Building Without Waiting for Permission
There’s an ongoing debate across the startup world about being a solo founder versus having co-founders, especially in the traditional single-venture path. You see it everywhere—on X, YouTube, podcasts—everyone picking a side, breaking down the pros and cons. But this isn’t about that debate. Both paths work, and both have trade-offs. This is about something more fundamental: getting started, building momentum, and not treating a co-founder as a prerequisite for a venture’s success.
Over the past three months, I’ve been deep in the trenches—formulating frameworks, refining the venture studio model behind Foundry One Group, and being intentional about the kinds of companies I want to build. At the same time, I’ve been trying to build relationships with people I thought I might eventually partner with.
But that process slowly became a blocker.
When Relationships Become a Bottleneck
Instead of accelerating progress, it started getting in the way of it. It introduced this subtle dependency—the idea that I needed the “right” co-founder in place before I could fully move forward. And the more I reflected on it, the clearer it became: the work doesn’t wait. The market doesn’t wait. And building great companies can’t be paused while you try to solve for perfect alignment.
So I shifted my focus.
Going into the next 90 days, I’m anchoring everything around three core principles. Not as a checklist, but as a way of operating that removes friction and keeps momentum high.
Principle 1: Move Forward With the Agenda – Build, Ship, Learn, Repeat
The first is moving forward with the agenda and letting everything else follow. This sounds obvious, but in practice, it’s where most founders get stuck. It means going back to basics—building and shipping. Not overthinking every decision, not waiting for validation before action, not trying to perfect the strategy in isolation. Just building real products and putting them in front of real users. Because clarity is earned through execution. Every product shipped creates a feedback loop. Every user interaction sharpens the direction. In today’s environment, where AI tools and no-code platforms have collapsed the time between idea and launch, the advantage belongs to founders who move. Momentum compounds, and the only way to generate it is by doing the work.
Principle 2: Use Hiring and AI as Leverage – Scaling Output Without Scaling Friction
The second principle is using hiring and AI as leverage to create momentum. There’s this narrative that solo founders need to do everything themselves, but that’s neither scalable nor necessary. Solo doesn’t mean doing it all—it means controlling how things get done. It means being deliberate about where you spend your time and where you amplify it. I’ve spent over 15 years building product and design teams, and I know how to find talent—people who are capable, hungry, and looking for an opportunity to prove themselves. When you combine that with AI, you unlock a completely different level of output. You can move faster across product, design, research, and operations without being the bottleneck. At that point, you’re not just building—you’re orchestrating. You’re designing a system that produces results, rather than trying to produce everything yourself.
Principle 3: Build Genuine, Intentional Relationships – Alignment Over Transaction
The third principle is rethinking networking and relationships entirely. Not as a means to find a co-founder, but as a way to build genuine alignment over time. In the past, I approached conversations with an underlying question: could this person be a co-founder? Now, it’s different. It’s about shared values, shared perspective, and whether we see the world in a similar way. Because real partnerships aren’t forced—they emerge. And when they do, they’re built on something much deeper than complementary skill sets. This shift has led me to think about relationships as a way of “going solo, together.” Building independently, but staying connected. Supporting each other, exchanging ideas, opening doors—without the pressure of needing to formalise everything into a partnership too early.
What I’ve realised is that these three principles do more than just guide execution—they remove unnecessary friction. They eliminate waiting. They reduce forced decisions. And they create space for momentum to take over.
Because in the end, momentum is the real advantage.
Momentum creates opportunities. It attracts the right people. It surfaces who is serious about building and who is still just thinking about it. And most importantly, it keeps you moving forward.
This approach allows me to focus on what actually matters—building great products, learning from the market, and creating real value—without compromising on quality or burning out trying to do everything alone.
If the right co-founder comes along, it will happen naturally, through shared context and aligned experience—not because I was actively searching to fill a gap.
Until then, I’m building.
If you’re a solo founder—or thinking about going solo—how are you approaching momentum, leverage, and relationships without a co-founder?