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I use Granola every single day and it's quickly become a beloved product in the tech community.But it was a winding journey to get there…So in this episode their co-founder and designer, Sam Stephenson, gives a behind-the-scenes of what it was like going 0 → 1 with Granola:How to navigate the idea maze for an AI productWhat Sam has learned about prompt engineeringWhat it takes to succeed as an early stage startup designerHow they arrived at Granola's breakthrough interaction patternA glimpse of Granola's future product roadmap and teams strategyThe piece of advice that reshaped how they think about onboardinga lot more⭐ Granola is offering 3 months free for you and anyone on your team(!!) using this linkThey're also hiring a founding designerSam mentions Soleio who was their first investorDaniel Kahneman is the psychologist Sam mentionsThe Science of Managing our Digital StuffDavid Lee is the YC Partner who gave them onboarding adviceIf you liked this episode then you'll enjoy the interview with Colin Dunn (co-founder and designer of Visual Electric)
While the Equity crew prepares for another Y Combinator Demo Day, we're throwing it back to when Natasha and Alex caught up with current YC Partner and Managing Director of YC Early Stage, Michael Seibel. The main question on the pair's mind was how is YC evolving to meet a changed market? Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from the 2022 summer batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution.We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going.As always, we'll be back with our weekly roundup on Friday, and don't forget that Equity is opening this year's Disrupt. We'll see you there!For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity's Simplecast website.Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more!
Discussing weekly tech news w/ experienced venture founders. No investors. Guest - @immad (Mercury, YC Partner, Heyzap, Clickpass) @julien (Breather, Practice) @kevingibbon (Shyp, Airhouse) @berman66 (Nanit, Vowel)
To succeed in building a big company in the long-term, founders must become good at leading, motivating, and retaining great people. Ali Rowghani, YC Partner and CEO of the YC Continuity Fund, takes from his experience working with great leaders to share his three observations on leadership.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Immad Akhund is the Founder & CEO @ Mercury, the startup that makes bank accounts that help tech companies scale. To date, Immad has raised funding from some of the best in the business including a16z and CRV on the fund side and then individuals including Elad Gil, Airtable's Howie Liu, Plaid's Zach Perret, Naval Ravikant, Justin Kan and OpenDoor's Eric Wu. Prior to founding Mercury, Immad held enjoyed numerous different roles including being a part-time partner at Y Combinator and then also founding HeyZap, building developer tools for mobile game developers, ultimately acquired in 2016. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Immad made his way from studying in the UK to being a YC Partner in 2017 and building one of the valley's hottest startups today in the form of Mercury? 2.) What does Immad want to do differently this time around with Mercury vs his time with HeyZap? What 1-2 mistakes that he made the first time round is Immad looking to avoid? How does being a serial founder impact one's ability to acquire the best talent? What does Immad think is harder the second time around? How has becoming a parent changed the way that Immad thinks about founding and building companies? 3.) How does Immad approach the process of picking the idea? What was the specific process with Mercury, step by step? Why does Immad believe it is an advantage to not have a background or prior career in the space you are looking to innovate in? What advice does Immad have for founders looking to move into highly regulated industries? 4.) How does Immad approach and assess the element of competition? What is the right way for founders to present competition when pitching to investors? Why is a 2x2 matrix the wrong approach? What does Immad advise portfolio founders he has invested in with regards to competition and the landscape in front of them? 5.) What have been some of Immad's biggest learnings from making over 120 angel investments? How has angel investing specifically helped certain parts of how he thinks about operating and being a founder today? What advice does Immad give with regards to investor updates? What makes the best ones? What makes the worst? How often should they be? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Immad’s Fave Book: The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disaster As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Immad on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
YC Partner and GC Carolynn Levy details the basics of startup financing and how modern early stage rounds of financing are done using convertible securities, like the SAFE.
YC Partner and Head of Admissions Dalton Caldwell talks about pivoting for startups and shares his advice on when and how founders should consider it for their companies.
YC Partner and CFO Kirsty Nathoo shares the most common mistakes startups make with their finances and how they can prevent them.
YC Partner and growth expert Gustaf Alstromer talks about how to measure product market fit, how to decide on a growth channel, metrics that lie about PMF and other mechanics of growth for startups.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Garry Tan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Initialized Capital, one of the West Coast's leading early-stage funds with a portfolio including the likes of Coinbase, Instacart, Cruise, Flexport and Opendoor, just to name a few. As for Garry, before co-founding Initialized, he was a partner at Y Combinator for nearly five years where he advised and funded over 600 companies. He was also co-founder of YC-backed blog platform Posterous (acquired by Twitter in 2012). Before that he was employee #10 at Palantir, where he was a founding member of the engineering team for Palantir's financial analysis product, and also fun fact, Garry designed Palantir's logo. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Garry made his way from Founder and YC Partner to managing over $500m AUM today with his leading of Initialized? How did Garry's investment mindset change with the transition from angel to an institutional investor? 2.) What does Garry believe is the one thing pre-seed and seed investors must do that is more important than anything else? What relationship to the very best founders have with failure? How do they think about and approach it? How has Garry seen his own conviction building process in founders change over time? How does Garry approach the turning down of opportunities? What is the right way to deliver that feedback? 3.) Ownership: Initialized's funds have scaled from Fund I being $7m to Fund 4 being $225m, how have their ownership requirements changed with the evolution of their fund size? How does Garry think about collaboration and co-opetition with others funds as a result? What are the core challenges here? 4.) Price Sensitivity: With the larger fund and slightly more flexibility, how does Garry evaluate his own price sensitivity? What deal has Garry passed on due to price and it has stuck with him and taught him a valuable lesson? On pricing, how does Garry and Initialized approach reserve allocation? 5.) Investment Decision-Making: Garry has previously said "decision-making is a differentiator", what do Initialized do to ensure the highest quality of internal discussion and decision-making? How do they approach unanimous vs single partner decision-making? How does Initialized approach internal attribution with this in mind? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Garry’s Fave Book: Peter Thiel's Zero To One, Paul Graham's Hackers and Painters Garry’s Most Recent Investment: Standard Cognition As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Garry on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Daniel Gross, former YC Partner and founder shares his wisdom of how to survive and thrive as a startup founder.Lecture SlidesLecture TranscriptVideo Link
YC Partner and the creator of Gmail, Paul Buchheit in conversation with Geoff describes how he thinks about companies that manage to scale to the ultimate level.TranscriptVideo Link
Recorded live at our Female Founders Conference in New York, an AMA with Kat Manalac, Kirsty Nathoo, Adora Cheung, Holly Liu, Jessica Livingston, and Carolynn Levy.This panel was hosted by Sharon Pope, Head of Marketing Programs at YC.We’re also posting the other talks from the Female Founders Conference today. You can see all of them and read the transcripts at blog.ycombinator.comIf you’d like to learn more about the Female Founders Conference, head over to femalefoundersconference.org
Gustaf Alstromer is a YC Partner and prior to YC he worked on growth at Airbnb.Ed Baker worked on growth at Uber and Facebook.Josh Elman is a partner at Greylock.The conversation was recorded at The Scaleup Offsite, a private event hosted by Y Combinator Continuity and Greylock Partners in April 2017.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Garry Tan is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner @ Initialized Capital, one of Silicon Valleys leading early stage seed funds. Prior to founding Initialized, Garry was a Partner at Y Combinator where he invested in and directly worked with over 700 companies in 5 years from the earliest possible stage, often just an idea. Garry's portfolio includes the likes of previous guests Tilt, Eero, Flexport, LendUp and many more incredible companies. Before being at YC, Garry Co-Founded Posterous and helped build it to a world-class website used by millions, ultimately acquired by Twitter. Garry also co-founded the engineering team for Palantir Technology's quant finance analysis platform. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Garry made the transition from Founder @ PostHaven to YC Partner to Initialized GP? 2.) What were Garry's biggest takeaways from advising 700 startups at YC that he has taken with him to Initialized? 3.) Why does Garry believe now is the golden age for early stage investing? What opportunity does the mass of late stage capital provide the early stage? 4.) How does Garry approach desired ownership? What level of ownership provides incentive for a VC to work whilst also allowing collaboration with other VCs in a round? 5.) What are Garry's thoughts on the rise of thematic investing? Why does he not believe it to be optimal at the seed stage? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Garry’s Fave Blog: SaaStr Garry’s Fave Book: Chaos Monkeys As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Garry on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver – whether it’s time for you to buy a new car or not. RearVision is our first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl RearVision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10minutes to install and is completely wireless because it’s solar powered. Since RearVision is software based, we’re able to push updates and new features over the Pearl App in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone. Pearl RearVision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes. Pearl RearVision is $499.99 and available at PearlAuto.com. It’s also available on Amazon and through Crutchfield. Xero is beautiful, easy-to- use online accounting software for small businesses. With Xero, you can easily manage your accounting anytime, anywhere from your computer or mobile device.When you add Xero to your small business you are able to: Send online invoices and get paid faster. Get an instant view of your cash flow. Track your payroll and keep tabs on your inventory. Partner with your accountant and bookkeeper in real time whenever you like. You can also customize your Xero experience with over five hundred business apps, including advanced solutions for point-of- sale, time tracking, ecommerce and more. Sign up for a free thirty-day trial at xero.com/20vc
Emmet Shear is the CEO and Co-Founder of Twitch.tv and a partner at YCombinator. We talk about the story of Twitch.tv -- and how it evolved from Justin.TV -- how he became a YC Partner, and then we have a broader talk about capitalism, social inequality, and how technology can reduce it. Edited by @AlexKontis Lavish Praise to @eshear Constructive Criticism to @eriktorenberg
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Aaron Harris is a Partner at Y Combinator and also newly one of my favourite podcast hosts with his brilliant show, Startup School Radio, for all startup lovers it is a must listen. Prior to YC, Aaron was cofounder of Sequoia backed Tutorspree, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2011. Before Tutorspree he worked at Bridgewater Associates, where he managed product and operations for an analytics group. He also writes an awesome blog which can be found here! In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Aaron make his move into the world of entrepreneurship with Tutorspree and then become a YC Partner? 2.) Why did Aaron join YC and why does he believe the biggest potential lies at this stage of the cycle? 3.) Now at YC, Aaron is a Partner, what does that entail, what level of interaction do you have with the founders, where does YC look to add serious value? 4.) With the mass of startups now in the 100s coming out of each YC demo day, how does YC assure the same quality and level of value add? 5.) With regards to testing what is YC’s opinion? How does YC assess whether a product does have product market fit? What are the YC requirements for growth whilst in YC? 6.) What happens after the YC experience, does YC maintain conversations and communication? How does YC try to maintain valuations at a reasonable level to stop YC price inflation? 7.) What is the future for YC? Are we going to see another funding round? Is the YC model scalable? Could we have a YC Europe? Items Mentioned In Today's Episode: Aaron & YC's Podcast: Startup School Radio Aaron's Fave Book: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Founder's At Work by Jessica Livingston As always you can follow Harry, Aaron, The Twenty Minute VC and YC on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!