Henrik Werdelin has spent the last 15 years helping entrepreneurs build big brands like Barkbox through his startup studio Prehype. Now, with his new, New York-based venture Audos, he’s betting that AI can help him scale that process from “tens” of startups a year to “hundreds of thousands” of aspiring business owners.
The timing certainly feels right. Mass layoffs across a variety of industries have left many workers reconsidering their career paths, while AI tools have markedly lowered the barrier to building digital products and services. At the center of that Venn diagram is Werdelin’s latest venture, with its promise to help “everyday entrepreneurs create million dollar AI companies” without requiring technical skills.
Werdelin’s journey from Prehype to Audos reflects the broader transformation happening in entrepreneurship right now. At Prehype, the focus was on working with tech founders to build traditional startups, the kind that might raise millions and aim for billion-dollar exits.
Now, he tells TechCrunch, “What we’re trying to do is take all that knowledge, all the methodology that we’ve created over the years of building all these big companies, and really trying to democratize it.”
The idea is that “everyday entrepreneurs” may sense a shift is afoot but may not be keen to experiment with so-called AI agents or know how to reach customers. Audos is more than happy to help them, supplying these individuals with AI tools to build sophisticated products using natural language, and taking advantage of social media algorithms to find them their niche customers.
“Facebook and a lot of these platforms, they are just incredible algorithms, and they’re incredible at figuring out [how to reach your customer] if you define a customer group,” says Werdelin, who co-founded Audos with his Prehype partner Nicholas Thorne. In fact, Audos uses this system to quickly test whether a founder’s business idea has sustainable customer acquisition costs.
The approach seems to be working. Audos has helped launch “low hundreds” of businesses since its beta launch, with its own customers discovering the platform through Instagram ads asking “Have you ever thought about starting something, but don’t know where to go?” Among them, Werdelin says, are a car mechanic who wants to help people evaluate repair quotes, an individual who is selling “after death logistics” services, virtual golf swing coaches, and AI nutritionists. In a winking reference to billion-dollar businesses, or so-called unicorns, he calls these one- and two-person teams “donkeycorns.”
Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW
All went through the same process: they clicked on Audos’s ad, its AI agent launched a conversation to figure out the problems these individuals want to tackle and who they want to serve, and, when it was satisfied with the answers, Audos got them in front of potential customers as fast as possible.
As for returns, Audos operates on a fundamentally different model than traditional accelerators or venture capital. Instead of taking equity, the company takes a 15% revenue share from the businesses it helps launch. In return, founders get up to $25,000 in funding, access to those AI-powered business development tools, and help with distribution (again, primarily through paid social media advertising).
... continue reading