/Tech10h ago

Franz Founder Fires Team To Ship Faster As Solo Developer

245682934555K

#236

Original post

@levelsio@levelsio#236inTech

Great post by @smalzner, the founder of Franz

He launched 10 years ago, went superviral, got lots of offers to get VC funded, didn't see the point

Instead he asked for donations from users and with that money was able to hire a team of 5 people

But a team slowed him down and made him very money focused (because he had high labor costs) and less fast in shipping (because of the design by committee problem)

So he fired everyone and went back to a team of one

Just him (and probably AI) shipping very very fast!

3:28 AM · Jun 6, 2026 · 44.3K Views

/Tech10h ago

Franz Founder Fires Team To Ship Faster As Solo Developer

245682934555K

#236

Original post

@levelsio@levelsio#236inTech

Great post by @smalzner, the founder of Franz

He launched 10 years ago, went superviral, got lots of offers to get VC funded, didn't see the point

Instead he asked for donations from users and with that money was able to hire a team of 5 people

But a team slowed him down and made him very money focused (because he had high labor costs) and less fast in shipping (because of the design by committee problem)

So he fired everyone and went back to a team of one

Just him (and probably AI) shipping very very fast!

3:28 AM · Jun 6, 2026 · 44.3K Views

Sentiment

Many users praised the Franz founder for firing his team to operate solo, because it enables greater focus on building without payroll pressures.

Pos

100.0%

Neg

0.0%

4 comments with sentiment.

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@levelsio@levelsio

https://meetfranz.com/blog/ten-years-of-franz

@levelsio@levelsio

Great post by @smalzner, the founder of Franz

He launched 10 years ago, went superviral, got lots of offers to get VC funded, didn't see the point

Instead he asked for donations from users and with that money was able to hire a team of 5 people

But a team slowed him down and made him very money focused (because he had high labor costs) and less fast in shipping (because of the design by committee problem)

So he fired everyone and went back to a team of one

Just him (and probably AI) shipping very very fast!

10h10.7K3130

Lucas@ByBewer

So much easier to focus on building something useful without the constant pressure to make payroll (I can only imagine what that must feel like)

I think I'd rather have great relationships with contractors I can trust (that also work on other projects) than employees that are fully dependent on me

10h2872

vibe liver@vibeliver

@levelsio @smalzner

9h612

Danny 🐣@dannyribar

in general i love when people are able to build and run business of one

entrepreneurship is in short supply for many reasons in europe compared to elsewhere and most think it’s impossible to start without team in place - this is awesome to read

to me these kinds of people are wealth creators rather than extractors

one thing isn’t clear to me tho - with team of five you should be able to ship - that’s a mini size - unless wrong people were pulled in (or don’t have equity?) not sure i see why that was an issue

were they just employees and truly rent seekers? he mentions his savings were rolling off fast so clearly revenue must be a thing to account for regardless of ‘purity’

it could be personal preference when working with other people in the end and/or constellation of circumstances (he doesn’t go much into detail there)

either way

love to see he’s found his happy place now

all the power to him - we need more folks like him 🫡

9h1431