The 10x founder thesis
What happened to Humane | Raising VC and giving it back | Operation Greyball | Horizontal vs Vertical products + loads more…
🆕 Personal Updates
With last month’s definitive collection of content to date, it’s meant I’ve been hoarding a huge list of content from the past two months, so this is a meaty issue to get stuck into. But take your time, don’t scoff through it too quickly, just savour the content.
I’ll be taking some time off during the December holiday period and have no idea when I’ll be back. When I find a bunch of fascinating content to share I’ll be in your inbox! Thanks for all the support this year.
Right, let’s get to it - time for this month’s roundup 👇
🔥 Last editions top link: Facebook’s Little Red Book
🔗 Hyperlinks
I Raised $137 MILLION... And Gave It Back
Despite the video's title suggesting a solo founder raised $137m from VCs, Adam was actually just 1 of 7 co-founders. The product, Pitch, is a presentation tool I've been using for the past couple of years and find to be a super slick experience.
However, my personal product-market fit story wasn't going to match their VCs' ambitions. As MoM growth began to stall and their original hypothesis didn't pan out as expected, they approached a fork in the road: shut down or adapt their initial approach. They chose adaptation, agreeing to a refinancing deal with their VCs where they returned all unspent cash pro rata, reducing the investors' ownership stake in the process. This allowed them to focus on the business and product they wanted to run, free from breakneck growth expectations. However, to quickly become profitable and self-sustaining, they progressively reduced their headcount from 170 to just 40. It's a fascinating story about the trade-offs between raising capital, hyper-growth expectations, and the pressure that comes with it
Operation Greyball | How Uber Fooled the Feds
When it comes to growth at all costs, Uber certainly took this to a new extreme in late 2014. In fact, it could be seen as the largest corporate espionage story in modern history.
Operation Greyball managed to allude government officials for years with software tactics which will frankly blow your little mind. Despite this, they eventually got caught red-handed due to a growing number of employees deciding to speak out. But against all odds, they escaped unscathed, mostly due to their sneaky terms of service stating it was necessary to protect the platform from bad actors. Regardless of whether you strongly disagree with this or not, you have to admit it this devious and elaborate strategy was impressive.
In the 3 years of this cat-and-mouse game with authorities, they managed to expand from 200-600 cities, with their valuation growing from $3b - 70b. The question is, would they have grown this fast if they had to follow every country and local rule and regulation? seems unlikely.
This brief but fascinating story by Hiten Shah is part of a new YouTube series where he covers a number of fascinating tech stories.
🎁 Bonus content: Why Bill Gates saved Apple from bankrupsy
Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos Enter a Room
Here's a wild story written by
that shows how even the most hyped products can face brutal reality checks. Imagine this scene: December 2000, Steve Jobs (fresh off saving Apple with the iMac) and a pre-jacked Jeff Bezos meet at a San Francisco Hyatt to tear apart the Segway demo. The meeting was set up by VC legend John Doerr, who'd already invested $38m at a ~$456m valuation.Jobs, in peak Jobs mode, rolls up 30 minutes late rocking his signature black turtleneck and holey Levi's combo. However, his tardiness wasn't going to match his eventual contribution. He absolutely dominated the room, immediately shutting down the prepared presentation to deliver some brutal feedback:
First up, he destroyed their two-model strategy, drawing from his iMac experience where he launched with just one version to maintain absolute focus. Then came the design critique - "It sucks!" - suggesting they needed design firms that could make you "shit in your pants". Finally, he ripped apart their manufacturing plan, questioning why they'd build a plant in New Hampshire of all places.
Bezos, while less aggressive, dropped his own reality bombs. He saw the US regulatory environment as "dead on arrival" and pushed for a Singapore launch where they'd only need to convince the Prime Minister. However, Jobs countered that the internet age meant no slow rollouts - it was a big bang or bust.
Despite both titans initially hyping the product publicly with quotes like "most amazing piece of technology since the PC" (Jobs) and "so revolutionary, you'll have no problem selling it" (Bezos), their private concerns proved prophetic. The Segway's eventual launch couldn't match the hype, and they ended up making just 10 units per week instead of the planned 6,000. Between the bulky 65lb design, poor battery life, steep $3,000 price tag, and regulatory hurdles, it was a classic case of overpromise, underdeliver.
The story wrapped up with Ninebot acquiring Segway in 2015, and by 2020, they discontinued the original product. Rather than revolutionizing transport, it became best known for mall cops and tourist groups - quite the journey from those early days of tech titan scrutiny.
📓 Articles
Humane bets others need its AIOS
I’ll first start by admitting I get too excited with new hardware products. Long-time readers might be pretty aware of this. I cringe at the thought of some of the posts I’ve written this year for products such as the Rabbit R1 and the Humane AI Pin. Why? Because they have ultimately flopped since the moment they launched despite my excitement and personal hype.
Both such devices were plagued with battery issues, latency issues, bugs, challenging UX and false promises.
However, the Humane hype was different. Both founders, Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri were top veterans at Apple having been part of the teams overseeing the iPod, iPhone and Mac OS. They raised a quarter of a billion in venture funding from some of the most respected Angels and VCs and brought on an all-star team of advisors. On paper, it had all the hallmarks of paradigm-shifting product, except, it wasn’t.
After a vicious public backlash and scathing reviews, both founders went underground, instead choosing to focus on taking on the feedback and criticism and moving forward to improve the product.
In this post, Om Malik chats with founder Imran to understand what they could have done better, how he handled the criticism and what’s next.
Building and taking a horizontal product to market is hard
As soon as I started reading this post it brought back some challenging memories. I’ve been a Product Manager for three startups building native horizontal products, so I can sympathise with the founder of Equals (Bobby Pinero) challenge.
Given Equals is a browser-based spreadsheet (to put it simply) they have an almost infinite multitude of potential use cases they could service, but despite various warnings from seasoned investors and founders, they chose to plough ahead and try to satisfy them all with one product. While the abundance of use cases for the product could be seen as a huge advantage, trust me when I say it’s a double-edged sword. All the different use cases attract different user types which typically demand bespoke requirements which can drag you in a million different product directions. In addition, take a moment to consider how you might market such a product - almost impossible. My personal advice for any founders considering building a horizontal product is to start building vertically, then slowly move horizontally.
The 10x founder
Yes, it’s a cringy title and just when we thought the 10x engineer memes had fizzled out, we are off again. However, it’s an interesting thesis to explore. With the emerging AI-native stack of technology and the capabilities of AI Agents, how far can a solo founder take a business without any employees? As Scott Belsky put it "We are entering an era of scaling without growing...”
… the emergence of a new type of founder that I will call the 10x founder. 10x founders are today employing AI to do the work of 10 average founders.
It’s already been suggested by Sam Altman the first unicorn startup by a solo founder is on the horizon due to the advancements in AI. However, this is all assuming a solo founder can generate about $100m ARR with a presumptuous ~10x ARR multiple with no full-time employees.
Remember, this is assuming 1 founder's output and ability is the same as a team of 10 people which is hard to comprehend, but perhaps with the right product, market, technical skills and execution, there is always the possibility. However, a business making this amount of revenue would require an extensive and complex AI Agent configuration.
Going forward, founders are going to be less obsessed with hiring and more obsessed with deploying AI to enhance their organization's ability to scale without growing.
In this post, Jeff Bussgang outlines his bullish take on the 10x founder and how it might be possible.
📱 Products
Windows 98 Icon Viewer
Forgot elegant simple clean lines and soft edges and let me take you back to a time when utilitarianism was cherished and detailed, hard-edged pixilated icons ruled supreme. These nostalgic, “iconic” icons from Windows 98 include pixel-perfect 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 versions all available for free to download courtesy of Alex Meub.
Lovable | AI no-code web app development tool
Have I found the tool I’ve been waiting patiently for? nope, but it’s a step in the right direction.
I’ve mentioned before and I’ll mention again - the future of no-code tools which allow you to create mobile and web apps will leverage AI and use a chat interface paradigm with less dragging and dropping pre-built components/elements and having to manually stitch them together. This new tool is a glimmer into this future.
Having given it a good shot earlier this month, I found it challenging to debug using its automatic debugger, however, I did manage to create an impressive personal finance tracking dashboard and was impressed with what I could achieve in just 30 minutes. The stand-out feature of Loveable is the ability to select an element on the UI and provide a prompt to make tweaks. Additionally, you can connect a database with ease and begin storing data. It’s got some way to go, but it’s still in its beta phase and I would assume the more user data they collect the better it will become. Give it a shot and let me know how you got on.
Beta Directory | Discover the latest tech products
This month’s latest early access beta products brought to you by Beta Directory are:
Howie: the quickest scheduling assistant on earth (apparently).
The Network: research and discover people by searching across dozens of platforms at once.
MindOne: The design first app builder.
🐽 Other links to consume
🔮 Flashback
Studying history to learn the future
Despite the image below looking like a spy’s briefcase from the 70’s, it’s in fact Steve Wozniak’s hand-built original Apple I from 1976 and perhaps one of the few remaining examples of the first computer ever built by Apple. Shortly after presenting this prototype, the two Steve’s managed to secure their first 50 orders marking the beginning of Apple computers.
Fun fact: The Apple-1 systems were sold without casing, power supply, keyboard or monitor.
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Until next the next issue,
Sam | @thisdickie 👨💻