This is a brilliant account. Thanks Suril - not enough is said about these “middling” outcomes. The figmas of the world seem to get the most attention - that’s understandable. But your story is one of scoring a very good result from a challenging set of circumstances that many startups might find themselves in
I’m going to share this on with quite a few people I know that will really benefit. You’ve shown “the art of the possible”!
"Each week, YC partners pulled us into “group office hours” with five other startups to grill us on customer traction. These sessions lit a fire. Terrified of being caught with our pants down in front of our peers, we sprinted seven days a week to sell our product to whomever would listen.
…
Even without a clear grasp of what problem we were solving and for whom, we began selling."
How common of a phenomenon was this sort of peer pressure-driven prioritization in your YC batch? How would you approach those office hours (and YC in general) differently if you were to do it again?
So in the end they did not manage to find product-market fit and did not get to profitability but still managed to return some funds to the investors via acquisition.
Interesting article as I never thought about it from this perspective. I would be curious what then actualy happened to the IP. Whas it actualy used or thrown away? Sometimes it's easier to build some features from scratch rather than integrating an existing product with all of it's tech debt into whatever you are building. Saw this issue first hand.
I guess this is quite the hard lesson that could tell you - you need a VERY long runway for problem discovery & don't rush into building a company".
Then on the other hand you could see the other companies that suvived (surviver bias?) and say that you should start to discover the problem later or learn how to discover problems?
What % of stumbling upon the problem is due to pure luck (eg. just happend to be interested in the right thing at the right time, meeting the right person)?
As an early career person
Who aspires to be a founder one day
This was very eye opening!!
Thanks for sharing your journey @suril. Love the transparency. Lots to think about and would love to chat. LinkedIn.com/jay-sen
This is a brilliant account. Thanks Suril - not enough is said about these “middling” outcomes. The figmas of the world seem to get the most attention - that’s understandable. But your story is one of scoring a very good result from a challenging set of circumstances that many startups might find themselves in
I’m going to share this on with quite a few people I know that will really benefit. You’ve shown “the art of the possible”!
Great retro!
"Each week, YC partners pulled us into “group office hours” with five other startups to grill us on customer traction. These sessions lit a fire. Terrified of being caught with our pants down in front of our peers, we sprinted seven days a week to sell our product to whomever would listen.
…
Even without a clear grasp of what problem we were solving and for whom, we began selling."
How common of a phenomenon was this sort of peer pressure-driven prioritization in your YC batch? How would you approach those office hours (and YC in general) differently if you were to do it again?
So in the end they did not manage to find product-market fit and did not get to profitability but still managed to return some funds to the investors via acquisition.
Interesting article as I never thought about it from this perspective. I would be curious what then actualy happened to the IP. Whas it actualy used or thrown away? Sometimes it's easier to build some features from scratch rather than integrating an existing product with all of it's tech debt into whatever you are building. Saw this issue first hand.
I guess this is quite the hard lesson that could tell you - you need a VERY long runway for problem discovery & don't rush into building a company".
Then on the other hand you could see the other companies that suvived (surviver bias?) and say that you should start to discover the problem later or learn how to discover problems?
What % of stumbling upon the problem is due to pure luck (eg. just happend to be interested in the right thing at the right time, meeting the right person)?