Hey Aditya, Thanks for sharing your story! Could you shed some light on two questions? How did you decide what customer segment to focus on first in the early days? What did you find useful to help you get into product market fit?
Thank you for doing this! This was awesome insights! Your thoughts on distribution completed my mental model on how to design my own go-to-market strategy. I hope for all the best for you in the future!
16:22 man, I can’t help but notice Aditya’s glance down after articulating the really cool/interesting tech he and his team built. He knows they built something good. Startups are brutal because you can get product right (which is REALLY hard) but distribution wrong and the end result is mute.
Less pressure and the growth (or lack of growth) is a more accurate indicator of the market’s acceptance of an idea. It’s like an independent artist who blows up vs and industry plant artist who gets a bunch of label funding but ultimately flops.
Thank you so much to both of you for talking openly about shutting down a company. We don't like to talk about the failures but it's hugely important! That being said, I don't think Suggestr was shut down because lack of growth. "Mid 4-figures MRR" by the end of the batch is actually amazing! I suspect they shut down because they couldn't raise any more money after YC, largely because of their company structure as a startup that came out of Entrepreneur First. From their website it looks like they invest ~$100K USD for 10% equity (likely as a priced round). This is a very bad deal, specially for a company that then goes to YC and will try to raise another round on SAFE notes. This structure makes it very hard to raise a new round, unless the growth is truly explosive.
Good case study on why VC is a casino game. And why entrepreneurs should boot-strap instead, and validate their own inventions spending time as capital, not rich people's money.
he explained that pretty well I thought. you need to be a rocketship, otherwise you won't get subsequent investment rounds. so better to try something else if you haven't found the right idea.
@@ray-mc-l I agree with @geepytee. The metrics that Aditya shared were actually quite impressive for a company that is only 1 year in. It would be very strange to shut that company down unless there was something else going on.
@@AlbertoR139 my take is that you only get into ycombinator if you're promising to build a $10 billion+ size company. after working for a year, the information they gathered suggested strongly that they weren't going to be able to do this. so i think they wanted to give the money back to investors, because they weren't going to be able to fulfill their promise. if they were bootstrapped it would be a different story. and maybe they could have given the money back and continued working on it. but from what he said, they'd be fighting hard for a small piece of a crowded marketplace. i can understand why they wanted to do something else.
Most YC companies fail Just learn from your mistakes and try again. 100 million in annual recurring revenue roughly means 1 billion valuation. The chance of being a unicorn is roughly 0.1% for being funded by YC.
@@SidStartupGarage Your channel is amazing man, nothing else online offers “the other” perspective, hope you keep finding more stories like this and doing videos like this or the one you had about other failed startups.
Thanks for having me!
🙏🙏🙏
Thanks for doing this guys
Thanks for watching!
Hey Aditya,
Thanks for sharing your story!
Could you shed some light on two questions?
How did you decide what customer segment to focus on first in the early days?
What did you find useful to help you get into product market fit?
Thank you for doing this! This was awesome insights! Your thoughts on distribution completed my mental model on how to design my own go-to-market strategy. I hope for all the best for you in the future!
Need more such failure/learning and reflective stories. Success is overrated, failure/learnings are underrated
Completely agree. Especially the reflections!
for sure
16:22 man, I can’t help but notice Aditya’s glance down after articulating the really cool/interesting tech he and his team built. He knows they built something good. Startups are brutal because you can get product right (which is REALLY hard) but distribution wrong and the end result is mute.
Aditya's last point about bootstrapping being a good thing in early days is fairly common regret among a lot of YC founders.
Hi could you please elaborate? Very interesting
@@amanciocohen5965 Less pressure
Why
Less pressure and the growth (or lack of growth) is a more accurate indicator of the market’s acceptance of an idea. It’s like an independent artist who blows up vs and industry plant artist who gets a bunch of label funding but ultimately flops.
Thank you so much to both of you for talking openly about shutting down a company. We don't like to talk about the failures but it's hugely important!
That being said, I don't think Suggestr was shut down because lack of growth. "Mid 4-figures MRR" by the end of the batch is actually amazing!
I suspect they shut down because they couldn't raise any more money after YC, largely because of their company structure as a startup that came out of Entrepreneur First. From their website it looks like they invest ~$100K USD for 10% equity (likely as a priced round). This is a very bad deal, specially for a company that then goes to YC and will try to raise another round on SAFE notes. This structure makes it very hard to raise a new round, unless the growth is truly explosive.
Keep it up with this channel! You’ve got good momentum!
Gold, gold, gold. you are giving more than YC videos itslef.
I was part of Antler Singapore. Its better to shut shop fast than bumble along the way
Good case study on why VC is a casino game. And why entrepreneurs should boot-strap instead, and validate their own inventions spending time as capital, not rich people's money.
very true that the marketing and sales is what define success of a startup even though you have awesome tech behind the product or service.
Awesome! Pls do more startup stories!!
Will do bro 🫶
Great interview good to hear from founders
Appreciate it 🙏
Super well done guys!!!! You are so well spoken Aditya. Thank you for the passionate explanations and super good questions Sid!
thanks for taking the feedback and acting on it. interesting video.
Great video. my unsolicited feedback: in the beginning try being more natural. The beginning sounded like a court interrogation.
very good interview, the last 2 mins. summarize a full journey. Hope to you the success guys
You can also watch Suggestr's application to YC here: th-cam.com/video/BBhAJwgTlZ4/w-d-xo.html
Appreciate the frank perspective.
This is so good. WOW.
thank you sid! this is valuable 🎉
Seems premature to give up barely 1 year in, wish you could have pressed him more on that decision
he explained that pretty well I thought. you need to be a rocketship, otherwise you won't get subsequent investment rounds. so better to try something else if you haven't found the right idea.
@@ray-mc-l I agree with @geepytee. The metrics that Aditya shared were actually quite impressive for a company that is only 1 year in. It would be very strange to shut that company down unless there was something else going on.
@@AlbertoR139 my take is that you only get into ycombinator if you're promising to build a $10 billion+ size company. after working for a year, the information they gathered suggested strongly that they weren't going to be able to do this. so i think they wanted to give the money back to investors, because they weren't going to be able to fulfill their promise.
if they were bootstrapped it would be a different story. and maybe they could have given the money back and continued working on it. but from what he said, they'd be fighting hard for a small piece of a crowded marketplace. i can understand why they wanted to do something else.
Great content! Subscribed ❤
Most YC companies fail Just learn from your mistakes and try again. 100 million in annual recurring revenue roughly means 1 billion valuation. The chance of being a unicorn is roughly 0.1% for being funded by YC.
The YC unicorn rate is closer to 4.5% according to pitchbook.
This is a great channel. I like the different perspective you take.
Appreciate it 🙏
Very insightful
Awesome video!
This channel is so cool
Great to see you again in the comments! Thanks for watching
@@SidStartupGarage Your channel is amazing man, nothing else online offers “the other” perspective, hope you keep finding more stories like this and doing videos like this or the one you had about other failed startups.
I fucking love this channel
Extremely valuable
In my evaluation, his startup didn't pick up because of slow growth and product market fit.
I love this content! Keep it up!
Couldn't they have just continued with the small business and apologized to the investors for not reaching venture scale?
Hi Sid,
Please are you offering help with YC application?
I'm sorry I can't help with YC applications. You should reach out to previous founders who have gotten in!
did he had return the 500k to YC?
18:32 I believe the investors he mentions here are YC inclusive, but I'm not sure.
@@SidStartupGarage He said there weren't much money left. My question is more towards are people obligated to pay it back if startup gets shut down.
@@SidStartupGarage or its more like if there's any money left, you just give that amount back
I see from google results, is that you just rliquid the assets and return that. Only have to return whatever is left after liquidating the assets.
It sounds like all of the fundraising happened before yc, which might've meant they only got $150k