I applied to Y-combinator and didn’t get in. (Part 3)
Here’s what I learned from the experience.
Burning money hurts.
No truer statement has been written. Let’s be honest, it can be 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, 1K, 2K… now, even reading it might make you cringe, but how about burning 5K? *sigh*
What happened was this: I had been tirelessly working on designing the entire UX and UI of my app on Illustrator. I took the time to read and study any book, article, and watch any video that’d teach me about app designs, usability, accessibility, and the psychology of design. Roughly, I invested over 2–3 hours a day designing the app’s UX and UI over a span of 6 months and during that same period of time I multi-tasked my way through everything else that needed to be fixed prior to the application was due — think of documentation, investors strategy, prospecting angel investors, creating business model forecasts, go to market strategy, etc. If you’re an expert in app design and you’re reading this, then you probably have lots to laugh about here.
In any case, I put in all that work and then I decide that I need to focus on getting the content of the application done and that it would take me more time and less return to continue designing the app’s UX and UI, translate everything to Framer or Figma (cause by then I’d learned how to use it… still no programming though) than to pay an external party to rethink my design and make it “usable” for people. I approached these guys I’d been recommended and met one of the guys at a restaurant of a hotel in Amsterdam. The conversation went great and I was convinced it was the best choice. We had two more meetings and then the proposal came. The total for the UI/UX and logo redesign was around 2.5K EUR (approx 3K dollars).
Despite me being aware that I had a good design and that I knew I could translate everything to match super closely or even be better than my design. I doubted myself and convinced myself that this would be the right choice. Sadly, it wasn’t. The design they delivered took them approximately 1,5 months during which time I continued working on my own design creating the “mock-ups” of the new screens (which in reality were even better), completing the applications, and working on my G2M strategy. When they were finally done, I was disappointed. The design looked basic and as if no real passion was put into it, the creativity was inexistent, and the result was a highly convoluted and non-intuitive design. I had to use it even though it wasn’t what I wanted and simply because of the cash I’d dropped.
2K to go. What’s more is that I decided I’d build a website and try to develop it myself or at least using little code or no code, preferably. I found this tool which had a part of the functionalities I was looking for and I opted to invest in that. Each month, the subscription cost 200 dollars and I used it for over 6 months… and there goes 1800 dollars more. The site did not do the work I needed it to. It was limited in design capabilities and it did not get me excited, but there I was “riding the horse,” already which is why I decided to stick to my decision and do the best I could. By this point I was up to 4.8K and 200 to go. The last 200 were destined miscellaneous expenses that were not needed for that stage and it’d be irrelevant to get into those, but trust me those 200 dollars were gone faster than I could count them. 5K out the window, just like that. The worst part is that I knew it all along… I mean, seriously?
However, it wasn’t all negative. In the process of going live with the site and as the deadline drew closer, I began researching about methods to growth hack or create virality. One day I came across an article on Medium that blew me away and the headline read “How Robinhood Got Nearly 1 Million Users Before the Company Even Existed.” In short, the article explained how through a simple landing page with an email form, Robinhood managed to go viral before they even had a product by the simple idea of presenting a one-liner with the pain and the solution to that pain. It was brilliant because it caused people to have FOMO. No one wants to be the one taking the shorter end of the straw and the guys of Robinhood knew this.
The article was posted by the Head of Marketing at a company I didn’t know — Viral Loops. I checked their site out and realised they had a solution for websites to integrate predefined viral campaign strategies like the one used by Robinhood or referral programs. I decided to give it a go and implement a referral program functionality that would score your placement on a scoring board based on how many referrals you’d done and how many had signed up. If you managed to be within the top 3 of the list, you’d be invited to the official launch event of my app and if you were within the top 15 you’d have early access to the platform. The results were nowhere close to Robinhood, but they were modestly good. Within 3 days we had gathered a total of 300 sign ups between our Viral Loops campaign and our Instagram account… and we hadn’t even launched. All we had was a simple landing page and our YC application video showcasing the app’s functionality. The campaign proved we had a product people wanted and we could catch traction.
We? Yes, we. I knew launching a startup would not be an easy feat and that having a co-founder would make things easier and the odds of getting into Y-Combinator higher. With that notion in mind, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking of people with whom I’d love to work and get a project going. I trailed back to childhood friends, people in my network, close friends, and family. At that time, I had previous attempts at working with a co-founder and I knew that there was a learning curve prior to finding the right match. Sometimes it takes failing together and staying apart for a while to realise this and then return to work together again in the future. (Spoiler alert: I am currently working with one of my best friends on a project and we had tried to launch something before and failed, but he is not whom I am referring to here)
It took little time for me to recognise who I’d like to work with on this project, mainly cause I knew already for a long time that he would be an amazing person to collaborate with. I approached my cousin and pitched him the idea of working together. He was and is a successful engineer and, in my opinion, one of the smartest and most committed people I know. After a few calls he was onboard and, as per his defining nature, he immediately got to work (sometimes I even fell behind). The viral loops campaign, the back-end infrastructure, and the creation of various features of the app were all part of our collaboration, but the highlight was the experience of completing the application for YC along with the video, which easily took over 15 takes to make. Here’s the video in case you want to cringe for a second (shoutout to my cuz, I know you’ll hate that I share this).
As life goes, there are situations that are beyond our control and which force us to move in a direction that we may not want. This was what happened with my cousin and co-founder. He had to move back to USA as COVID was getting more intense in Italy where we has temporarily based and this opened both our eyes to the difficulty of working in different timezones when you’re launching a company. In addition to that, he was and continues to kill it at his company and is set to build a great future with his fiancé and, eventually, my nieces and/or nephews (this is a public plea to be the godfather of your child, cuz).
That was the story of how I found a co-founder, lost a co-founder, burned 5K in cash, and gathered over 300 early adopter without having a product they could access yet. It’s been a long and trailing story, but we’re close to the end. On my next post I’ll give you a list of my main takeaways and lessons from this experience and a little insight as to where I am now in my path to becoming an entrepreneur and launching my first (successful) startup.
For now, I bid you adieu.
FM
