Solo is an open-source developer platform designed to connect applications with service meshes across any software infrastructure. Their core promise to their customer is to help them migrate from 10/20 year old legacy monolithic applications to new cloud native architectures with APIs and microservices.

Last valued at $1Bn, Solo has hundreds of enterprise customers including enterprises like TMobile, American Express, SAP, Sumo Logic, and more.

In this episode, Sandhya Hegde chats with Idit Levine, the founder and CEO of Solo.

Join us as we discuss:

1:13 Solo’s origin story

6:04 Early fundraising challenges

13:45 The technical insight that led to Solo

15:00 Studying the market to refine Solo’s product vision

16:49 API Gateway as a stepping stone for service mesh

21:58 Early customer acquisition efforts

24:33 Idit’s conviction in the API Gateway approach

25:26 How Solo found its first paying customers

29:25 Idit’s approach to founder selling

31:17 Idit’s evolution as CEO

36:50 Solo’s approach to open source community-building

40:50 Advice for founders building open source projects

Sandhya Hegde is a General Partner at Unusual Ventures, leading investments in modern SaaS companies with a focus on AI. Previously an early executive at Amplitude, Sandhya is a product-led growth (PLG) coach and mentor. She can be reached at sandhya@unusual.vc and

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Idit Levine is the founder and CEO of Solo.

Unusual Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital firm designed from the ground up to give a distinct advantage to founders building the next generation of software companies. Unusual has invested in category-defining companies like Webflow, Arctic Wolf Networks, Carta, Robinhood, and Harness. Learn more about us at https://www.unusual.vc/.

Further reading from Unusual Ventures:

Starting an open source company

Hiring for an open source company

Building open source GTM

Solo’s product-market fit journey: Idit Levine on timing the market for open source success

Startup Field Guide by Unusual Ventures: The Product Market Fit Podcast