How To Fundraise As A Solo Founder with Charles Hudson (Precursor Ventures)

Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures argues solo founders outperform mismatched co-founder teams, backed by 500+ company dataset showing 25-30% co-founder loss before Series A.

• 25-30% of Precursor portfolio companies lose a co-founder before Series A, often causing dead equity and cap table damage that deters new investors.
• Hudson has seen departed co-founders walk out with 20-25% equity, making follow-on fundraising extremely difficult.
• Rivalry and resentment — not disagreement — are the most destructive co-founder dynamics; resentment almost never recovers once it starts.
• Solo founders own ~90% at formation, giving them substantially more equity to attract early talent than two- or three-founder teams.
• Investors use ‘you need a co-founder’ as an inoffensive rejection reason when the real objection is the company itself.
• Hudson warns against giving away 40%+ of the company to a mismatched co-founder just to appear more fundable to VCs.
• Non-tech founders (CPG, digital health, education) default to solo founding because startup co-founder dogma was never drilled into them.
• Bear case: solo founders are the single thread — when fundraising, nothing else gets done; loneliness is typically 10x worse than anticipated.

2026-03-18 · Watch on YouTube