Inside YC, 80 Investor Meetings, and the Power of Launching Early

I think you guys took about 80 investor meetings over a course of a week or two. That's a pretty, you know, nuts amount. What was that experience like?

Instead of bending to what people want to hear, if you double down on what you really believe in and what your experience has showed you, then, like, you'll find the investors that really believe in you.

And it was pretty clear within the first, you know, five to 10 minutes of any pitch meeting whether this person we're talking to, like, truly gets the vision that we're going for. All these other folks that don't get it are not our audience. That's not who we're selling to.

You were in the recent Y Combinator winter cohort. You graduated in March with demo day. You had a very successful demo day and fundraise. So let's talk about that. You know, we have a lot of AI founders that are listening, and there's a lot that I think could be helpful to the next generation of founders. You know, YC is, is one of the premier brands, obviously, is without, you know, bar none, it's the best accelerator program. So why don't you maybe open up the veil a little bit, help us understand what that experience was like. I know it was great. You met a lot of great people. The YC people were great, the court's great, all the usual stuff. But I guess what, you know, give us, like the interesting stuff, like what was one unforgettable lesson or moment from that cohort.

I think Brad has a really interesting perspective. As you know, he's gone through the program twice, kind of like in its earlier days and now once it's much more, I suppose, built out.

Yeah, they definitely improved a lot of.

Their operational processes to make things work smoother. I tell Ben this, but like when I did the last time, it was kind of like.

This was in 2017, right?

2017.

Yeah.

It is really interesting to see the difference, the different trends. I think YC as a whole has moved to companies that are seemingly earlier in their life cycle, so. But it's almost a different set of funds that are doing the fund. The investing at the end of YC from when I did it before. Before it was kind of like the big multi stage fund were the biggest investors or the most prolific investors in most of the YC companies. And now it seems like there's more like angels, smaller funds, YC focused funds. And then obviously a few of the bigger ones still participate, but not at the same rate they used to. And I think that's just a Change in how the companies are being built. You know, you can do a lot more with a lot less. You don't need as much capital right away. Founders are looking to give away less percentages of their companies and then, you know, when they are ready, that's when they kind of go, you know, six, 12, 18 months after YC to kind of the bigger funds and ask for those bigger rounds when they have more to show for it.

That's a really interesting observation. Anything else interesting happened during the course of the court?

There was, you know, so many incredible people come and speak and you have the chance to kind of ask questions and interact with them. So, I mean, hey, go through a laundry list of lessons people, people shared. You know, there's one thing. Our partner was Tom Blomfield. I mean, and he's awesome. He, you know, took a chance on us and then was incredibly, you know, helpful throughout the, throughout the program. There's one thing he always said which is like, you always have to be increasing your surface area for luck. For luck, especially as a startup. And I think inherently, like, this is a lesson, you know, and everyone knows, like, we should always be increasing your service area for luck, but it's just like even more and more important in the early stages of company building. So I often, you know, find myself kind of reminding myself to take that.

Mindset, like, so, like, what does that mean to you? Or how did he help us understand what that means and what we could do to maximize that?

Yeah, sure. I mean, it means like show more to the world. Like, even if 10 people think you're dumb, maybe you meet one person who becomes a customer. Right? That's a really concrete example. Go talk. Go talk to 10x more customers because, like, you might get lucky and learn something. Right? It's like you never know. Like, you just need to put more out there so that there's more surface area. Like, the more surface area for wa out there, the more chances that something really good happens.

Got it. So part of that is like the numbers game idea, right? Like more investor meetings, more customer discovery calls. Is that what he meant or did he mean more to it than that?

I think how it translated for us and like, the most meaningful thing was like putting our launch out there kind of more earlier than we were originally comfortable with. Basically just to see what people wanted and help us then direct our product development from that in a more meaningful way. So, like, I think without Tom's advice, we probably would not have done that.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, even as experienced founders, you know, like, you have to get your MVP out sooner, but sooner to you was not as soon as Tom would.

Yes.

Would have.

Like, yeah, yeah.

And. And. And having done it, you're like, he was right.

Yeah.

No, that makes a lot of sense. So then I think you guys took about 80 investor meetings over a course of a week or two in that time period around and after demo day. I mean, that. That's a pretty, you know, nuts amount. 80 investor meetings over, like, 10 to 14 days. What was that experience like?

And, yeah, I mean, you learn a lot of different things. Like, first of all, it's absolutely exhausting. I mean, I think we were. We were doing, you know, 12 plus meetings a day for I don't know how many days in a row. But, like, I saw a friend afterwards. He's like, you look like you. You look like you've aged 10 years in a week. I was like, I feel like. I feel like I've aged 10 years in a week. You learn a lot. You learn what resonates with people. You learn, you know, maybe how to improve your storytelling. I think you also learn that there's, like, a line between kind of changing your narrative to fit what other people want to hear and telling the story that you really believe in firmly based off of the data, based off of your experience, and based off your vision for the company. And, like, it's kind of counterintuitive, and it's kind of like sales, right? Where if you double down, like, instead of bending to what people want to hear, if you double down on what you really believe in and what your experience has showed you, then, like, you'll find the investors that really believe in you and want to double down on you as well. And I think that was an interesting learning, right? Like, it's tempting after, you know, you go to five straight meetings and five straight people said they're not interested. It's tempting in that sixth meeting to. To tweak your narrative to be more like what they want to hear. But I think the right thing to do, at least the right thing for us, was actually to, like, no, double down on what we believe in, on what the data is telling us, on what our vision is. And, like, that will attract the right backers.

And I think, Brad, I totally agree. I think we were super lucky that we had some early backers, yourself included, who, like, who really believed in the vision that we were selling. And then when we went to the post, YC investors, a couple early on, we immediately, Ben and I were like, they got it. They understood the vision we're going for. And it was pretty clear within the first five to ten minutes of any pitch meeting whether this person we're talking to truly gets the vision that we're going for. And so having that behind us to say all these other folks that don't get it are not our audience. That's not who we're selling to. We're selling to people that understand the vision and then showing them that we are the right folks to build it, and that's who we have to go for and not change ourselves to match any investors preconceived notions of what we should be doing.