New Way to Fund Solo-Founders?

I dare to say that ‘Pre-Seed funding’ is dying. And maybe the next unicorn isn’t the only target anymore.

Let me explain. In ‘Agency Eating the World’ - a brilliant article by Gian Segato - he shows how AI supercharges high-agency founders, and that Agency > Intelligence. I want to use this as a starting point to show how the shift in ‘startup founders’ is about to flip the VC industry.

If a founder doesn’t need a team for several months to test an idea, but instead can do it all themselves in a few weeks, then why bother crafting a pre-seed deck?

Then, if they succeed, there are two options: 1. Raise seed 2. Continue to go solo

I bet a lot of them will choose option two. Because - and I’ll be honest - fundraising sucks (as a process). Second, not all of these new startups need VC money. And those who do go for (and are eligible for) seed will skyrocket their valuations - seed will start to look more like a Series A.

So what do we have here? Thousands of hyper-profitable businesses are about to be born. Most of them don’t need your (VC) money. Guys like John Rush and Marc Lou are showing it’s possible right now. And yes, somewhere among them, there’s bound to be a Holy-Grail, One-Person Unicorn.

That’s the change. That’s the death of pre-seed as we know it. Now I want to ask some questions - and suggest some, though fewer, answers.

First: can early-stage VCs still be a part of it? My take is - yes, if you go even earlier in that ‘early’ part. Fund not startups, but people.

Yes, great founders push through struggles, come out stronger, and all that stuff that makes for a great biopic. But in reality - 99 other potentially great founders broke just a step before the win. We just don’t know their stories. It’s the cruel math of life. And in a lot of cases, their problems could have been solved with money they didn’t have. Not business problems - basic, life problems. A loved one’s illness. A draining day job. Another missed rent payment becomes the last straw.

What if we backed high-agency founders with a monthly check for a year so they could go all-in?

Instead of chasing unicorns, investors could build an "Angel Index" of extremely profitable, solo-run businesses.

That’s the idea behind my startup - SomeGuys.VC - a Kickstarter for High-Agency Solo-Founders. But I’m not here to pitch it. The thing is - we don’t have all the answers yet. For example, even we keep talking in terms of equity. But the startups I’m describing might never be for sale -> no ‘liquidity event’. They’re going to be cash machines, dividend-generating businesses.

Do we even have the right mechanisms for that? SAFE doesn’t seem to fit here. I’m thinking about revenue-share agreements between early investors and founders. But what should they look like? Should they be lifetime? What’s a fair share? How do you legally enforce it? Or simply a founder buyback clause - with a multiplier built in.

I really believe that these questions matter. VC, at its best, is a force for good. And now it could have an even bigger impact, helping way more people than before. It just wasn’t possible before AI - such funding wasn’t enough. But now it is.

And it’s not just tech. Imagine a recent film school grad dropping an AI-generated movie with new, unique heroes, launching a new franchise. Teachers are inventing new ways to educate. A PhD student is coming up with a revolutionary approach in their field after weeks of using the latest LLM. And things we can’t imagine yet.

This idea seems to be couchsurfing through the minds of bright people lately. I.e. Garry Tan and YC recently launched a program for students, offering 20k so they can dedicate their summer to building something they’re passionate about. We suggest taking it one step further.

AI is going to change everything. VC is no exception. We'd love to hear your thoughts on that.