The thesis
Most companies die of something somebody already knew.
Startups usually fail on ordinary problems that other founders have already solved. Getting you to those people, before the problem becomes fatal, is the whole job.
Why startups fail is not a mystery.
of new U.S. businesses fail within their first year.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024are gone by year five. Survival is a coin flip.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024of venture-backed shutdowns trace back to the wrong product for the market.
CB Insights, 2026Running out of capital is the final event, not the cause. Everything underneath it is a judgement call somebody else has already made badly and learned from.
One variable bends the curve, and it is a person.
Hold the market, the capital and the idea steady. Change who the founder has around them, and the numbers move.
Two-thirds better odds, bought with nothing except having done it before. Mentorship is what makes the rest usable.
succeed when the founder has already built one company, against 18% first time out.
Gompers et al., JFE 2010, venture-backedmore money raised by founders with mentors, metrics and peer learning.
Startup Genome, 3,200 tech startupsbetter user growth for those same founders, against those without.
Startup Genome, 3,200 tech startupsis the first-time founder’s rate of reaching an IPO or filing for one. Same markets, same investors.
Gompers, Kovner, Lerner & Scharfstein, JFE 2010So we build the room.
MPower puts founders in the same room as the operators who have already solved what they are stuck on, and publishes their stories so the right people find them.
Rooms
Founder Sessions in Dallas and Austin. Coffee, a fireside conversation with a founder about what actually worked, and a room of people building at every stage.
See the next oneRecords
We put founders on the record in writing. Bytes are short reads on one company. Deep Dives are long profiles of operators worth studying.
Read the latestThe room is open.
Free, open to anyone building, and you can turn up with an idea and nothing else.