A few months ago I was at a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, and I noticed a woman at a table by herself. Mid-thirties, margarita, a book she was actually reading. She wasn’t waiting for anyone. She wasn’t pretending to be busy. Just there. Eating.
My instant reaction was that she is a badass.
That is also the best way I can describe being a solo founder. You are at the table alone. Some people think it is brave. Some think it is sad. Meanwhile you are just eating your tacos and building your thing.
Table For One is for the people doing it that way. On purpose.
I am Durva. I built and shut down my first startup, Shezaar, a platform that helped fashion brands recover value from unsold inventory. Twelve brand deals, a thousand-plus purchases, a raised round, and the choice to wind it down instead of holding it together out of stubbornness.
But this is not really about Shezaar. It is about the fact that I did all of it alone. First-time founder, no playbook, most days anxious and not sure what I was even supposed to do next. I kept thinking how different it would feel to have just one person who had already been there.
Table For One is for her. The founder I was seven months ago. It is how I pay it forward. I write my own mistakes and what they taught me, I write other founders and theirs, and the deal is simple: you will invent brand new mistakes, but you should not have to repeat ours.
So here is the one thing I want you to do.
📚 Tell me what you are building and where you are stuck
If you are a solo founder, this is the most useful move you can make here. One form: what you are building, what you need, and what you can offer other founders.
Here is what you get:
A curated introduction every Monday. Not a directory to scroll. One founder I think you should actually know, picked for you, so you always have someone to bounce ideas off.
Resources for whatever you are stuck on right now. You tell me where you are stuck, I point you to what actually helped me or someone building something like you.
A real say in what this becomes. We are two weeks in. I am learning from every founder who joins, and I am building this around what you tell me you want out of it.
We are global on purpose. Founders in the US, India, London, Nigeria, and growing, because building alone looks the same in every corner of the world. And you never know the person who cracks your exact problem might just be eight time zones away!
Asking for help was one of the hardest things I had to do as a founder. Every time I did it, I was amazed how generous other founders were. So be vulnerable! Join Table for One!
Want to see how I think first?
Fair. Read these three, then come back and apply.
Have You Ever Tried Eating Alone? The thesis.
Vibe Coding Lab #1: The Morning Brief To Make You 10x Smarter The most-read tactical post.
D for Distribution The most recent A to Z entry.
There are also events
Solo does not have to mean isolated. I host Make Something Ugly, Roast My Pitch, and The 7-Day Sprintt in San Francisco, with more cities coming. Apply first, and I will make sure you hear about the next one.
The table is set. Pull up a chair.
Durva
Not a founder looking to join? You can sponsor an event, judge Roast My Pitch, or host Table For One in your city. Tell me here and I will point you to the right place.🛠️ Grab your first solo setup pack
Before you dig into the archive, these are the three frameworks people here reach for most, in place of a technical cofounder.
“I can’t code my idea.”
Read how we use LLMs as junior developers in the Vibe Coding Lab. Custom Claude skills, AI agent coding frameworks, prompt engineering pipelines. Open the Vibe Coding Lab
“I don’t know if anyone wants this.”
Read The First 100: how non-technical solo founders validate demand and get to paying customers without an engineering partner. Open The First 100
“I’m doing this alone and it’s getting to me.”
Pull up a chair. Tell us what you are building and where you are stuck, and you get a hand-picked founder introduction every Monday. Apply to the Solo Founder Community