October 10, 2026

Morell

The hardest part of building a startup as a solo founder who’s 19 is finding someone who believes in you. I’m going through this process as we speak, and I want to change it so fewer founders have to go through the same thing. I’m writing this before I even launch this new venture, Morell, which some might say isn’t something you typically want to do while you’re fundraising, but A. I don’t know better, and B. I’ve never really been one to follow the instruction manual.

I basically want to wire startup founders $5,000 if they answer 10 questions. Here are the specifics. We open applications for 1 hour each month and only accept founders who are 18 through 22 and live in the U.S. There’s a countdown on our site to the application, and the form opens for 1 hour. It’s pretty much the equivalent of a Yeezy shoe drop with a mini Y Combinator application that asks a few basic questions. After that hour, there’s 1 hour of reviewing where I go in and rapidly review all the submissions. At the end of that, I pick one founder, DM them, and wire them $5,000.

I want young, ambitious founders who are building cool things and are actively working on one project they know they want to scale and build. They can build anything, but I genuinely want them focused on one thing and really passionate about it. You can just tell when you’re talking to someone who actually loves what they’re doing. You can’t really put your finger on why, they’re just so hyped and ambitious about it. That’s the best type of person to find, and that’s the thesis at Morell.

The money comes as a SAFE with a $10 million cap, and the terms are the same for everyone. $5,000 obviously doesn’t build a company, but it keeps your Claude Code subscription active and your AWS bill from burning a hole in your pocket while you find the first people who believe in you.

My goal when I set out to build this was to build real relationships with these founders and give them the advice they need. I’m obviously very early too. We’re all going through this at the same time. A lot of accelerators, programs, and fellowships have gone wider. I want to go narrow and build a network of people in the exact same situation and the exact same age group. I think being that specific is the whole point.

I’m actively raising from LPs to fund this. It’s one founder and one $5,000 check a month, so if you do the math, it’s not a crazy amount.

If you’re a GP or an LP and you have any advice for me, I’d genuinely love to take it. If you think I’m totally wrong about this, email me at cole at layout.link. I’d love to hear your take on angel investing and starting something like this, never done it before.