I AM BACK, Big Announcement!

Dear Readers,

I. AM. BACK.

For those who have been close readers, you'll know I teased I was working on something big and then, frankly, I disappeared. You'll understand why over the coming months.

For now, I want to share what I've been working on and invite you to become a part of it — or share it with your network!

Here's the headline: I'm launching the "Y Combinator for Seedstrapped Companies."

Take one round of capital from us. Up to $1M. Join our program for 12 weeks. Get profitable. Then grow on your terms.

Our first fellowship launches next month, and I invite you to APPLY NOW [link].

Why Now, Jesse?

I've been an entrepreneur for almost 20 years and I (like all of you) have been lied to… the narrative for an entrepreneur is:

Build a unicorn, raise lots of VC rounds and then change the world!  And if you don't do that, you are running a "cute, lifestyle business," said with an air of superiority.

That narrative misses a lot.

First, Unicorns are great for VCs. They are not so good for most entrepreneurs. They invest in 20 companies, and they are OK if 19 fail, as long as one becomes huge.

They don't know which will become huge, so they push every company to grow at all costs, even if that's not what the founder wants or what the market can handle.

This explains why 90% of my VC-backed friends tell me in private they wish they didn't have investors.

Second and MORE importantly, there is a 3rd option between VC Unicorn and Lifestyle business. If you're on this email list, you already know: Bootstrapped Giant!

There are tons of founders out there who are insanely ambitious, but they want to grow their business profitably and on their terms.

I am one of them, and I am building what I wish existed when I was 26!

There's no home for these founders… until now. Even more urgently, AI has changed the game. The cost of building a business has dropped by over 70%.

LLMs are creating a new distribution channel. AI native services are all the rage. In short, there's never been a better time to seedstrap.

Why are YOU doing this, Jesse?

Simple, this is my dream.

About a year ago, my coach asked me: If you were a billionaire and could do anything, what would you do?  My answer was immediate:

I'd want to help a bunch of founders build, work with the latest technology and create new companies. Day in and day out. Well, I'm not a billionaire (yet) but I found a way to live that dream! (More on that in a future email due to SEC restrictions…)

Internally, we've dubbed this GX 2.0. The first version was fun. We launched successes like GrowthAssistant, Aux Insights and The Next New Thing.

We learned even more from our failures.  We designed 2.0 against our biggest learnings:

1. Relentless founders with a deep sense of ownership, agency and passion win.

2. Always start with a specific customer and their specific problem, then solve it profitability.

3. Low cost distribution and GTM are a requirement for capital efficient growth.

4. Coaching a founder's inner journey is as important (if not more important) than the outer journey.

5. $1-2M in funding is a sweet spot for launching a company.  

Ok Jesse, give me the details:

• Founder profile: All welcome!

• Company stage: Pre-funding but with a clear problem, solution and customer. 

• Company types: All are welcome, we tend to focus on:

  1) AI Native Services - still selling outcomes to humans but AI does 70-80% of the delivery work and improves over time

  OR

  2) Ideas helping Marketers leverage LLMs

• Dates & Location: 9/14 until 11/24 in St. Louis

• Content: During the program, we will work closely with founders to stand up go to market, bring in customers, hire critical team members, personal coaching and company building.  The goal will be to achieve a clear path to profitability during the program.

• Terms: $500K on a $5M SAFE Cap with a guaranteed follow-on of $500K (at a $5M priced round) if the company achieves $2M in revenue or $200K in runrate profit during its first 2 years.

• Deadline:  9/4. We’re making decisions on a rolling basis because it's coming up so apply here asap.

Last but not least, we have two other ways we're partnering with founders:

1. Studio - this isn't going anywhere! We are continuing to look for people who want to co-found with us. Our studio companies will get up to $2M in funding, 1 year of my direct support and we have tons of categories and ideas we're excited about.

2. Residency - if you are pre-idea and exploring, we have a membership program.  No commitments either way, but come hang out, build with us, jam on ideas and we'll earn the right to be your first check. We provide office space, customer intros, help with prototypes and brainstorming!

So there you have it… why I disappeared for 6 months.

Next week, I'll deep dive into the studio and a couple fun ideas.

Thanks for reading and for your support!

jesse