case against solo founders? And then

of course the spoiler alert is we'll

we'll we'll take a pause and we'll talk

about that. But then afterwards we'll

we'll talk about the the case for it.

>> Yeah. I think the biggest bare case is

how hard it is especially in the

beginning. Um,

I think having a co-founder, having

someone as invested as you, as much as

you,

especially early on, just makes life

much easier, especially when you have

like trust in them and you can um fully

depend on them and you know they're

smart and like you just

some things in the business, you know,

are handled because it's with them. And

you can say the same thing about um, you

know, like any like good, you know,

person on the team. But I think for a

founder, especially early on, it's it's

special because a lot of the early days

is like you're trying to figure out what

you're building. You're trying to figure

out PMF. You're trying to get your first

customer. And you want someone that has

the same investment as you to go with

you through all of these things. Um, and

then the maybe the other

like

maybe bare case for for solo founding is

it just doesn't work for some businesses

like if you're starting a research lab

like I don't know how you can do that as

a solo founder or maybe like some

robotic like especially the things where

you need like a lot of technical

expertise in like very specific domain

um and you don't have that uh or if you

do have that maybe you don't have like

the business aspect of things. Um, so I

think some businesses

it's just harder to do as a solo founder

or like maybe it's maybe someone else

will will do it and like you're going to

get them on the podcast, but it hasn't

been proven uh that it it it's easy to

do uh in in some kinds of businesses.

Um, yeah, I think those are are the main

two um in terms of like downsides of of

solo founding.

>> I guess let's flip it over then. I mean,

I I think that by the way, a lot of

those things are are incredibly valid.

Um, especially the the sort of

loneliness and sort of like not

necessarily having a thought partner.

Sometimes that's valuable. Sometimes

it's the challenge, right? Sometimes you

argue and whatnot, but sometimes that is

really valuable and um that makes a lot

of sense. So, like let's let's flip it

over though from the bare case for solo

founding. Like what's the case for solo

founding? Yeah, I think the case for

solo founding is that

it's very hard to lose. I think like I

think the the companies go out of

business or like startups they they

crash because I think the biggest reason

is co-founder breakup because if you

don't have breakup you can just like

pivot or you can just you know like try

to raise more money or you can just like

there's a lot of other options but

co-founder breakup when it happens then

like you have to that's it like the

company's not going to work out um in in

most cases. I think I I I mentioned this

before. I think having an amazing

founder is better than having no

co-founders, but having a slightly like

below average co-founder is much much

worse than being solo. Um, and I believe

the case is like

you're going to end up in a lot of

arguments. You're going to end up in

like um different opinions about

different things. You're going to have

like this gray area where like it's not

very clear who's supposed to have the

final say in something. And when you're

not able to like work out through these

conversations, especially quickly,

because you need to move fast and you

can't have like threehour calls about

like a small decision because both of

you are like very uh you know,

hard-headed about like this specific

thing, then it's just like even if you

don't have a breakup, you're just going

to be much much slower as a company

that's just like going through decisions

as as fast as they can. So yeah, I think

that's honestly the biggest thing is

yeah, like co-founder breakups and

that's maybe it's like one reason, but

it's a huge reason to to not uh do it.

So I think

if

you don't know who that person is that

you want to be as your co-founder, like

you're starting a new company, you don't

know who that person is. I would highly

suggest instead of like finding someone

that you think maybe like checks off all

the boxes but you're not 100% sure,

instead of doing that, then try solo at

least for like some time and then see

how it goes because you can always

change your mind later. It's like a

two-way door decision, right? So, um you

can always bring in a co-founder if you

think it's it's too hard. But

yeah, that's also a good thing about

solo founding is the optionality. Maybe

this is the last the last thing that you

can comment on is we've we uh we we've

definitely covered a lot of ground, but

that specifically around like the

decision- making and sort of like being

the sole decision maker. Um you went

through a bunch of different ideas. You

were working on a bunch of different

projects. Uh maybe a co-founder wouldn't

have gone on all those different little

journeys with you to eventually land at

Chatbase, right? Like it feels like in

many ways that was a very personal kind

of like exploration experimentation

period that yielded chatbase. Hard to

say if you were working with other

people if that would have happened.

>> Yeah, exactly. And it's also hard like

maybe if I did find an amazing

co-founder then like I would have like a

much better bigger success than Chad

base. But it's it's just very hard to

predict these things. But I would say

like I think being solo helped a lot

with moving fast and just like making I

like the fact that everything is my

fault and like being solo gives me that

satisfaction that everything is my

fault.

>> Cool. Well, thank you so much for doing

this. This is great. Yeah, thanks for

having me.