Clement Mihailescu

I've recently heard two different stories that illustrate the stark differences in how AI is affecting the job market: - One startup founder said he laid off two junior engineers. Now, he's involved in coding himself (he has a background in software engineering) and uses GPT/Copilot. He mentioned that product development is much faster now compared to when he had the two junior engineers. - Out of this year’s graduates from a top 50 computer science master’s program, only one person received a job offer upon graduation. One student applied to 60 companies and received zero interview requests—not zero job offers, but zero interviews. It seems like AI is making experienced, senior professionals more effective at their jobs, reducing the need for junior employees. But if no one hires juniors, how can anyone become senior? The job market continues to be very challenging. I hope this is just a short-term, interim phenomenon as we figure out how to integrate AI into the workforce. In the meantime, we might also see the rise of tiny companies, including one-person businesses or small (less than 3 people) startups.

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To all the founders about to quit and dreaming of a FAANG job or equivalent in pay & prestige, listen up: 1. What you're doing now-- trying to build & grow something new-- is the only "job" that AI and robots won't be taking. 2. The job you are dreaming about is already gone. Push through to fight another day. Be relentlessly resourceful as PG puts it. Your problem needs to be solved and no one is going to solve it for you. If you want help/advice on cutting expenses, sharing upside with community in exchange for build & grow collaboration, and raising capital from your users-- DMs open. There is no greener grass than the type that grows on PMF. Using Slyk IO to launch, grow, and raise fast puts you on the fast track to finding out. Your community can help you get there. I know because I'm doing this with Cadoo . #founders #startups #community

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You think building a startup requires a lot of effort? Consider the effort required to live a life without aligning your soul/self with market and community. Best time to plant a tree/build a startup-- 10 years ago. Next best time is right now. Try this: https://lnkd.in/ggF8bGbv

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There's a fallacy amongst engineers that if you just build a great product, people will flock to it. You realize how untrue this is after launching your first product as a founder. Coming off the heels of our Forever Links launch, this is resonating deeply:  I now realize there's a reason why marketing and sales end up being half of an org over time: knowing how to talk about your product and grab a customer's attention is insanely difficult. The product might be awesome, but if nobody knows about it, how to use it, and aren't convinced that there's value such that they even try, then it doesn't matter how awesome your product is. This means a lot to us in the present: right now we rely on our account management team to educate our customers. But there are too many features on the horizon for one team to handle the outreach without structure. Our Forever Links launch helped us build our muscles by talking about our products, making sure we have distribution, and connecting with people in a way that showcases value. And I'm so excited we're finally doing this on a feature level for FERMÀT. More announcements to come soon. 

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Cost is one of the biggest barrier for people to make a multiplayer game, we used to live off of Soylent in college to pay for game servers. So we made a plan for the cost of 2 Soylent meals. We are also launching our Indie Plan for $9 a month - 6 flex servers ($48.21 in server credits) - 3 regions - DDoS mitigation - Version history - Logs & monitors - Automatic SSL - Analytics - Crash reporting - No downtime deploys & instant rollbacks - Automatic geographic routing If game studios were to spend the time to build this yourself, it would cost over $133 a month in subscriptions. Generic solutions don’t work for gaming, and their offerings and pricing don’t work for the game developer, so we built the technology from the ground up to work for game devs at every scale. Game studios can get up to $120,000.00 in credits for our managed cloud when you apply here: https://lnkd.in/geJVxyUF

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Not many people know the story of "why" Zenhub exists...so here it goes👇 Back in 2014, the team that would come to be "Zenhub" was a scrappy group of devs and PMs working at a product studio up in Vancouver. When clients are paying you to do work, they (rightfully so) want to understand where that work is at and “when is this going to be done?” The problem was that we could never answer that question… No matter what project management solution we tried (and believe me, we tried them all), we kept coming back to the same core problem. Context switching... Ie. our devs always felt like they were being forced away from where they were working from (ie. GitHub) in order to update our PM tools. So they didn't update them. Needless to say, this wasn't leading to a productive relationship with our clients. So our devs got together on a weekend to try and fix the problem. What they hacked together was a simple Chrome extension to bring a Trello-esque "task board" into GitHub. And as they say, the rest was history. Well, not really, but we’ll save that story for another set of posts… Reducing context switching has been core to our mission from day one. But while GitHub was the home for teams back in 2014, that's changed. Today that home is Slack. While I know people have a lot of mixed feelings about Slack, it has (for better or worse) become where “work” happens in most modern organizations. That’s why today, we’re announcing early access for an entirely new Slack integration that’s going to be a game-changer for how teams use Zenhub. While platforms evolve, that idea of “reducing context switching” has remained a constant, and we’re excited to double down on that mission with Slack. With this new integration teams will be able to create, plan, and track work in Zenhub all without having to leave a Slack channel. If you want to get hands on with what we’re building and join our early access program, check out the link in the comments below. #slack #github #developers #agile #scrum #projectmanagement #devex

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I’ve applied for YC 5 times before being accepted. My advice if you're trying to get in: From day 1, I’ve always wanted to be in YC. In fact, I’ve always looked up to other YC founders and their companies: John Kim @Sendbird (w16) Parker Conrad @rippling Each time we started a new company, the first thing me and my co-founders did was apply for it. Our first application was in 2019. (obviously, we didn’t make it.) After that, we applied about 5 more times until @relatecrm became the business it is today and we got in. Why did they pick us? Honestly, I can’t be 100% sure. But there’s one thing that differentiates Relate from our other businesses that got rejected: For the first time, we had a project with real, paying customers. The other businesses had pretty much zero revenue. I’m convinced that this played a big role in getting accepted to YC. After all, there’s no better form of validation for a business concept than paying customers. So if you’re wondering if you’re ever getting the chance to join YC, the fact that your company has paying customers or not should be a signal. Is it necessary? No. But it helps 100%. P.S. Link in the comments for the full story of our 5 failed YC applications.

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How we raised our $1.4M seed round (and a step-by-step guide to help you raise yours) 👇 1️⃣ 👼 Get your round moving with angels The bulk of your seed round (80%+) will come from 1-3 institutional VCs. VCs, however, will rarely be your first check. The more traction your round has, the more confident a VC will be to invest. To find angels, tap into friends, family, and your network. We leveraged the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras alumni network in SF to collect several $10k-$30k checks, totalling over $100k. We got our first VC investment only after raising from angels. 2️⃣ 🗓 Get meetings with VCs booked Now that your round has traction, talk to VCs. NEVER send cold emails. That makes you look desperate, and VCs only invest in ‘hot’ companies. The BEST way to get investor meetings is through intros from their portfolio companies. Many of our Y Combinator batch companies introduced us to their investors! We also got our angels to introduce us to funds. Now’s also a good time to reach back out to investors who reached out when you weren’t raising. Usually, never ask an investor who has passed on you for intros. Only accept intros if the investor can't possibly invest in your company even if they wanted to, eg: they only do Series B+ rounds, they don’t invest in your space, etc. 3️⃣👩‍💼 Pitch! Make your pitch conversational. It should NOT be a one-sided presentation. Your slide deck should be <15 mins. Communicate that your market is large. Sometimes tweaks in positioning can make a big difference. For eg, expanding our target audience from just customer success to an all-in-one video & docs tool for CS, Product Marketing and L&D led to much more interest. At the end of the pitch, there should be clear next steps. Ask them straight up: “Are you going to invest?” If they say no, ask them why and answer their concerns. After the pitch meeting, follow up regularly. Send updates on new customers you’ve closed and new money you’ve raised. Build a sense of FOMO amongst VCs. 4️⃣ 🤝 Take money from whoever offers it to you Do NOT act smart and wait to hear back from the ‘top’ VCs before accepting offers on the table. Don’t try to schedule the meetings such that the “best” funds are first and the “worse” ones are later. Take money from whoever gives it to you. You want to wrap this up quickly and get back to the things that matter - building and closing customers. That said, a VC is going to be a long-term partner in your startup. If you want to learn more about their working style, you can ask them for referrals to portcos. 5️⃣ 🏃‍♂️ Keep at it As technical founders, we love building and talking to users. Running behind investors can be the least enjoyable part of your startup. Still, stick to it. If you can wrap this up now, you won’t have to come back for an extension round later. Even if it takes 2-3 months, get the job done. I'm happy to take any comments or questions on this strategy below! #funding #startups

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How to pitch: The company has zero traction —> “We’re early” You only have 2 customers —> “We’re working with design partners” You currently have no revenue but hoping some pipeline finally closes —> “we’re on track to exit this year at $3M ARR” You’re in the natural kill zone of a FAANG —> “We view them as partners rather than competitors” There’s no way the tech can actually work —>“We’re manifesting the future” And of course: One of your developers uses Co-Pilot to write some front end code —> “We’re an AI company”

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Congrats Irvin Zhan for getting the #1 spot on ProductHunt today with Subframe * The team has been working on subframe for ~2 years * Irvin was an engineering manager at Airkit.ai and has been an early employee at several startups * Subframe is pre-seed * Browse hundreds of beautiful, designer-approved templates to kickstart your designs * Refine your designs by drag-and-dropping in Subframe’s visual editor using real components, not mockups * Export your designs to high-quality React/Tailwind code by copy and pasting Subframe is unlike existing tools out there in that: * We help you build your actual product, not just marketing pages. You can create screens like dashboards, settings pages, chat bots, and more. * Our editor is easy and intuitive for non-designers. We are an alternative to Figma that gives you guardrails like choosing colors, which takes the guesswork of “making things look good”. * We work within your codebase. After you build something on Subframe, the UI code you copy/paste is all yours. You can hook it up to your custom business logic, without any lock-in. Hard work pays off! View it on producthunt: https://lnkd.in/dndJGaud

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This hit me hard today and feels antithetical to leading from my values. As Shirin Eskandani notes: “Trying to run a business during "times like these" sometimes feels like the weirdest thing ever. There is nothing like the cognitive dissonance between trying to launch an offering while literal m@ssiles are being launched. It feels disingenuous to carry on with business as usual. Because nothing is usual. Nothing is okay. Your mind and heart are elsewhere. As they should be because you're human. And while you strive to build a business that reflects your deepest values and beliefs, you fear the backlash and repercussions of sharing your deepest values and beliefs. But you push through the fear because "times like these" are exactly why you started your business. You started your business to serve and to show up for the communities you hold most dear in ALL of the ways. You started your business to facilitate real change for the collective. You started your business because you never wanted to do business as usual in the first place. Which means you make it very clear what you believe in. Which means you do not stay silent. Which means you do what you can to truly be of service. The truth is business is personal. There is no way around it. And in "times like these" that becomes so incredibly clear. So if they unfollow you, they shouldn't have been following you in the first place. If they decide to not work with you, they shouldn't have been working with you in the first place. If they decide to not collaborate with you, they shouldn't have been collaborating with you in the first place.” I became a founder in part to change the capitalistic systems we exist within. To lead with empathy, humanity, and intentionality. To model what can be. To be told, "Make no comment on politics; you have zero upside, only downside," is, to me, a directive to lead without integrity or empathy. He's absolutely right that there may, and likely will be, a downside. However, I choose to take that risk, knowing that building community is more important.

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TWO OR THREE-STEPPING TO SERIES A A lot of software founders are still trying to raise a $4-5M seed round from a pre-revenue standpoint to get to Series A. I get that we all want more buffer nowadays but it's also a harder calculus to go from pre-monetization, to early customers, to giving yourself enough sales cycle time in order to hit $1-2M ARR proxy for a strong A. Which is why inevitably, more founders end up having to raise messy extensions/bridges/Seed II or whatever you want to call them. So my advice is that IF you have the luxury of starting a company today, PLAN AHEAD. Even prior to even raising your first angel round. Break up your path to Series A into 2 or 3 tranches of mission-driven capital. Each tranche has a clear goal that you can rally your team and investors around. For example: First tranche to build the product and get early design partners. Second tranche to get to $300K of ARR. Third tranche to get to Series A. This will help support higher operating discipline and awareness. Incremental purchasing and hiring decisions will instantaneously shorten your runway in a way that a larger $5 million seed round obfuscates. And you'll be motivated to find GTM efficiency faster in the journey. Great habits for long term success. For context, Peter Walker of Carta recently sent an update on the arduous path from Seed to Series A. The survival rate is about 1/2 of what it used to be: "Something like 20-24% of startups that raised a seed round would graduate to their Series A in 24 months or less. For companies that raised their seeds in H1 2022, only 13% have made it to Series A across the 6 industries in the chart."

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How has YC changed Skyvern's trajectory? I've had a few calls with people looking to apply to YC this week, so I thought I would share my experience with the world TL;DR: There are 3 surprising benefits to YC: 1. YC helps you create a peer-group of founders in the same position as you, which can be an incredibly motivating force 2. Bookface, YC’s internal social forum, is a trove of high quality discourse, and acts as an implicit source of warm intros to other YC founders 3. YC’s Launch pad is great for getting your product in front of lots of startup-minded people And there are 2 things that ended up mattering less than I thought: 1. Fundraising — it turns out that building a great product and generating revenue far outweigh YC’s brand when raising money 2. YC’s Brand — while useful as social proof, it doesn’t replace the need to have a great product / solve a real problem Read the full thing here: https://lnkd.in/gNuSkYPN

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I still watch most of Y Combinator's videos in my pastime. Most people who have done YC or follow YC closely have heard that a lot of the advice they give is “common sense” or “simple advice”. It’s totally true - there’s no magical advice out there - and I realize the only thing that makes a difference is executing on the simple advice. For me I’ve noticed that it helps when I hear the same things over and over again, from different mediums, until I internalize it. Over the past weekend I was listening to YC’s new video on doing things that don’t scale. That it’s important to optimize for learning when you’re doing the 0 to 1 and eventually you earn the right to deal with scalability issues and tech debt. It’s funny to think back on some of the things we were doing that don’t scale: 👉 We had to share a Google sheet with our first few customers so they could list out all the tables they wanted us to sync.  👉 We then had a UI where customers could add tables, but all it did was send us a Slack message to actually kick that off in the backend. For the most part we did this fast enough so it would seem automated. What’s some really simple advice you’ve received that you value a lot? #ycombinator

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Follow your own path while perusing your projects. Nothing is written in stone.

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"We started as delivery drivers" This is the DoorDash application to YC in 2014. Today, it's market cap is $46.5B. I love this because it underscores that especially in the beginning, just simple brute force is often the best & only way to go. There is no system, no algorithm, no process, etc It is not effortless. In fact, it's all effort. When we started CB Insights, the first 50,000 financing and M&A transactions were done by hand in a giant spreadsheet. It was just manually copy/pasting data about transactions from various sources into rows & columns. We could have waited to find an engineer who could automate that or we could just get going. And the reality was that those 50,000 rows served as invaluable training data for eventual algorithms we used to automate that data extraction effort. Sometimes, you gotta embrace 'the suck'. --- Separately, if curious where Y Combinator is investing today, we got you ⤵ https://lnkd.in/eXnFbejr

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If you are a founder in AZ, you are doing yourself a disservice by relying only on the AZ investor ecosystem. Try to tap into SF, NYC, LA, etc. to give yourself more leverage, and even more importantly, a POV that spans beyond the desert.

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