Hello there! 🐛

Can you believe we’re almost done with June? I’m so ready for rain to stop pouring down on our weekends.

But besides the rain, I took advantage of the sun the past couple of weeks to have a bunch of in-person coffee chats.

We talked everything from solopreneurship to connecting to some type of community in Boston. I’ve combined my learnings here for you to read (and perhaps inspire to set up a 1-1 with someone you just met!)

From my browser to yours, Aria

⏰ TL;DR

• Join us for a hibachi dinner if you’re a solo founder looking for a local rigorous support in Boston.

• Solo founding is the right path if your start-up is your baby and you want to take the time to scale it properly rather than quickly.

• I’m failing to secure a partnership venue for an event, but that’s okay. Sometimes it’s just a numbers game. What really matters is what you learn each time you fail.

Solo Founders Hibachi Dinner

Skip the 5-star restaurant for this group of peeps. We’re dining in style with a 3 hour curated event to bring solo founders in Boston together with a bit of heat.

You are:

• pre-revenue, pre-seed, or bootstrapping your venture.

• serious about scaling your work but looking for support from others who feel your same pains.

• excited to bring something to the table, not just take connections and feedback.

• a little weird and a LOT fanatic about what you’re building.

12 spots. 1 group. Friendships to last past the “Hello, I’m building…”

Want to get in on this? Intro yourself here and I’ll get back to you soon ✌️

Any questions? Feel free to respond to this email!

Upcoming Events I’m Hosting

• Health-Tech Funding Networking & Fireside Chat (finalizing venue, date coming soon): I’m bringing together 1 VC investor, 1 angel investor, and 1 founder who didn’t take either to scale their startup for an intimate fireside chat. The goal is to bring knowledge typically behind locked doors out into the open where attendees feel comfortable asking questions and have more guidance on where to go next in their journey. I’m finalizing the details now — stay tuned for the lu.ma invite soon!

• Founders & Explorers Masquerade Networking (finalizing venue, date incoming): I’m making networking not boring and bringing masquerading and gamification into the mix. The event will bring together people from all facets of the start-up ecosystem and meeting each other in… _n__al masks. We’re working backgrounds, exchanging knowledge and value first, not names and accolades. This will be end of July/early August.

• Solo Founders Hibachi Dinner Night (see above)

🔖 Bookmarks From Mine to Yours

• $2,500 micro grant for small businesses and startups

• $1,000 grant for health equity businesses and startups

• IFundWomen $1,000 grant for businesses and startups

• 10 most useful things these people learned in the creator economy in Q2

• What do I wish my leader knew about me?

• Finding the right problem to solve and why going viral ruins your metrics

Being a solo founder is incredibly lonely

My university’s entrepreneurship center runs a venture accelerator — but you can only apply if you have a co-founder(s).

In the air and on my LinkedIn feeds, solo founders who go through the YC interview process are typically squinted at more.

VC panels have reiterated that the team is one of the most important parts when they screen due diligence.

So why do some people choose to work on their startup by themselves?

I had a coffee chat with someone this week about being a solo founder, and these were the two main points we commiserated on:

1. Our startup is our baby, and no one else (generally) will care about your baby as much as you do.

2. It’s lonely to be a solo founder if you don’t have anyone else in your circle dipped in the entrepreneurship world.

Speaking from my experience, I had thought about finding a technical co-founder for jadewell. But my issue was always that no one would care about why I’m building as much as me (unless they had the Batman origin story).

My friend was talking about how no one in her life is in entrepreneurship, rather, work a 9-5 and don’t really get the problems she vents about. Moreover, she doesn’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of.

Enter online communities. There’s a bunch of them — female founders, college founders, marketers — there’s a place for all of them.

But I’ve been in many of these spaces, and the ones that flaunt X,XXX+ people reached? They’re typically the LEAST active ones.

My highlights from this conversation:

• Going to events and meeting people is the #1 way to find your tribe. 1-1 conversations like these are priceless. You’ll have to talk to dozens of people to find that ONE person on your wavelength.

• Don’t force finding a co-founder. Everyone’s always eager to start a project, to see the potential in a project. But very rarely will those people stick through the hardships. Take time to vet. Sometimes, the real value are the lessons learned through the vetting.

• The worst thing you can do is put off an idea. Start somewhere, anywhere. It doesn’t need to be perfect. And keep talking about what you’re working on. It doesn’t need to be perfect. Get feedback and reiterate. It doesn’t need to be perfect. None of it will ever be perfect, but that’s how you get to a point where you’re comfortable in yourself, and that energy ebbs towards others once you’re ready to pitch.

📰 Random Recommendations

• Netflix’s documentary on the carbon-fiber submarine, Titan, just released this 2 weeks ago. My partner who claimed he “knEw eVerytHinG aBouT iT alrEadY” was incredibly surprised with the new information and footage. I highly recommend playing it on a device with a good sound system.

• Katie Gatti Tassin, host of Money with Katie, just released her new book Rich Girl Nation, “A bold financial guide for ambitious women — and a call to revolutionize how we think about money.” I’ve been following her newsletter for a while and just got the book in the mail!

• Mountainhead is a satirical comedy movie that follows four billionaire tech-bros during a weekend retreat as the world goes through major turmoil. I watched this last night and if you want to laugh at the tech-bro jargon and also cry because of how realistic the dialogue is, this movie’s for you.

Closing all tabs, powering down ✌️