Mathilde Collin is CEO and co-founder of Frontapp
There
About six weeks I'm sitting at my computer waiting for an email. Not only no email. The email.
A new era of tech events began
We're back in New York in November for the 4th edition of our technology event focused on growth.
We had flown from Paris to Mountain View for our interview 10 minutes Y Combinator and was now complete. All we had left to do was wait.
Finally, a few hours after the interview, the news finally arrived. We were accepted. The email was so short, but he changed everything we were going to do with our company in the following months.
Since that day, he almost rush hour was all hours of the day and we kept ourselves busy. We were asked a lot how it goes and what actually happens inside YC once you're there.
The famous Mountain View incubator certainly has a reputation for being rather mysterious and we want to share the opinion of our initiated after our first month.
What actually happens when you are in?
The children, pack your bags, we move California!
for us to be accepted YC was tremendous excitement. But it also means that we had to move our small team of five from Paris to the valley.
Silicon Valley is definitely one of the best places to launch a start-up, especially when working in technology as us, and we knew it.
We packed our bags and moved in the same house (we found something just a little larger than a parking but it is essentially the mind). YC partners do not believe in coworking spaces and consider them too distracting. That's why they do not provide offices for startups to install.
You can always come work in their premises whenever you want, if you lose the internet connection to your home garage size.
"We believe that hackers are more productive when they can spend most of their time hacking. Our goal is to create an environment where you can focus exclusively on getting a first integrated version "- Y Combinator
We had two mentors to help us on the way. Justin Kan, the founder of Justin.tv, and Garry Tan, co-founder of Posterous. We mainly turn to them whenever we had doubts, questions, or if you just want to talk. They also help us our way through the busy weeks and intense weekly schedule that goes like this:
- A weekly dinner with the entire lot, where a guest host startup world just talk with us. We've seen guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel!
- A group session every two weeks, with six other companies to share what we have accomplished and what we struggle with people who live among the exact same thing.
- unlimited office hours with partners and other great people like Andrew Chen, Ben Chestnut or Hiten Shah who give some of their free time to help us.
In the end though, we did not even spend much time inside the actual Y Combinator. We are often behind our computers at home. But these weekly reunions are there to remind us that we are all in this together, at least until the Demo Day to mid-August, and we have one goal and one purpose only: to do. things. happen.
Thanks to this, we have ceased to complicate everything and we stopped to delay things that should be done.
What has changed since we got here?
For us as individuals
Y Combinator is truly inspiring . You meet all these people who are now running really successful businesses, but were sitting exactly where you are now, just a few years. They probably messed up a few things, they do not have it all right, but now they are the founders of Stripe, Airbnb, Dropbox. It makes you want to get up and work in the morning.
For our team
Y Combinator is definitely the team building a hundred times. 24/7 live and work together helps us to focus on the things that matter and give it everything we have. And when it is finished, we will again share this experience together.
Hey, if we survived living in the same house for three months, it can probably survive any future crisis!
For our company
There is strong enough incentive. It feels like we've made more progress in just one month to be here than ever before. Weekly progress is required (at least 10 percent growth). That everything is pretty much for granted.
In addition to this, however, you are also really pushed to establish your street cred among your potential users and customers, investors, former ...
What we have learned up 'now
it is quite difficult to summarize because there was so much, but here's the advice I'm really taking with me.
1. Make something people want.
is on T-shirt YC because that how they believe. Do not think in features but the benefits and how your product will actually make your customers become more impressive.
"If you can do it, and you're relentless enough, you can probably create more value and have more impact than you could in a regular job." - Sam Altman
2. Do not compare that successful entrepreneurs have become
Everyone began as small as we have done. Even the most successful founders had feelings of doubt, fear, or even to throw everything out the window. They are not born successful entrepreneurs, they worked their butt off to get where they are today. And we can.
3. Create features. Talk to users. Here.
Distractions are endless when you start a business. Grabbing a coffee with another startup founder to "share experiences," meet someone just to connect, as some investors ... But what is most important at the end of the day your users are and what you can do for them.
As Paul Graham said, "one of startup founders should be writing code and talking to users. That's it."
4 . Charge users as quickly as possible, as much as possible
the price is something that adds value to your product and users will have more (and valuable) if they pay assessments. It is frightening to ask for money for something you're not 100 percent sure will work, but you need to make the leap of faith at some point.
Also, do not be afraid to change your price until you get it right.
5. Get your settings right
It has been said a lot, but it is because it is important how you handle your business. Face your daily metrics can be frightening or depressing when you do not have a lot of users yet, but it is the only way to know if you are over or not and how you do it. And choosing the right is the key :.
"simply measure something a worrying trend for the better" - Joe Kraus, founder of Excite
6. It is okay if all the world does not love you
as Paul Buchheit said, "it is better to make a few people really glad to do a lot of semi-happy people." Simply because it is much easier to grow than userwise satisfactionwise.
This is definitely something you need to realize early on when you are still able to quickly browse your product.
And the two months we have left?
Y Combinator is both a sprint and a marathon. If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would probably be intense . It is your boot and only this, 24/7 to three months of the previous batch.
Think about it when you wake up, think of breakfast, lunch and dinner, you think when you go to the grocery store and you think about when you go to bed Hey, sometimes even dreaming about it.
But as in a marathon, there are many people around you who support you on your road to success. Other founders of the lot, alums, speakers, partners, investors, the valley make up an atmosphere that pushes you to constantly surpass what you thought you were capable of.
We have only been here a month and we still have many miles to go. But you will find us on the finish line, no doubt about it. We'll let you know how it went.
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